Changing of the Guard - December 2nd

Hello. My name is Sophie Fern and I’m the new Alex. I hopped off the boat onto Rangatira Island this morning with my fellow adventurers Brigitta Kurenbach and Annika Wagenhoff at about 7 am, which seemed quite late to us as we got up just before 4 am this morning. On Rangatira we were met by Keven, Ali, Alex and Melanie, who caught us as we leapt onto the rocks. We then had a tiny minute to pass buckets between the boat and the rocks before saying goodbye to everyone except Mel and getting ourselves settled into the hut. Let me introduce us:

Annika:

Annika Wagenhoff spends her life in gumboots, and although she says she has a life away from them too, we’ve promised not to tell her supervisor. She’s doing her PhD in stream ecology at Otago University looking at macroinvertebrates (i.e. big critters without backbones). When not in gumboots Annika changes into her high heels for salsa, bare feet for African Dance and sneakers for hip hop dance. She has recently started surfing but didn’t bring her board with her as the sea here is far too rough even to swim here.

Brigitta:

Brigitta Kurenbach is a Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Canterbury studying bacterial genetics. She thinks that the chicks, which weigh grams and are measured in millimeters, are huge! In her spare time she is also a dancer. She tap-dances and goes tramping whenever she can, which isn’t often enough. And she has never done any field work before. She shares an office with Mel at the University, and now of course shares a hut with her too.

Sophie:

And I have quite a few jobs right now, but mostly work in public education at the NZ Marine Studies Centre also at Otago University and spend the rest of my time writing. When not working I’m often found wandering the Otago Peninsula with Zena, my yellow Labrador, or tucked up somewhere with a good book, cup of tea and a piece of cake. I’ve always wanted to live on an Island and just jumped at the chance to be here.