Day one in the midnight sun.
Leaving Port and heading to the ice edge was quite an exciting moment, finally we get do so some SCIENCE! After departing from Svalbard and sleeping through the midnight sun, we arrived bright and early at our first waypoint where we were to collect data.
Here we dropped a Plankton net, gathered water from a bottle attached to very long pole off of the bow (to test for trace metals in the sea water), unspooled our shallow water Conductivity, Temperature, Depth meter (CTD), and nervously launched the main attraction, the Rosette. The Rosette is a massive piece of equipment that holds 12 bottles (for collecting water samples at different depths) and a high tech CTD plus a bunch of other sensors. It is attached to a winch that allows it to go down to about 300 meters in depth, covering all the layers of the ocean that we are interested in. Dr. Wagner was quite anxious; the Rosette is crucial for this mission and it is extremely important that the first cast goes well. The man in charge of the Rosette, Dave Wells, ensured that the cast went smoothly and that the data was collected properly. All of the Plankton, water samples, and data were collected as according to plan and we moved onto the next station (2 degree Westward) where we did exactly the same thing, and again, everything went as planned. This made Dr. Wagner anxious again; “How could this be going so well? Something will surely go wrong tomorrow.”
Day two, nothing new.
Today was the same routine as yesterday, collect data and move on to the next station. This seemed to be another day of smooth sailing… turned out not to be so smooth.
After the first series of scientific datacollections in the morning the wind began to pick up, inhibiting the Rosette from being cast again. The workday ended early, which turned out to be a good thing.
Day three on the Arctic sea.
Yesterday evening, and on to this morning, the ocean swell kicked up a few meters, exposing us “Land Lubbers” to the, oh so fun, feeling of seasickness. The Arctic Sunrise crew was emphatic that we take seasickness medication; they could tell we needed it by the greenish tint on our faces. Waiting for the meds to kick in, and trying to keep our minds off of the rolling ocean, we decided to have a bit of fun by dressing Andrew up in wigs, hats and a polar bear costume while he was filtering water samples, which helped keep our dinner at bay and sent us to bed laughing. That brings us to today, our first encounter with actual sea ice! Here is where the science starts to get really interesting. As we get closer to the main ice edge we start to see more active data; more plankton in the net, colder/fresher surface water readings, etc. It is cool to see the data change the closer we get to the ice edge, it is also cool to see straggler ice bands that have drifted from the edge and still extend out as far as the eye can see. We are currently surrounded by these runaway bands in a large ice lagoon, which dampen the ocean swells. Here we will stay over night and proceed towards the ice edge tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.
-CL