Solar eclipse

February 27

We left port in Punta Arenas on February 25th at 10pm local time. I was surprised at how punctual we were leaving port - I learned later that we were actually timing it with the high tide to make sure to have no issues leaving. We docked in Punta Arenas near downtown - a very convenient locations for us as passengers going in and out of the city. It was a much less convenient docking location for our ship - the draft of the ship could barely make it to the pier. Leaving at high tide made it much less likely for us to encounter any issues of hitting the bottom.

Upon leaving Punta Arenas we continued our journey East and soon finished navigating through the Magellan Channel. Another geeky geographical point off my list:

I woke up on Monday February 26th to the news that there will be a solar eclipse in half an hour and that our exact location is the best for observing it. I got up quickly and went outside. I wasn't prepared at all to observe a solar eclipse, so it was good to hang out with much more thoughtful and awake people. Bob, one of our helicopter pilots, brought his binoculars and a piece of paper

The crew came out with a welding mask, which was actually kinda cool and efficient as well

All in all I felt like with the help of my friends I got the best viewing of the solar eclipse I ever had. Thank you friends!

Clouds near South American coast

After the smoothest crossing of the Drake passage we got into the islands of Terra del Fuego. On top of spectacular island views we got to see some amazing clouds.
First, there was a rainbow and a rather typical layer of low level stratus clouds:

Somehow it cleared up to reveal the blue sky and blue sea made its appearance as well.

The boundary between the two was rather dramatic:

Amazingly this kind of situations we later observed in Punta Arenas again. We were sitting a cafe and it was raining and gloomy on one side and clear and sunny on the other side - adjacent corner windows depicted a completely opposite view.

Coming back to our first sighting of Terra del Fuego a few days back - after dinner the clouds changed dramatically. I went outside and saw "mammatus clouds" - my first real-life mamma clouds! I only saw them in textbooks before:

These clouds are formed by powerful downdrafts, when pockets of cold (but moist) air sink down to the lower parts of the clouds. This is the reverse motion to the "usual" upward direction of convection - when warm and moist air rises.

As I write this, we have started the leg three already. I had a few days in Punta Arenas, which I used to:
~walk on land (rain or shine or both at the same time)
~touch "Terra del Fuego's foot to make sure to come back
~drive to the tip of the continent and visit Magellan park and the old (reconstructed) settlement called Fuerte Bulnes. Driving was quite interesting as I realized that after the two ports with left-side driving I was totally confused on which side of the road to use. But I figured it out quite fast and it was good to have Irina with me for safety checks every now and then. South Africa will be weird again ;)
~eat a lot of real deserts
~drink a few pisco sours that knocked me off my feet
~spent some time updating facebook - it felt so weird! It seems like a waste of time, but it was so great to connect with some of my friends.


We also collectively managed to purchase additional Helium for the radiosondes. Many thanks to Guisella, our Chilean friend from leg two and her friends. We could have not done it without you! I also want to thank Irina and Alex for giving me some time off while they went to pick up the bottles. It was so amazing to aimlessly walk around the city without a plan or a "sample alarm" to comply with. Felt weird and so-so great. It was an interesting experience, a preview of the "post-cruise" life. As we are starting the final leg of the journey I keep thinking how will it feel to be back on land. It is hard to predict really.

Anyhow, our leg three has started and I need to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day!

Thanks for reading.
Masha

Drake Passage

February, 19 

I am writing this text in the middle of Drake Passage. Somehow this means a lot to me – I remember looking at the world map as a kid – Drake Passage was one of the first names I noticed. I guess it was one of the few titles I could actually reach and read as it was at the bottom just above Antarctica. I never thought I'd get to sail here...

We have been working really hard collecting ocean data from the Southern Ocean and now the Southern Pacific. We had on average at least one CTD station per day. This translates in collecting a lot of ocean water into small bottles, labeling and organizing them. I go up and down the stairs with boxes and bins full of bottles quite frequently now – getting new ones for the future samples and putting away the full ones into cargo containers. I get a lot of comments on my “bottle clicking sound”. I have to say that to me personally the clicking bottle sound associates with a alcoholic collecting empty bottles every the morning in order get a some money for recycling and get a small “morning” drink (опохмелиться). My colleagues tell me the sound reminds them of the milkman coming to their house every morning on milk deliveries. I like their association much better!

Working so hard made us all feel like a team, which is a good feeling. Yesterday we had a station right after dinner around 8pm and then another one at 5 am in the morning. Most of us did not sleep in between, as it was about midnight when we were done sampling, we advanced the clock again and going to bed seems like a stupid idea. After the early morning station and watching the sunrise together we all went to bed – it was funny how we were wishing each other good night around 10 o’clock in the morning.

We are much further North now, so we have real darkness once again. We were working tonight through the night again and it was pitch black. I wanted to take a picture of It, but nothing came out. Such a weird sighting after the perpetual daylight. I have to say polar days are my favorite, you can choose your own schedule and it is pretty outside all the time. I miss polar days!

We only have a few days left in leg two, we are due to arrive in Punta Arenas on February 22nd. With the cruise report due and some repacking to do I am not sure how much I will be able to post to the blog. I will try to update from Punta! I am also expecting to have internet access for a couple of days, so I will be able to read comments from people (I hope there are some comments ;)))). Also recommendations on what to do in Punta Arenas are very much appreciated!

Thank you,
Masha

Peter the 1st

February,17

On Wednesday February 15 we arrived at Peter the 1st island. It is located at roughly 90 degrees west - which marks about 70% of the longitudinal journey we have to complete during all three legs. Longitude-wise leg 2 is the most intense and it is also the longest. Ship lag is definitely upon us all...

When we first got the sea ice maps for Peter the 1st island it looked unapproachable. We almost ditched it completely from the program, but the sea ice seemed less intense later and we decided to try. We got into heavy sea ice late morning on the 15th and woke up many seals resting on ice floes:

I have never seen so many seals at the same time, I was taking pictures and videos and I couldn't get enough. I guess they did not expect us at all!

The views of the island were memorizing:

There were all forms of ice all around us - sea ice, iceberg, glaciers, etc. Even though we did not have much time to spare, we decided to use this opportunity to visit the island and collect some samples: drill an ice core, collect biological and geological samples from the beaches and collected some sea ice for the biological analyses. Helicopters and Zodiacs once again were busy for a quite a few hours delivering multiple parties to different locations, which provided good news from our upper deck "office balcony":

Launchings radiosondes

February 15

We had a few really busy days on Tryoshnikov. We have been transecting through the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas, stopping for ocean stations every day. We have also been sampling underway and launching XBTs into the ocean. At the same time we were launching quite a few radiosondes into the atmosphere to study the precursors of the atmospheric river conditions.

As a result, Irina and I have been working quite a lot and I did not have time to update my blog for a couple of days. But I also got a few pictures of me working (thanks to Irina and other colleagues, who I gave my phone to take pictures). So here’s a collage of me preparing and then launching a radiosonde:

And here's an entry from my gradnfather's journal dating back to February-March 1960 in Mirny. As I’m writing this on the first relatively “calm” day after a few non-stop work days, I can totally relate the relaxing atmosphere of life at Mirny station and I am grateful to learn how much respect he had to meteorologists launching their weather balloons in any conditions:

Жизнь в Мирном удивительно не похожа на обстановку на Востоке или на шельфе. Может такое сравнение покажется кощунством, но мне эта мирнинская жизнь напоминает санаторий (правда я никогда еще не бывал в санатории, но представляю его по-видимому правильно). Здесь, в Мирном, твердый распорядок дня - завтрак, обед и ужин, на которые исправно собираются все миряне. Четыре раза в неделю по вечерам кино, куда от нечего делать также собираются все, пару раз работает библиотека, ежедневно вызывают на обследование врачи, дежурства, несложные авралы и прочее - прочее. 

Жизнь течет размеренно и спокойно. Работают научные отряды. Ежедневно в любую погоду выходят на свои площадки метеорологи - у них 4 срока, кропят над колонками цифр синоптики - они получают сведения о погоде чёрт знает со скольких станций в Антарктике и субантарктике, дважды в день запускается радиозонд - аэрологи долго пеленгуют его потом и принимают сигналы его миниатюрного передатчика, сообщающего о температуре, давлении и влажности воздуха на разных высотах. Летит этот пузырь, с подвешенными к нему на шнурке картонным коробком, километров на 25-30 ввысь.

Science talk

February 10 (again)

On Friday February 10 Irina and I gave a talk about our project to all the scientists, guests and crew. We specifically invited several members of the crew, who have been helping us a lot during the cruise and made an open invitation to everyone through the PA system. We did an experiment talking in both English and Russian to make sure everyone in our audience could understand us.

I have to say it was rather intense – we both talked in both languages as it seems to make more sense, basically presenting each slide twice in a row: once in English and once in Russian. I presented a general introduction and an explanation to our ocean measurements.

Irina talked about the importance of the measuring snow and explained why every time it is snowing we are outside running like crazy people.

Irina also talked about our atmospheric river side project and launching radiosondes in bad weather.

We did explain the science behind all of our measurements, but I will not present the whole talk in this blogpost. In fact, I am still hoping to get more free time to finally finish a long sciency blogpost about our project that I started a while ago and can’t seem to find time to write up completely. I even promised our “official” blog writers (ACE blog) that they can publish it there… So I really need to do it soon.

But right now I just want to thank everyone who came to listen to our talk! And show our “thank you” slide as it was truly awesome:

As for continuing to write seriously about science – I have to take a rain check on that. It is 4:30 in the morning and I should go to bed now… Good night everyone and thanks for reading.

Marie Byrd land coast

February 10

We came close to the Antarctic coast yet again during ACE. It was not necessary planed, but in cruises like this one needs to rely on the weather and sea ice conditions. We were en route to Peter the 1st island, but we learned that it is surrounded with heavy sea ice and we might not be able to get there or will have to lose valuable time getting through the ice.
Mary Byrd Land coast on the other hand was miraculously free of sea ice and the weather was nice. So we decided to do our “island” field work and ice coring on the Siple island. The Russian marine guidebook (лоция) had very limited information about the coast, suggesting that most vessels passing by encountered heavy ice conditions and never came close to the land. We were lucky.

Coming closer to the coast we encountered many beautiful icebergs.

I couldn't stop taking pictures, it was beautiful in all directions. I even felt like a tourist and asked a friend to snap a picture of me

 We also saw quite a few penguins swimming and hanging out on the ice

a few seals and some whales. I was less lucky with spotting whales, but this is just my curse this cruise, I always miss them.

Since we were in uncharted territories our helicopters went off flying and exploring the coast, while a few of us went on Zodiacs to explore nearby icebergs and see the penguins up close. What a great adventure!

Overnight we deployed ROPOS for another dive, but unfortunately this was a short dive, since the ship couldn’t be stable for a long time. Hopefully we will have more dives and get more things collected from the bottom of the ocean.

Ship lag

Idea from February 9, finally written and sent out on February 11

We have been traveling in high latitudes for several days now. I have to say the nature of ACE cruise is different to other science cruises I have been to before – we are stopping at many ports and islands on the way. This effectively means we need to keep up with the local time zone to arrive in port/island on local time. And as I said we have been traveling at high latitudes lately, covering many degrees of longitude in one day. So, we are advancing our ship clocks by one hour every other day. And sometimes every day, cause every two days is not enough. All these changes result in a very weird “ship lag” – a kind of jet lag that creeps up on you gradually. Adjusting by one hour seems trivial, but we have adjusted for three hours in four days and combined with a lot of work these adjustments eat up all our sleep time…
I have measurements I take every three hours on ship time, 3am and 6am ones being the most painful ones. I delegated most of the 6 am ones, but even staying up for 3am and having another hour eaten by the “clock change” made me into a sleeping zombie.
Luckily I have amazing people around me, who are willing to help! My roommate took my 3am shift the other day so I can sleep one night. How awesome is that?

And please don’t think that this is a whiny post, here’s an illustration for you. Yesterday I was launching an XBT in the morning thinking that I would rather still be sleeping, but then I finally opened my eyes, saw all these amazing icebergs we were passing by and realized that of all places on Earth, I would rather be here – admiring all this amazing scenery despite the lack of sleep. I wish someone else was awake at that ungodly hour to take a picture of me launching an XBT with an iceberg background ;). Oh well. You just have to imagine how awesome it looked.

Another perk of traveling at high latitudes in this time of year – we almost have a polar day. Yesterday the sun set and basically rose back up again. So here’s a picture I took at sunset:

There’s an iceberg and a “virga” cloud – a special kind of precipitation usually in the form of ice that never reaches the surface.

I also have rather sporadic internet coverage now, so pardon me for not updating my blog that much. I’m doing well and you can always email me at the ACE expedition email.

Thanks for reading,
Masha

My first blog post in Russian/ По-русски написала пост

February 8

This is my first post in Russian, a trial of sorts. I have been meaning to write in Russian for a while, but always ended up writing in English. I know there are some family and friends who would like to learn more about my adventures and who are not as fluent in English. So pardon to all my English-speaking readers. I hope google-translate does not destroy my text completely (it might). And you can always find a Russian buddy to translate, since Russians are everywhere ;). I most likely stick to English in the future, so don't despair.
Thanks for reading!

Уже в который раз собираюсь написать пост по-русски и почему-то всегда получается, что пишу на английском. Вчера даже взяла дедовы дневники за основу и в результате перевела на английский и их. Казалось бы, с появлением Ирины (моей напарницы по проекту) русский язык в моей корабельной жизни стал еще более повседневным.

На втором нашем перегоне у нас царит совершенно другая атмосфера, как-то все сильно спокойнее и дружелюбнее. Нету разделения на "наши" и "ваши", в котором я терялась. Нету лишнего стресса, создаваемого людьми непонятно зачем поверх и так непростой ситуации с планированием рейса и дележкой драгоценного времени. Среди гостей Полсена есть профессор журналистики (политологии?) из Швейцарии по имени Эрик не-помню-как-фамилия, который начал вести курсы русского языка для экспедиции. Меня просили и раньше, и еще ребята из команды просили английским с ним позаниматься – но у меня реально времени нет вести языковые курсы. Если честно  часто времени нет даже на поспать, вот сейчас 4 утра, завтра рабочий день, а я еще не ложилась. Душ тоже перешел в категорию «необязательных» ежедневных процедур (шутка). Кстати о дУше, напор у меня прекрасный теперь, благодаря волшебному водопроводчику Сереже, а вот ржавчина стала проявляться. Надо опять волшебного Сережу позвать, пока волосы не порыжели.

Корабль - это всегда свой отдельный замкнутый мир. (Еще мне тут ребята из команды сказали, что корабль это военный термин, а у нас – судно!). Очень странное чувство возникло у меня в Хобарте после выхода из порта – из 80 членов экспедиции/журналистов/гостей Полсена поменялось больше половины. На «нашем» корабле появились чужие люди, которые блуждали по коридорам в поисках разных помещений и вообще вели себя как новички. Очень странное чувство – удивительным образом оно нас, первоноговцев (first leg participants), сплотило. Сейчас, пару недель спустя, мы уже привыкли к новому составу и все перемешались опять. Видимо в Пунта Аренас будут похожие метаморфозы.

Я совершенно не знаю, что происходит в мире. Нам даже вроде как стали присылать какие-то новости и распечатывать – как газеты на стенде в Советское время. Очень забавно смотреть на читающих людей, надо будет сфотографировать их. Я однажды подошла почитать, но там было что-то про Трампа, и я сразу бросила читать. В моей корабельной жизни нету Трампа и это прекрасно! Еще у меня теперь есть электронная почта, правда туда редко пишут мне друзья (да-да, это намек!). Зато по работе письма идут пачками, только успевай отмахиваться!

Еще у меня совершенно замечательная соседка. Она из Чили и работы на корабле у нее почти нет до тех пор пока мы не дойдем до Чилийского острова Диего Рамирез. Девочка очень приятная, зовут ее Беатриса (Биа), она мне помогает если мне нужны "лишние руки". Она уже и зонды с нами запускала и снежинки ловила, пробы воды отбирала и даже XBT запускала со мной. Почетный член нашей группы. И по-человечески с Бией очень приятно. Я, например, двое суток спала по три часа, так как все время работала, и сегодня прилегла днем на пару часов вместо полдника. Бия принесла мне булку с маком из столовой и красиво ее выложила на салфетке и даже картинку нарисовала «baked gods». У нас в переведенном меню однажды была опечатка и вместо “baked goods” написали “baked gods” – теперь мы только так выпечку и зовем.

И еще у нас есть одна девочка из проекта островного (у нее работа только на островах – собирать керны торфяников). Ее зовут Лор, она француженка, она тоже нам очень сильно помогает, ее мы уже давно записали в наш проект волонтером. Она вообще по-моему больше снежинок, чем я поймала, особенно когда я в океанологической лабе и Ирке нужно со снежинками помочь. В общем спасибо им обеим огромное. Нам на самом деле много кто помогает, но Лор и Биа особенно – не знаю как бы мы справились без них.

Смешно получается, если бы я писала блог по-русски, я бы совершенно иначе писала, на другое бы ставила акценты и может даже было бы больше похоже на дедушкин дневник. Всего страницу по-русски написала и уже сразу перешла на людей, хотя обычно про людей не пишу. Видимо прочитанная русская классика дает о себе знать – если печатные буквы на русском, значит надо сразу описывать характеры героев этой саги .

Еще я гораздо больше скачу с одной мысли на другую, но это возможно потому что я пишу этот пост в несколько «присестов». И начинаю с середины собственных мыслей. Но уж как получается, как я писала выше - совершенно нету времени сесть и спокойно написать целую страницу за раз. Зато я вчера раскрасила миллион (пять) стаканчиков – и все на подарки, себе даже не успела сделать. Мы делали станцию сверхглубокую почти на 4км – стаканчики получились просто супер. Если пройдет хоть одна фотка – вставлю в этот пост.

 

За сим прощаюсь, извините за бессвязный поток мыслей.

Всем привет!
Маша

Adventure spirit through generations

February 7

I thought that I would do a very different blog post today. Instead of writing what I do I will write about how I feel. I was re-reading my grandfather’s diaries and letters the other day and I was impressed how similar his feelings were many years ago.

To sum it up – it is a bittersweet combination. On the one hand, you are totally excited and happy to be in Antarctica, see amazing sceneries, penguins, and so on. These trips do not come that often and doing fieldwork while here fills it up with a sense of purpose. I totally share my grandfather’s sentiment that doing work in Antarctica makes the trip much more meaningful.
On another hand, there’s a whole life you left behind, with your family and friends who you miss dearly. It was much harder for my grandfather to reach out than it is for me, but there is still that sense of isolation and even desperation that you feel sometimes. And I totally agree with my grandfather – when things are going badly with fieldwork you miss home much more.

So here are a few quotes that touched me the most in my last read of dedushka Vitaly’s journals:

21 ноября 1959 года
Долго сидел на верхней палубе, смотрел на море и небо и курил. Как-то там сейчас дома, все дальше от которого увозит меня "Обь"... Увидят ли мои мальчишки то, что привелось увидеть их отцу?  Поселится ли в них этот беспокойный дух путешествий, желание побольше видеть? Я ещё ничего не фотографировал, считая, что пока мало впечатлительного для плёнки. Может быть ошибаюсь? Во всяком случае аппарат завтра надо бы зарядить...

November 21, 1959
I set on the upper deck for while smoking and watching the sea and the sky. I wonder how things are at home as I’m traveling further away on my ship Ob’… Would my boys ever get to see the things I get to see on this trip? Would they even have this restless feeling of adventure and an interest to see more? I haven’t taken any pictures yet thinking that it is not significant enough for a film. Am I wrong? I should probably load up the film into my camera tomorrow.

Funny he mentions the adventurous spirit of his offspring. The first thing my dad said when I told him I’m going to Antarctica for the first time (a few years ago) was “why not me?”. Growing up with a penguin does this to you ;)

8 марта 1960 года
Думаешь порой - чёрт дернул тебя в эту Антарктиду, да еще так надолго. Особенно, как мне показалось думается так когда мало работы, когда прошла какая-либо размолвка с товарищами по работе или по дому - ведь все мы люди, а у людей есть один весьма существенный в здешних условиях недостаток - нервы. Очень мешают в Антарктиде эти с нашей точки зрения лишние придатки...

March 8, 1960
And sometimes you think – why the hell did I decide to go as far as Antarctica and for so long? These thoughts mainly appear when there is not enough work or when you had a fight with your colleagues or a misunderstanding with the loved ones back home – we are all people after all. And as people we all have a big disadvantage – our emotions. These “supplementary” things often get in the way in Antarctica…

This is very true – emotions do get in the way. Although I would not disregard them as “supplementary”, sometimes it makes it harder to work in a highly stressful environment and ACE cruise was not an exception in that regard. However, I am happy to say that leg 2 of our journey feels less stressful to me than leg 1 was. I also did not find a connection between not having enough work and being more emotional, maybe because I never found myself in a situation of not enough work during either legs on ACE. I keep thinking that if I have some spare time I will read some papers I need to read for a manuscript I am writing, fill out a form for my project report or code. Instead of that even ACE things keep piling up on me – there is too much to be done…
I went to boot camp yesterday for the first time in a long time (and I totally felt that I skipped so many exercise classes, I need them to function!). It was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm and we were exercising out on the heli deck. I wish I could do it regularly!

23 марта 1961 года
Борт д/э "Обь". 
Впереди Кейптаун! Сожалеем о том, что опять во второй раз приходим в этот порт. А так хорошо было бы зайти в новые места в Австралию, скажем, или в Южную Америку! Интересно, приятно для биографии (ведь осталось только два не посещённых из шести континентов) да и полезно в прозаическом смысле: Кейптаун - это далеко не торговый рай.

March 23, 1961 on board Ob'
Cape town is ahead! We are sorry that we are going through Cape Town port again. It would have been good to visit other places, such as Australia or even South America! It is interesting and nice for my life story (these are the only two continents out of six I did not visit). It also would have been useful too – Cape Town shopping is not that great.

So many comments I want to leave here! First of all – funny how my dedushka envisioned ACE expedition visiting all these ports he was dreaming about. Secondly, South America is going to be my last visited continent as well. I am not sure though if my grandfather ever visited North America, so his comment of the only two continents left is a little deceiving. I know he lived in Eurasia, went to Antarctica through Africa, but I do not remember any family stories about North America where my family happens to live now so many years later.
Thirdly, Cape Town has gone a long way since 1961, the pier area is now one big shopping mall. Besides, it is not that important nowadays as the “deficit” era of the Soviet Union is in the past.

Times change while the adventure spirit of my family stays strong I guess…

And since I'm talking about my grandfather so much – here’s a picture he took from his ship. I have to say the scenery has not changed much:  

Funny how I started the post with saying I will write about my feelings and spent most of it translating my grandfather’s diaries. I think there is a big difference in a way he wrote his letters and journal entries and me blogging. My blog is public – this makes it harder for me to express myself as openly as he did. It also makes it really hard to write about other people, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, I might have already inadvertently hurt someone and I do apologize for that. I really enjoy the company of my colleagues on board, I hope those of them who get to read it will know this. I think we are a great bunch and we find ways to work together, not “against” each other, which is great. Our expedition is unusual in respect to many different people with various backgrounds and interests using the limited resources we have and we do make it work.

ACE special groundhog day

February 5

Today we lived through our own ACE groundhog day – as we are approaching the dateline we lived through Sunday, February the 5th twice. Unfortunately, two Sundays in a row did not come in with usual Sunday perks: eggs for breakfast, “baked gods” for tea time (полдник) and “women’s day” in the sauna. The perks only came on a first Sunday and the second Sunday felt more like a Monday to me… We also went from being a day ahead from the rest of the world to a day behind. But still, it is really interesting to experience crossing the dateline on a ship. The two Sundays could not have been more different.

The first Sunday, February the 5th was the calmest day I have seen on this journey so far. There were no waves, only ripples

We had a CTD station in the morning in very calm waters and pretty icebergs in sight. Too bad the CTD lab does not have windows and I had to spend a lot of valuable “sunshine” time inside. But after we were done with a 1km cast I went outside and spent some time admiring the glorious views.

The second Sunday, February the 5th was a gloomy and snowy day. It was much colder and windier, the ship started rolling (reaching 15 degree rolls!). We were in calm waters for quite a few days and things in our cabins and in the labs started moving around. We had to go back and secure our belongings once again -  it’s a never-ending process. When the sea is calm, you take out things you use and forget to secure them. And you forget. And then the roll comes, always unexpectedly.
By late afternoon we reached our next destination - Scott island. The island is tiny, we have seen icebergs higher in elevations and larger in area.

Due to bad weather island operations are suspended till tomorrow morning, while we are having a really busy day as atmospheric scientists. We launched a radiosonde, we are continuously sampling for snow (both water isotopes and snowflake collection). It is great to be outside, although it is quite cold and windy at the moment. So basically it’s double excitement – go outside for a sample and go back inside to get warm again. Here’s a picture of Irina collecting snowflakes for our joint science/art project:

Interpretive dancing is also a part of it, maybe the most important one ;).

Thanks for reading,
Masha

Balleny islands archipelago

February 3-4

We arrived to Balleny islands on Friday, February 3rd. The weather was not so good with really strong winds. We did a full CTD station ahead of the island and hoped for a better day tomorrow. It was still quite a magnificent view:

And magically the weather cooperated the next day. February 4th was sunny, albeit a cold and windy day. Island work was with in full swing. In the morning the helicopters brought the mountaineer and the ice coring party on top of the island. After several hours of work in “real Antarctic conditions” of sub-freezing temperatures and really strong winds they recovered a 17m ice core – a first one from this archipelago.

Meanwhile, the Zodiacs were launched into the water. The swell was rather high, but still operational. Two Zodiacs full of people went on around one of the islands in search of a beach to sample soil, microplastics and such. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any suitable place to land on a Zodiac and after an hour or so in the water they returned back to the ship.

At the same time helicopter operations continued. The "guests" of our cruise went onto the ice, but they got cold quite fast and returned to the well-heated icebreaker. After that, our pilots took the journalists and the ornithology team around the islands to take a detailed survey of the area. This digital photographs will be turned into 3-d maps of Balleny islands archipelago – hopefully helping all the expeditions to follow us. They would not need to spend all the time around the islands and would learn from our photographs where the suitable locations for landings/sampling/visits are.

Another activity we did for two days in a row – trawling for benthic creatures (organisms living at the bottom of the ocean). I went to the benthic lab after the first series of trawling we did and admired the organisms we acquired:

There were cold-water corals, star fish and sea urchins. Also cucumbers, several fish and some weird creature I forgot to ask the name of – these did not make it to the pictures I sent out.

All in all it was rather productive couple of days at Balleny islands. We also did a CTD cast before, in the middle and after the islands to study the island effect on biological productivity. As I sample these CTD casts I’m learning more about oceanography of the Southern Ocean, how to distinguish winter waters from the summer mixed layer waters and so on.

As we were cruising past the islands in the afternoon of February 4th, our chief scientist pointed out that we are the lucky bunch. Not only these archipelago is rarely visited by expeditions – it is quite rare to catch such a sunny day and actually see the islands. So here’s one more picture for all the readers of my blog. You are quite lucky to be seeing this as well!

Fixing the winch, the never-ending saga

February 2

Today I had a short night as the CTD station was planned for 5 AM. I woke up around 3 AM to take a water sample, only to learn that Irina stayed up catching snow and already took the sample for me. (Thank you!!!) I got up anyway just to check our ETA at the CTD station and I was rewarded with a view of tabular iceberg coming out of the fog:

As much as I do not like waking up too early, the iceberg made it tolerable. Plus, it is always easier to wake up during the polar day. And as long as I am preparing to sample water from the CTD now, I thought I would tell a little story that has kept me busy for quite some time.
A little background:

Part of our work involves putting instruments into the water to get information about the water masses, collect water samples for analysis on board and back on land. For the profile we use the instrument called CTD (stands for conductivity, temperature, depth – what it measures) and we also have quite a suite of other instruments measuring optics, chemistry, current speeds and so on. All the instruments are attached on a rosette together with niskin bottles that collect water.

Water bottles are closed at certain depths – hence we collect water from different water masses throughout the column.

The winch story:
To pull the rosette up and down we use the winch controlled by the computer built into the winch stand. In the middle of leg one, several winches started acting out – rebooting themselves, not listening to operator’s commands and so on. As if the software expired and needed an upgrade or something like that. I talked to the crew guys, who were very frustrated with the winch behavior, and the operation “get the new version of the software” started. I enlisted the help of Carles, our systems administrator on board. Carles is absolutely wonderful, he is the reason we now have working e-mail and he was instrumental in making many instruments run smoothly. Carles and I went to the winch computer with Artem and Yuri from the crew (who sometimes operate the winch) trying to see if we can get answers without remote support, but concluded that we need to contact the distributing company:

So Carles and I started calling the company, who installed the winches, asking them many questions on how to solve our weird problems. Carles also e-mailed them several times asking for a new version of the software and we finally got it (I have to say it took way longer than it should have, as the tech support people were quite reluctant to give the software away and quite clueless on why we are having issues). Anyhow, we finally got the software updated.

Unfortunately, only a few problems got solved with the software update. We are now going in circles talking to tech support. The winch appears to be working, but sometimes it still gets confused on which way the cable-runner should be going next and the cable is not aligned as perfectly as it should. I have to say though that the crew working the winch are great sport, even now in cold and rather miserable conditions they keep the spirits up and run the semi-workable winches to the best of their ability so we can collect our profiles and water samples.

Antarctic sea ice!

What meant to be January 30, but I am actually sending it on February 2

I had a few days with too much work and not enough time to send pictures through, but here’s a picture of Antarctic sea ice and me from a few days ago. We have been in sea ice for a few day now, it has been amazing. I even recorded some sounds for Fedtsov, I hope it worked. I had no time to check yet.
Going through the Antarctic sea ice is somewhat different than the Arctic. First, especially when we were closer to the coast we had a lot of beautiful icebergs around – a very pretty scene. Second, the sea ice on average has more snow on top. Third, this is what happened today – we were going through broken 100% sea ice covered sea with quite a big wave propagating through the ice. 

I never saw such big waves in sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, maybe I just did not see them, but maybe they don’t get as big….

I’m planning to write a long post describing all the different things we do – sampling for sea water from the CTDs, sampling for precipitation, launching radiosondes and catching snowflakes. I even started writing it a few days ago. However, it is taking a lot of time – primarily cause most of the time I’m busy doing these tasks. So I thought I’d post a little note with a picture now and have all my readers hold their breath for more.

It has been great fun to work with my friend Irina, we laugh a lot, especially when she consistently manages to catch more snowflakes than I do. Maybe she whispers something to them, I will need to find out ;)

Ok, it’s time for me to go to bed as another busy day is planned tomorrow.
Thanks for reading,