28 December
I am happy to report we safely recovered our people from Marion island and are currently underway. It was a really pretty and unusual to see land while at sea and we will enjoy views of many more islands.
Here's a picture from yesterday overlooking the helicopters parked on the helo deck and some interesting cloud formation in the background. Too bad we could not launch a radiosonde to get data from the vertical profile. We usually launch from the helo deck and cannot operate while the helicopters are out of the hangar.
The weather was much nicer today so we did a lot of different things. We did a 200m CTD cast, deployed nets to collects zooplankton, deployed nets that scrape the sea floor to collect benthic species, launches a radiosonde. We were gonna end the day with a 1km CTD cast followed by a 1km trace metal rosette cast, but things got a little off track. We lost communication with the normal rosette half way, so spent the rest of the evening trouble shooting. Trace metal rosette was successful in principal, although we did not collect many water samples. But all in all it was an extremely busy day for many science teams and for the ship's crew.
***
Aside from science life on the icebreaker goes on. We have been sailing for a week now and the days are starting to look more and more routine. The meal schedule keeps us on track :). This never changing meal schedule that my grandfather described in great detail.
Actually today was the first day I managed to attend all four meals - I usually skip breakfast or tea if I am working or sleeping still.
I am yet to properly visit a gym and a sauna. I only played one game of table tennis so far, where I lost miserably. Need to up my game a lot ;))))
And I only located the sauna today. We have limited freshwater supply on the ship, so sauna is not open daily, there is only two days a week I can go - on Saturdays for the expedition day and on Sundays for the women's day. This week I did not have time on either day.
I have been trying to keep on track with my yoga, but I did not find time to do a proper cardio workout at the gym. The only thing that I hope helps me - I ran around up and down the stairs all day long. My cabin is on "-1" deck and my atmospheric office is on the "4.5" deck. We launch balloons from the helo deck on the "2nd" deck and the CTD lab and the mess (cafeteria) are both on the main "0" deck. But I am not sure it is enough and I keep promising myself to go running or rowing every day. Yet it is again closer to midnight and I got up at 7AM and I am exhausted. So all I will most likely do today - take my water sample at midnight and go to bed.
I am happy to report we safely recovered our people from Marion island and are currently underway. It was a really pretty and unusual to see land while at sea and we will enjoy views of many more islands.
Here's a picture from yesterday overlooking the helicopters parked on the helo deck and some interesting cloud formation in the background. Too bad we could not launch a radiosonde to get data from the vertical profile. We usually launch from the helo deck and cannot operate while the helicopters are out of the hangar.
The weather was much nicer today so we did a lot of different things. We did a 200m CTD cast, deployed nets to collects zooplankton, deployed nets that scrape the sea floor to collect benthic species, launches a radiosonde. We were gonna end the day with a 1km CTD cast followed by a 1km trace metal rosette cast, but things got a little off track. We lost communication with the normal rosette half way, so spent the rest of the evening trouble shooting. Trace metal rosette was successful in principal, although we did not collect many water samples. But all in all it was an extremely busy day for many science teams and for the ship's crew.
***
Aside from science life on the icebreaker goes on. We have been sailing for a week now and the days are starting to look more and more routine. The meal schedule keeps us on track :). This never changing meal schedule that my grandfather described in great detail.
Actually today was the first day I managed to attend all four meals - I usually skip breakfast or tea if I am working or sleeping still.
I am yet to properly visit a gym and a sauna. I only played one game of table tennis so far, where I lost miserably. Need to up my game a lot ;))))
And I only located the sauna today. We have limited freshwater supply on the ship, so sauna is not open daily, there is only two days a week I can go - on Saturdays for the expedition day and on Sundays for the women's day. This week I did not have time on either day.
I have been trying to keep on track with my yoga, but I did not find time to do a proper cardio workout at the gym. The only thing that I hope helps me - I ran around up and down the stairs all day long. My cabin is on "-1" deck and my atmospheric office is on the "4.5" deck. We launch balloons from the helo deck on the "2nd" deck and the CTD lab and the mess (cafeteria) are both on the main "0" deck. But I am not sure it is enough and I keep promising myself to go running or rowing every day. Yet it is again closer to midnight and I got up at 7AM and I am exhausted. So all I will most likely do today - take my water sample at midnight and go to bed.
