The journey goes on

March 11, 2017

We have been at sea for more than two weeks after our last port (Punta Arenas). We have visited South Georgia islands, passed by South Sandwich islands and are now at Bouvetoya. These are the three archipelagos/islands we visit – the rest of the journey will be through open waters.

We have experienced all kinds of weather, lived through a hell of a storm, had snow, hail, calmness;  saw icebregs (but no sea ice this leg). It has been busy. The other day I was working in my “office” on the 4th deck (with windows) and I was so busy I forgot to look outside. What a lousy meteorologists! Thanks to our ship’s photographer passing by and mentioning the light and the clouds – I quickly ran outside and snaped this picture:

I have to say my life only got more busy. On top of my usual daily routine of sampling CTDs and underway (which I now have great help from our new team member Alex)  and launching radiosondes and collecting atmospheric data …. So on top of all this I’m starting to fill out custom declarations for all our cargo to return to various labs and institutes in Europe and US. It’s a tedious  task, as I have a lot (and I mean A LOT) of equipment and just general STUFF. It was really useful to have all I need, but it will be a pain to locate and to pack. It also snowed quite a bit between South Georgia and South Sandwich islands, and I had to postpone my packing efforts to sample.

I also tried to collaborate with our photographer to get his help with macro-images of snowflakes, but it was not cold enough for snow flakes to last. As soon as we lit them with any kind of light they melted. So at the end of the day all our efforts resulted in wasted time.
I expressed my frustration with an interpretative dance catching snow flakes on slides on heli deck:

At lease I hope the slides I collected will be useful.

Now I need to input all my slides into the data base and pack all my snow equipment ASAP as more packing awaits. Wish me luck!!!

Thanks for reading,
Masha

Leg three, the beginning

February 28

I have to admit that I’m starting to “lean north” as we used to say in McMurdo. I am ready to go home and sleep a little bit. Although sleeping on a non-rocking bed would be hard.
During the stop-over in Hobart I had the bestest time with my Australian friends, I smelled the trees and played with kids and felt rejuvenated. I had to do some work during the Punta Arenas stop-over. I also did not get to stay off the ship, so I slept in my cabin even in port. And honestly – maybe it’s for the best. Going back to ship after a night in a real bed would have been that much harder.

That said our first day at sea was really smooth and peaceful. We observed the solar eclipse in the morning (see my previous post) and had one of the most spectacular sunsets.

We did our first CTD station on February 27 and then did another station on February 28. The second one was shorter and only our project sampled the water from it – so it got designated “Masha station” on the white board in the expedition office.

I told you I will become an oceanographer ;)

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.

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.

Mertz glacier, East Antarctica

January 29

Hello from Mertz glacier. The weather on January 28, 2017 turned from bad to worse, so we did not expect much from the next day. You can imagine my surprise waking up in the morning realizing that we stopped for a CTD station and that it will only get better. After I was done sampling (closer to the afternoon) I finally went outside and I saw the sun! and the walls of Mertz glacier! It was such a picture perfect moment, that I couldn’t resist and did my “traditional Antarctic jump” on a heli deck

Helicopter pilots went on an exploration flight around the glacier and soon took the ice core drilling party out to the ice. They returned about 9 PM at night having completed more coring than they expected – what a day they had.
While helicopters were gone, the ship started to deploy our hi-tech submersibles – ROPOS systems. There’s a website written on them ropos.com, I don’t have internet access here, but maybe you can read more from land. The machines are about the size of a small car, they have hydraulic pumps to help them navigate in the water and many-many instruments all over. As they have cameras all over, we were enjoying the streaming video last night during dinner.

A little bit of scientific history. Mertz glacier used to have an extensive tongue grounded several km out into the bay. In 2010 a huge chuck of ice tore off the tongue and a massive iceberg was formed. This changed the geography of the area quite dramatically. Grounded glacier tongue was acting as a barrier for sea ice, leading to extremely old sea ice chunking to the west of it and keeping the polynya further off shore (see map).
Since the collapse of the glacier tongue is so recent, the old map on the screen of our lab computer shows that we have been on top of the glacier for quite a few days now!
What we are interested in studying are the physical, chemical and biological changes in the area that occurred after the collapse of the glacier. We are collecting samples from the ship and with the help of our submarine robots to understand how things have changed since a big chunk of glacier melted.
To get better data right off the edge of the ice, our captain “parked” the icebreaker into the glacier last night. It was really exciting to watch and again the weather was just perfect. All in all we had quite an adventurous day!

XBTs

January 25

Yesterday night (January 25) I launched my first XBT - a temperature probe that you "fire" into the ocean from a funny looking gun. I had quite a few spectators, so it was a little intimidating. The launch was a success, however.
Here's a picture of me measuring the temperature profile:

Basically you release a probe from the ship's deck as free fall and as soon as it touches the water it starts measuring. There's a tiny wire connecting the probe to the gun I'm holding - this is how the signal is being transmitted. The wire is so thin, I couldn't see it with a naked eye and I was worried I lost the probe. But my gun kept making spooling sounds, so that was a good sign. At the end someone went inside and confirmed that we do get data on the computer. That's how we knew it was a success!

The probe I had is X-7, going to 760m depth (then the wire breaks and the probe is lost, but the data is already at our computer). People on the ship, especially the crew, are telling me that I'm the biggest polluter - I launch radiosondes, SOCCOM floats and now XBTs. But I have to say it is a lot of fun to see vertical profiles of the air and ocean, especially when it's instantaneously available

I launched another one at 6 AM in the morning on January 26 (Still January 25 UTC time) - I was by myself, not a single sole even to look at the screen inside to see if it worked properly. Such a contrast from last night.
I'm proud to say that I managed and got another profile. Now if only I had more time to sleep in between all this exciting measurements I'm making ;)

Leg two started abruptly

January 23

I had the most relaxing long weekend with my friends in Hobart. We arrived on Thursday the 19th in the morning. Everyone was scaring us with impossible customs, but we managed to go through them very quickly and I was able to get off the ship before my friends’ plane touched down. I met up with my colleague Irina, we went to Customs house – a pub that our long colleague Neale showed to us years ago. My Melbourne friends showed up pretty soon and it was the happiest reunion.
Although I had internet and phone, I decided to stay off my blog to have a complete break from any activities I was doing on board. Sorry everyone, I won’t be updating on wonderful eucalyptus smells, I will jump right on to leg two activities.

We were scheduled to leave on Sunday, January 22, although the time kept changing (which gave me more time with friends and I am really grateful). We finally left just short of midnight, almost on Monday the 23rd. As we were leaving port our ship was directed by an Australian pilot. Half an hour later a small boat came to pick up the pilot and off we went.

As we were late leaving port, we were pushing our luck with getting on time to Macquarie island. On the morning of January 23rd it was first decided to steam as fast as possible to the first island, sacrificing all the marine projects on board. However, the forecast was not favorable to be able to land/do any work around Macquarie island.  So mid-morning on Monday with the help of marine science teams we changed our plans from sacrificing the marine part to catching the good weather and getting some data. We decided to do a CTD station to 1km, together with a trace metal rosette sampling, bongo nets for zoo and phytoplankton and micro plastics nets. Considering this was the first marine station for the new group of scientists, we were really efficient. Actually the fact that we as a new group could convince the chiefs to do a CTD station rather suddenly impressed me the most. We managed to do a station before meeting and deciding on the role of each individual, which is once again quite impressive. Also, I’m happy to report that Irina and I sampled a complete 1km profile, turned on all our en route instruments, and started the underway sampling. I even managed to take a picture of Irina sampling from the Niskin bottles – as you can see the weather is quite nice and we sampled outdoors.

On top of coordinating some of the marine team efforts, I spent my day helping many other projects, particularly new people on board. As flattering as it to have a reputation of a “nice person, who will help you”, it is a pretty tiresome job. Anyhow, I am glad I can help. And I am also proud to say I am learning to say “no”. Today I draw the line on non-science request for chores around the ship, I could only do so much.

There is one more thing I wanted to mention to keep this post from being work-only. It feels so weird to be on a ship with a lot of new people! We got so used to seeing same people every day and now there’s a whole new group of people, who gets lost around the ship. I guess the crew feels that way each time they start a new cruise…

Anticipation

January 18

We are due to arrive in Hobart around 8 AM tomorrow morning. I spent most of the day today packing and labeling our cargo, that will be taken off in Hobart on route back to the US (leftovers and samples from the SOCCOM flow deployment). We are also offloading salt samples to be processed by our colleagues in Australia (huge thanks!!!) since we couldn't get the Autosal on board to work properly. It was a busy day full of anticipation.
Many people are leaving after this first leg and new scientists are getting on board. People are packing, preparing to say good bye, getting excited to go home and sad to leave new friends. I think I have the best of both worlds - I am not leaving, but I have my bestest friends flying to Hobart to meet me. I am way more excited than if I were to go home now :).

My grandfather never visited Australia, but he did stop at the Australian Antarctic station Mawson. It was interesting to read his diaries, full of very similar emotions. Excitement, anticipation, a bit of sadness and a flow of many-many thought rushing through his head all at once. Since dedushka already put his on paper - I will share :)

From 9.01.1960 entry:
Подходим к австралийской станции Моусон (Mowson), расположенной в бухте Холбмейка (Holme Bay). Уже сейчас в бинокль видны вдалеке по курсу тёмные цепочки гор, а вокруг судна айсберги, айсберги, айсберги. Их здесь сотни. Глубины моря резко сокращается, от 3 - 4 тысяч м до сотни – полутораста и даже до 50 м. Судно идёт медленно: опасно сесть на подводную скалу. Следим за показателями эхолотов особенно тщательно. 

Здесь мелко. Громадные айсберги, возвышающейся над уровнем моря на 2-3 десятка метров сидят на дне, поэтому они недвижимы. "кладбище Слонов" назвал капитан Дубинин это место. И действительно эти громады напоминает гигантских животных, спящих в воде.
Фотографируем. Целые стойки фотографов любителей носится по настройкам и переводят плёнку.
А берег все ближе. Вот уже и припайный лёд. В прошлом году “Обь” вплотную подошла к станции, а нынче миль за пять встречается довольно мощный припай. Начали пробиваться через него. Дело идёт медленно: лёд хоть и не очень толстый, но прочный и плохо поддается. А времени мало, недостает и горючего, надо торопиться в Мирный, куда ещё восьмого уже пришла “Кооперация”, вышедшая из Ленинграда двумя неделями раньше. Там ждут нас.
Решили снова разгружаться вертолётом. Теперь это быстро пойдёт – станция близко.
Вечером стало известно, что самолёт Ил-14 после захода на большой высоте над нами проследовал из Лазарева в Мирный без посадки здесь. На борту Короткевич ... и письма от оставшихся в Лазареве ребят. Не везёт!
Сегодня получили от них телеграмму: 15-го собираются выйти в маршрут к югу от шельфа. Готовят аппаратуру в балке. Запрашивает данные гравиметра, на котором будут работать. Послал им ответную. 
Меня записали на завтра в первую разгружены разгрузочную бригаду в Моусон. Ну что ж, я не возражаю осмотреть станцию, хотя после Сиовы и собирался скромничать и не выскакивать наперёд батьки. 
Утро вечера мудренее!

This station impressed him the most, he even drew a little plan, showing work and living quarters on Mawson.

From 10.01.1960 diary entry:
Что же сказать о Моусоне? Если Сиова мне понравилось, то австралийской станцией я восхищен. Да, да! Я не преувеличиваю и не преклонист. Просто восхищен и только!
Здесь все продумано и сделано на совесть. Станция отлично расположена в великолепном месте на берегу живописной бухты. Домики её окаймляют восточную оконечность бухты. В центре посёлка – столовая, кают-компания, радиорубка с почтовой конторой, жилые помещения, штаб станции, капитальная уборная. 
Ближе к берегу бухты - склад продовольствия (отдельно по видам), материалов, в сторонке – горючее, дальше стоянка транспорта, электростанция, ангар для самолётов.
Совершенно отдельно от всех этих построек научный городок с отдельными павильонами для каждого вида исследований. Большое впечатление производит автоматические регистрирующие приборы для записи метеорологических, ионосферных, актинометрических данных, а также большая установка для изучения космических лучей (также автоматическая и очень неплохо сделанная). Большинство приборов английские и американские. Очень хорошее снаряжение (шторм костюмы обувь и прочее). 
К сожалению, почти никого из зимовщиков на станции не застали: Истосковавшихся за 14 месяцев пребывания здесь (их ледокол "Тала Дан" придёт недели через три) они с радостью приняли приглашение посетить "Обь", и все отбыли туда вертолётом. Долго ходили мы как неприкаянные по опустевший чужой станции, стесняюсь заходить в домике и лаборатории без хозяев и уж совсем было собирались убираться восвояси, когда встретили двух австралийцев. Один из них – ихний электросварщик дежурил, а другой -  геолог Стинер недавно проснулся после ночного дежурства и посему любезно согласился показать нам станцию. Собралась огромная куча наших и под предводительством этого милого скромного человека (в качестве переводчика – аз многогрешен) мы обошли всю станцию с уже более подробным её осмотром.
Очень понравилось! Не видел я ещё Мирного, может быть он в тысячу раз лучше (сомневаюсь только что-то). Но даже наши видавшие виды участники нескольких экспедиций восхищены некоторыми моментами из встреченного здесь на Моустоне.
Мне лично очень понравилось, что у каждого здесь – отдельная каюта, хоть и маленькая, но своя. Это очень важно иметь возможность побыть одному, отдохнуть как тебе хочется от шума, разговоров, курева, света, водки и всего чем могут злоупотреблять соседи. 
Маленькая, но очень рационально расположенная клетушка, которая выглядит приблизительно вот так:

Домики очень прочные, снаружи обиты дюралем. В каждом – шесть-семь таких каюток, душевая, прихожая, где оставляет верхнюю одежду и рабочую обувь. Чисто, светло и тепло. Мебель кровать, шкаф, стулья – деревянные, полированные.
Хорошая кают-компания (Club – как здесь его называют). Много хороших книг, масса журналов с полуголыми дамами разнообразных мастей, отличная радиола, пластинки, скрипка, банджо, настольные и настенные игры, стойка – музей с выставленными здесь бутылками, распитыми в этой кают-компании. Среди них пять наших – столичная, шампанское, коньяк, аштарак, кагор.
Удобная столовая современном электрокамбузом. Система обслуживания – самая демократичная. Все зимовщики, включая начальника мистера Бичервайзе поочерёдно дежурят – подают на стол, моют посуду, помогают коку, убирают столовую и кают-компанию. В домиках – дежурят и следят за чистотой сами жильцы. Никакой прислуги. Стирают тоже сами с помощью машины и какого-то хитрого экстракта. 
Интересная деталь: в стороне посёлка на горушке – крест на красном каменном цоколе. Все наши люди уверенным, что это памятник погибшим здесь австралийцам. Просят – спроси у них сколько человек там погибло (у нас в мирном – два полярника). Спрашивает деликатно – когда поставили этот памятник. Смеется. Это не памятник, это церковь, говорит. Оказывается, на станции один француз – кок Люсьен Поль. Он католик и выстроил себе молельню. Остальные – поклонники англиканской церкви обходится чтением библии у себя в каютах. Поль не слишком злоупотребляет религией, и вообще он весёлый человек – любитель приключений. По профессии он какой-то дорожник, приехал сюда посмотреть свет и первое время так кормил своих товарищей, что они хотели утопить его. До сих пор Поля вышучивают.
Вообще Весёлые ребята… Когда мы, насмотревшись вдоволь и обменявшись спичечными и папиросными коробками, мелкими монетами и адресами, вернулись на свой ship – здесь царило веселья.
Австралийцев накачали столичной так, что они по их собственному выражению стали похожи на папуасов. Массу забавных шуток вытворяли и особенно неистово, когда увидели наших уборщиц и буфетчиц – ведь они больше года видели женщин только на картинках и во сне. Что тут творилось!
От судна на станцию уходит последний вертолёт. Он заберёт хохочущую, шумную, размахивающую конечностями ораву обратно в Моусон и доставит на судно наших "экскурсантов " со станции. Они должны привезти проштемпелеванные австралийской печатью конверты и марки.
Интересно, чем все это кончится для австралийцев. Ведь у них на станции не пьют и вдруг такое море водки. Как желчно заметил встретивший нас на станции геолог – (он видимо страстно жалел, что проспал время отъезда на судно, а может – идейный): - Я это хорошо знаю, говорит, что ничем добрым это не кончится. После каждого пира бывает похмелье!

Back to 2017:
We changed time for four or five hours in the past week, I don't even remember. Waking up early has been a challenge. Yet, I am fully awake at 6 AM and I watched Akademik Tryoshnikov pull up the Australian flag. It is really happening!!! I can't wait to see my friends!!!

Pump watch

January 16

One of the most ridiculous activities we have to do on the ship is called "pump watch". I think I mentioned it before in passing, but since I do it every day I felt like it deserved a separate post.
A lot of oceanography sampling we make comes from inline water supply - there is a hole in the bottle of the ship, followed by a pump that brings water all the way to the main deck level and containers upstairs. Unfortunately, this inline water intake was not in the original design of the ship, so the crew had to improvise. The hole was made at 4.5 m below the water line, so in high roll situations the pump gets air, rather than water. This air can ruin some of the instruments we have connected to the line, but most importantly the air can destroy our precious pump. There is no alarm system, so all scientists literally sit in the lab and "watch the pump". If the water stops flowing, we simply stop the pump and restart it again.

Here is a picture of Tiger and Lily - Jenny's  son's stuffed animals on pump duty. You can see the two buttons on the wall - green and red. The red one stops the pump and the green one starts it up again.

We have been extremely lucky over the last few days to have non-marine groups come and volunteer their time for the pump watch. It really means a lot, makes us feel like we are working together, even though the task is a bit ridiculous. However, we will probably not have the luxury of other people's time during the beginnings of the upcoming legs - people will be busy sorting their own projects and solving their own problems. So unless we find a creative solution - we will be stuck with many more "pump watch" hours per person.

The most annoying shifts you can get are the 3 and 4 AM ones. In general night shifts are less desirable. I have one midnight shift every second day and a mid day shift on an alternating day. I have to say that the midnight one is much better than the 3 AM one, plus I get to check my messages after I am done watching the pump at 1 AM and I am more likely to get a text message trough than during the day. 

Before I finish this whiny post I want to send my cheers to the crew of Akademik Tryoshnikov. They did not design the ship to be so awkward, the hole for inline pump was put in later and without much thought. But the crew installed a new pump for us in Cape Town and there were kind enough to get a PVC hose from the pump to the lab. The hose is awkwardly laying around the corridors, but it works. Also, the crew were really accommodating to us when we decided to insulate the hose, disconnected it and connected back without any fuss. They also split the flow coming up with regulators on the fly, etc. etc.

1.5 km CTD cast

January 14

One of the advantages of deep CTD casts - an ability to make souvenir styrofoam cups. We design normal size white cups, tie it to the rosette going down to a significant depth and they get compressed by pressure. Here's an example of the cups I designed the other day, when we did a 1500 m cast as a SOCCOM float calibration.

I drew different activities we do on board  - launching radiosondes, doing oceanographic stations with a rosette and plankton nets we drag after a slow moving ship to collect plankton and microplastics samples.

We one had only a few cups this time, I am hoping to stock up in Hobart and design more souvenirs during the upcoming legs of the ACE.

Early Aurora observations

January 13

This is a paragraphs from my grandfather's journal:
Из дедовых дневников:
Наблюдения за полярными сияниями ведутся здесь двумя путями: визуальные и фото регистрация сияния специальной очень хитрой камерой - это делает здесь Борис Моисеев - очень молодой ещё парень, но уже дважды зимовавший на дрейфующей станции  северный полюс СП-6. Вторым способом ведутся наблюдения за "авророй" при помощи радиолокатора, регистрирующего отражения от сияний, и определяющего таким образом их высоту и конфигурацию. Занимается здесь этим Андрей Таранов - радиоинженер, окончивший ленинградское арктическое морское училище. Работает он в паре с ионосферистом Толей Евсеечевым, проводящим при помощи весьма громоздкой бандуры вертикальные зондирования ионосферы. Владимир Дмитриевич Сафронов проводит регистрацию космических лучей. Тоже только регидрацию - отрабатывать данные здесь не представляется возможным - одному это не под силу.

/*A note from Masha in 2017:*/
We observed Auroras two nights in a row on the January 10-11 and January 11-12. We do not have any active observations of auroras of ionosphere from the ship, so we purely enjoyed the view. 

Aurora australis (11 September 2005) as captured by NASA's IMAGE satellite (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6226)

It was really interesting for me to read about observations they held in 1960. During the International Geophysical Year in 1957-58 first coordinated observations of auroras were performed. This is how scientist discovered that auroras happen simultaneously in both hemispheres, consequently they were related to solar activity in upper layers of the atmosphere /ionosphere. When solar wind and magnetic plasma precipitate to upper atmosphere the energy of charged particles is lost. The resulting ionization emits light of varying color depending on altitude and solar activity. (more in wiki)

Schematic of Earth's magnetosphere (Original bitmap from NASA. SVG rendering by Aaron Kaase.)

Another thing that surprised me - my grandfather describes that there was a person spending not one, but two winters (!) on the ice floe - the drifting station North Pole. This program started in 1930s in the Soviet Russia and is still running. There were some interruptions during the WWII and in the 1990s, but the idea is the same. A crew of several scientists are deployed on the sea ice floe in the Arctic. They establish a camp and make daily observations. It used to be a rather lengthy expedition. However, recently, due to the decrease of the sea ice extent in the Arctic, the North Pole drifting stations can barely survive one season. Ice floes deteriorate rapidly, making the sea ice camps a rather dangerous and short expeditions.

Северный Полюс-6 (photo from https://www.yakutskhistory.net/%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B5-%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8/%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8F%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F-%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D1%81%D0%BF-6/)

Calm waters of the Southern Ocean

January 9

Today we had exceptionally good weather, the sun was shining, there was almost no wind and almost no swell. If we are lucky, we will continue to travel in this anticyclone for a while and enjoy this weather. However, we need to keep up the speed.

 Since the weather was so good, we spent a lot of hours doing oceanographic work - performed the first successful deep CTD and trace metal rosette cast, launched bongo nets to look for microplastics and identify new species of plankton.

I realize that I have pictures of many other people working and no pictures of me working, since I am too busy for the camera.
I recently learned how to clean the rosette, so today it was my job to tidy up after the casts and make sure we do not collect salt and rust on the frame and the delicate instruments. Draining the rosette is quite awkward as it is kept inside and I did not want to flood the room, so I drained niskin bottles into a bucket first. This is why the whole job takes longer than it should, but I have to say it was rather meditative to clean up.
Due to direct sunlight and low winds my atmospheric sensors on the uppermost deck recorded very warm temperatures. I am hoping that whenever it snows, the temperature will be more realistic. Otherwise, we might need to completely rethink the system and put the instruments somewhere else on the ship. This will be a job for Hobart, which I am hoping to outsource, since I want to take a much needed day off the ship. People, who are getting off after Leg 1 (at Hobart) are counting down the days, I have a lot to go, but I am looking forward to seeing my dear friends, who are flying to meet me in Hobart. Thank you so much!!! Can't wait to see you all ♡ !