More than half way to Hobart

January 7

Эпиграф: на судне все идёт своим чередом.

While it feels like we are still just getting settled we have passed the half way point on leg one already. Today is January 7, Russian Orthodox Christmas Day, so Merry Christmas for those celebrating.
I am actually not sure if we crossed the half way distance point, but since we are not stopping at any islands anymore, we will arrive in Hobart in less than a two weeks. Hopefully.

Today was a rather productive day for the ocean-based teams, we did two CTDs (relatively deep and a shallow), trace metal rosette cast, bongo nets to look for phytoplankton, dredging to look for benthic creatures.

The weather has been rather nice, the wind and the swell were quite low, allowing us to do all this work. Yet, you can feel the high latitudes already, one needs a jacket and preferably a hat to go out on the deck even for a short while. It is hard to believe that we will be in summer clothes again soon.

As it is illegal to bring any fruit or veggies to Australia, I am eating an apple a day and sometimes two or three. That grocery trip on the last day in Cape Town was such a treat! And I have to say food on Tryoshnikov is better than in my previous cruises and Antarctic deployments. Alas, it is still getting quite repetitive. The crew meteorologist was joking with me how he can tell what day of the week it is by the soup we are having at lunch and dinner. Once again proving my point of a rather predictable life on a ship. Days of the week do not matter as much, you do your shift work or whatever the day brings, your meals are scheduled, you see the same people every day. It is very routine, but I have to say that I quite enjoy it.

Stormy seas

January 6

We woke up today to yet another change of plans. The winds were too high for flying, so the second day of land work at Kerguelen was canceled. We packed up and by lunch time picked up our anchor and started moving. As soon as we left the bay, we started rocking pretty dramatically. At the lab upstairs we recorded a tilt of almost 30 degrees - a new record! I have to say, pictures never show the real extend of a roll and also at 30 degrees tilt we are trying really hard not to fall, so we did not take pictures.
I also have to say that by now we are used to the rocky seas, so a lot of people were hanging out outside. I even asked someone to take a picture of me

I also tried to capture the waves as they break at the bow, but as the waves were getting bigger everyone was called inside

One thing that I have to absolutely agree on with my grandfather - eating meals remind me of acrobatic tricks.
Забавный случай был вчера со мной в кают-компании во время чая. От внезапного толчка я вместе с креслом вылетел через голову назад сквозь занавеску в музыкальный салон, где спокойно и доел свой хлеб с маслом, сожалею о чае, оставленном в кают-компании, куда постеснялся вернуться. Здорово качает! Прием пищи – совершенно акробатический номер во время качки. В отдельные моменты со столов летят тарелки, бачки с супом, хлебницы и все прочее.
Translation:
A funny story happened to me during tea time (15:30 meal) in the mess. Due to a sudden tilt I rolled over my head together with my chair and I ended up in a lounge (which was only separated from the mess by a curtain). I landed safely and I finished eating my bread and butter in the lounge in peace. I am just regretting that I left my tea in the mess, but I was too shy to return there after the roll. The ship is rocking pretty hard. Each meal becomes a true acrobatic experience for us. Sometimes plates, bowls of soup and bowls with bread are flying of the table.

A little adventure

January 5

Today we were lucky enough to get off the icebreaker on a little adventure. Jenny and I and a bunch of biologist loaded two Zodiacs to collect water samples in the bay of the Kerguelen island, where the ship is currently anchored. Jenny was teaching me to use the microcat, so I can continue supporting this little adventure into the next couple of legs.
It was a lot of fun to be so close to the water, to feel the salty spray on my face and to do some science while on it. Tryoshnikov looked so small from afar!

Jenny and Sam on Zodiac near Kerguelen island. Jenny is launching the microcat to take temperature and salinity measurements.

Later in the afternoon when I was safely on the ship and helping heard people off the Zodiacs, the wind picked up. It took some people a few tries to get off the Zodiac into a shaky gangway of Tryoshnikov. I am happy to report that everyone did make it back safely, we did not even loose any science samples.

Another very long day

January 4

January 3rd was a really long day for me. I keep meaning to write up my daily schedule hour by hour, but I keep getting into too many details. So I will do a combination of the two.

Midnight till 2:30 AM:
I was working at midnight, sampling the underway and watching the pump for an hour from 12 AM till 1 AM. "Pump watch" is an ad hoc activity we had to come up with to overcome our ship's design limitations. Our underway intake line is located 4.5 m below the water level, so when we roll for more than 5 m, there is a possibility to catch air bubbles. The pump dries out and many instruments in the lab do not like an inconsistent water flow. So during the rocky seas we "watch" the pump, to avoid breaking instruments. A bit of a reality check for all the PIs on board, especially those who expected our ship to have the 21st century equipment.
I spent 1 AM to 2:30 AM checking messages and talking to friends. It is usually much quieter at night and I get a better signal.

2:30 AM to 6:30 AM
I was sleeping.
I meant to get up at 6:00 AM as we were planning to do a deep CTD cast followed by a SOCCOM deployment, I had trouble waking up and since we were not stopped at this point, I got up around 6:30 AM.

6:30 AM to 11:30 AM
As I got to the oceanography lab I learned that the CTD stations have been canceled due to high swell, but we are deploying SOCCOM floats at around 9 AM. We decided to launch the sensors in pairs since we couldn't do a CTD cast and water sampling for calibrating the sensors. With two they can at least calibrate against each other.
Jenny and I with the help of Dave (there are a lot of guys named Dave on this leg ;) got one of the floats out and tried to secure it to the pole. It was extremely windy and the ship was rocking hard, so we did not dare to take the second one out. We used all our bunji cords and rope on a single one.
At 9 AM we did not get to the deep enough waters, so the SOCCOM launch was postponed. Finally at 10:46 ship time  6:46 UTC we started launching our SOCCOMs. We successfully deployed two (black one from this picture):

I do not have any picture of the deployment, since I was busy doing it. But there were a lot of people watching since there wasn't much else going on. I hope I will get a nice picture or two from them.
As we were putting the first SOCCOM out of the box, the crew was rather curious. At some point as I was checking on how well the first SOCCOM is secured to the pole, a boatswain asked what they are. And while we were deploying the float, I could hear him talking to other crew members explaining. It was rather cute!

11:30 to 14:30
After we deployed the floats, we had lunch and went upstairs to write to our collaborators about the deployment. It took a while since internet is slow.
I was also expecting another atmospheric river event to come, so I talked to Iris and Pascal to check the time we will need to start launching radiosondes. It wasn't until 9 PM ship time, so I signed up for the night shift to help out.

14:30 to 16:30
Since I knew I will be working all night I decided to take a nap.

16:30 to 21:30
As I woke up on January 3rd for the second time I decided to start off the day "right". I did my yoga and meditation.
At our daily PI meeting we were discussing coming to Hobart a day late since we are so delayed already. I have mixed feelings about it, I do want to have more work done, but I don't want to miss out on the valuable time with friends in Australia!
I spent dinner time and after sorting out the schedule for the radiosonde launches at night - it is impossible to launch a radiosonde alone, you need at least one person, maybe two or more in high winds conditions helping out. It wasn't easy to find help for my 2 AM and 4 AM launches and I am forever grateful to my colleagues agreeing to help out.

21:30 to 6:30 AM.
I spent most of my time launching radiosonde or collecting precipitation samples outside. I also had my daily midnight underway Ocean water sample to take. I had big plans to go to the gym between the launches, but ended up having no time or energy for that unfortunately.
The 4 AM radiosonde launch was the most dramatic. The weather was awful, winds were very strong with even stronger gusts, it was raining too. I had two people helping me, who never launched a balloon before and we ran out of helium. At the time this happens, I was lying on the helo deck under the balloon launching structure, unable to leave as I was holding a half-blown balloon. So I couldn't troubleshoot anything and after waiting for two minutes in the cold we decided to launch a half-blown balloon to get at least some data. The launch was really dramatic - the balloon went down first, but then it picked up and was able to climb up to 3.5km.
After the launch I had to go change helium bottle to prepare for the next one - it was a hard task to do. The bottle (even empty) was really heavy and we had to travel down two decks and then all the way to the front of the boat. After realizing that there is no way I can lift the bottle even together with Ilya (ship meteorologist, who was super helpful, found a two-wheeler and everything!) I went around the sleeping ship trying to find help. It was hard, but I managed. I had an interesting failed attempt, when I asked a colleague checking his email to help, he said yes, came to helo deck, saw the helium bottle and said "no way in hell I am lifting that" and left. I have to say it was my first time, when a person reacted like that. I was surprised he did not say "no" right away then, would have been less dramatic of a moment ;).

Since I stayed up so late after my last scheduled launch at 4 AM changing helium bottles, I decided to help the 6 AM shift with their launch. It was much smoother, the sun was out, helium was abundant and we had extra hands.
On that note, I went to bed. It was 6:30 in the morning on January 4th by then and I was totally exhausted.

I have to add, I spent most of the day on January 4 sleeping and doing minor maintenance and translating tasks. It is the evening of January 4th as I am writing this. I know by now that both SOCCOM floats we launched started communicating (hooray), we have a nice long record of vertical profiles through another atmospheric river event and I feel rather satisfied. We are approaching Kerguelen island and we decided to shut off the underway pump not to get kelp seaweeds on it. So no midnight sampling for me.
Good night everybody!

Let's roll (and rock :)

January 3

We have left Crozet archipelago in the afternoon on January 1st. We started rolling again almost immediately after we left the protection of the island. I have to say a few people felt it again - it is amazing how a two-day stop anchored in a harbor (not even docked!) makes such a big effect on your body's vestibular system (balance).
Or maybe we were just adjusting after a rather festive New Years celebration :).
Nevertheless, the adjustment happens much faster and by dinnertime on January 1st everyone was basically back to walking sideways without even thinking twice, changing the angle of inclination depending on the roll of the ship.
This is a picture I took just as we were leaving Crozet islands, before the real rolling started. I am really proud that I was able to capture sea spray with my phone. We saw a lot of it already, but it is usually too far away to get resolved on a iPhone picture.

As I am writing this - I am looking out my cabin window. The view changes from very cloudy gloomy skies to waves splashing into it as if I was watching a washing machine. The rolling is pretty calming and I am happy that my body is adjusted to it without me making any extra efforts. According to the forecast a rather intense storm will catch up with us in a couple of days - we will see how my body will handle that one :). I am optimistic, I just wish we actually get more ocean science done before the sea conditions worsen.

Весело-весело встретим Новый год / New year celebrations generations apart

January 2

3 января 1960 г.
Близ станции Сиова (Syowa JARE). 
Ходко пошли мы от Лазарева, как только вышли на чистую воду. Теперь опять как в море, никакого льда нет в помине. Тепло (относительно, конечно). Передали мне новогодние поздравления – штук 10 (!) телеграмм.
В океане на пути в Мирный в точке с географическими координатами 66° 27 ‘ Южной широты, 40° 07 ‘ восточной долготы очень весело встретили новый год. Славно потрудились для его хорошей встречи – все было по-настоящему хорошо. Выпустили отличную стенгазету, долго турхались над новогодним номером радиогазеты (я превзошёл себя – писал стихи и пел песни по радио! Шуточные конечно), зато получился отличный выпуск, не стыдно даже по всесоюзному радио пропустить.
Собрались в кают-компании. Ёлка. Скромная выпивка с отличной и разнообразной закусью. По-морскому пышные тосты. (За тех, кто нас помнит и любит! За матерей, жён и невест! За нашу надежду – любимых детей наших!)
Как-то незаметно, в результате скромной (по пол литра столичной и бутылке шампанского на четверых) выпивки, оказалось много веселья, танцев и песен, что запечатлено многочисленными фотографиями (здесь фотографов больше чем людей!)
Легли в шестом часу. Я повторяю, что это не ночь и не утро, а такой же день.
Не впервые встречать мне праздники вне дома, вдалеке от близких. Бывало уже это в Сибири и на Кавказе, на Украине и в средней Азии, в тайге и в горах, в пустыне и в степи. Но в море пока не приходилось. Да ещё в каком море, да ещё какой праздник. Ведь новый год – любимый и по сути единственный из настоящих праздников моих. Новый год 1960-й сулит много поистине нового. Да будет он счастливым!

Translation:
January 3rd, 1960
Near Syowa station (Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition, JARE)
/*Side Note from Masha in 2017*/
So interesting for me to learn that my grandfather visited Syowa station. During my visit to the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research in 2015 I talked about that station a lot, visited JARE museum and obtained some meteorological data collected at Syowa for my research project.
/*end side note*/
After we left Lazarev station and got out of the sea ice, the ship gained a lot of speed. Once again we are at sea, as if we haven't even seen any sea ice. It is warm (relatively, of course). I got new year telegrams - 10 (!) at a time.
We celebrated the New Year in the Southern Ocean on our way to Mirny station at a point of 66° 27' South and 40° 07' East. We put a lot of effort into this celebration and we did it well. We put out a special issue of the stengazeta/press news and we worked long hours on our celebratory radio program. (I outdid myself, I wrote poems and sang song on the radio. As a joke of course).  But our radio program was really good, I would have not be ashamed to broadcast it over the national radio.
For New Years, we all gathered around in the mess. We even had a new year tree there. We had a few drinks with various chasers. People were saying long elaborate "marine" toast: for those who remembers and loves us; for our mothers, wives and fiancée; for our hope - our children.
We only had 1/2 liter of vodka and a bottle of champagne to share between the four of us at the table, but the party became rather rowdy, with lots of jokes, dances and songs. We have a lot of photos to prove that too (it seems like we have more photographers than people).
We went to bed a little after 5 AM. Once again, we are in the polar day, so there is no darkness at night, it's basically the same daylight. It wasn't my first holiday far away from home and family, I have been celebrating in Siberia, in the Caucus mountains, in Ukraine, in Asia, in taiga and in the mountains, in a dessert and in a steppe. But this was my first New Years at sea. As new year is my favorite holiday. New 1960 is promising to be a rather novel year. Let it be a happy one!

As I was reading and translating this journal entry by my grandfather, I realized that Soviet reality aside, I could have written the same entry. We have been working most of December 31st, so we did not make a lot of elaborate preparations, such as a special radio program. We did however had a really nice buffet style dinner in the mess, where our Christmas tree is still standing.

We had a visit from our ship's captain to read us all the telegrams from Russian Antarctic stations and research vessels and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) - the organizations that our ship belongs to. It sounded really formal, but it was nice to hear. We did not have too many elaborate "marine" toasts, but our chief scientist went upstairs (with me as a translator) to congratulate the Russian officers and crew members. Soon we all ended up gathering in the crew's (officer's) mess (кают-компания) upstairs and the dancing started. Considering that we had dinner at our usual time of 19:30, I was impressed that we kept dancing till about four in the morning. We did have an abundant supply of food and alcohol, so that probably helped us to cnotinue well into the night.

I was really happy to see us, scientists, mingle with the crew members. Aside from an obvious language barrier, we have a big cultural barrier and many people don't know how to approach each other. Yet, the crew members have been extremely helpful and I personally asked for a lot of favors from them to accommodate various science projects. So it was great to relax a little bit, let louse, dance, enjoy just celebrating a holiday rather than stressing about the limitations of the ship, of the cruise time and other things I have been stressing too much about.

Just as my grandfather said - New Years is my favorite holiday after all.
After the dancing finished I went for a walk outside - the sun was just rising and it was a gorgeous and wonderfully warm morning. I posted a couple of pictures from it in the previous post. I did not experience a polar day during this New Years celebrations, but it was my first time celebrating on the ship.
And just as my grandfather - I am wishing everyone a very happy 2017!

A day in Masha's life on Tryoshnikov

January 1
Happy new year again to all my friends from different time zones. I hope you had a great celebration! As many of you know, the New Year is one of my favorite holidays. So I was really happy that we had festivities on the ship lasting into the night. I am hoping to do a separate post about the party, but today I wanted to talk about my day.

As the party ended around the sunrise and the light was so magic - I decided to go on the top deck and take pictures of the island. And who can be the better subject of a picture than myself?

We stayed anchored overnight near Possession island of the Crozet archipelago and as the day was starting there was a cool lenticular cloud forming

As I did not plan to do any work in the morning, I went to bed right after the sunrise. However, I was woken up by a colleague of mine telling me that an interesting atmospheric event - an atmospheric river - is coming upon us. As previously discussed we decided to launch radiosondes every two hours until the atmospheric river passes us. We ended up launching 6 radiosondes in total, working well into the night and we were able to capture this event in its entirety. Hopefully these data will be very useful to all of us!
In between radiosonde launches, I managed to practice my daily yoga, to learn all about the latest activities on the ship, to get jealous that I don't get to fly or Zodiac to the beach, to do a load of laundry, to translate for our ship's doctor seeing a patient, to attend a very heated PI meeting and to take an ocean water sample from the underway system. Once again a rather busy and hopefully productive day on Tryoshnikov.

One thing that is worth mentioning about the life and work on the ship - we don't get any days off. We basically keep going 24/7 chasing interesting atmosphere and ocean conditions, taking samples and collecting data non stop. This is why I was really happy to have an excuse for a party tonight - parties do not come often. And it was great to mingle with people I work with every day, including both scientists and crew members and to chat about non-work-related things.
Off to bed I go!

Till later,
Masha