Cruise JC030
Sunday 4th January 2009
Day 10 (I think) at Sea:
Ice Ice Baby!!!
JDAY 004
Lunch: Fish Cakes
Dinner: Steak Night
Weather: Nice, about a force 4. Bit of fog in the afternoon
Distance Travelled Tpday: 117.55 Miles
Total Distance Travelled: 1715 Miles
Activity: CTDing
Sea Temperature:0.5•C
Air Temperature:-2•C
Above: Ok, a shot of the author for once! Me with an iceberg! The Iceberg Quest "IN YOUR FACE" hoody from a visit to St Johns, Newfoundland in August 2008. Whilst in St Johns I did a number of whale cruises with Iceberg Quest taking amazing pictures of Humpback Whales breaching (CLICK HERE). However, despite seeing lots of whales and having a trully amazing time I did not see a single iceberg! On the cruise from St John's (which was another Sheldon's cruise) - we saw a few icebergs. However, they were nothing compared with the icebergs we have seen on this cruise!! Here's me in my "lucky" Iceberg Quest hoody!!
So things are still plodding along! Just another 80 CTD casts to go!!! Today was another bitter day that you can expect when you operating in this part of the world! Ice is becoming more and more frequent and our first CTD location today was right underneath an iceberg! So it meant we had to sample some distance away! The wind is still pretty strong and as we were doing CTD casts the icebergs blew past in the stiff breeze giving us some superb shots. Some of the bergs that went past had deep blue veins in
The non-tabular bergs took on some really strange shapes and we have been seeing more and more bizarre shaped icebergs. Mark asked me to take a picture of an iceberg because it looked like a face unfortunately by the time I got out to see it – the iceberg had blown past us!
Sunday is like any other day at sea. The only difference is it’s the day the Captain does his rounds where he inspects the ship, makes notes of any defects and generally has a chit-chat with people and checks everywhere is tidy and safe! We won’t get into what my parents would say about tidy bedrooms!!
As well as this the day was packed with CTDing, sampling and lots of other tasks that accompany the running of the “worlds most advanced” research ship! One of my main tasks was helping one of the crew and one of the scientists with anti-virus issues on their laptops. As you can imagine a lot of the data onboard is quite unique and cost a lot of money to obtain. As we have the internet it is imperative that everyone has anti-virus software that protects their machine and our networked systems! We don’t want people infecting our core scientific computers!! Keel-hauling would be the punishment!!
I spent sometime helping the scientists up in one of the containers. One of their incredibly complex pieces of kit was misbehaving and they asked me to look at the cables they had made and a number of other IT related issues. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything wrong and had to leave them scratching their heads!
In the evening I decided to have my second beer of this cruise and went for a beer before dinner. One of the engineers had some “billtong” Can’t remember the exact name but its dried beef….. Well it kind of tasted like old dap to be honest but some of the lads love it! I think it’s like marmite – you either love it or hate it!!
More info - just found it!!
| Biltong is a kind of cured meat that originated in South Africa. Many different types of meat can be used to make it, ranging from beef through game meats to fillets of ostrich from commercial farms. It is typically made from raw fillets of meat cut into strips following the grain of the muscle, or flat pieces sliced across the grain. It is similar to beef jerky in that they are both spiced, dried meats, but differ in their typical ingredients, taste and production process. The word biltong is from the Dutch bil ("rump") and tong ("strip" or "tongue") |
In the evening I had my first free bit of time and watched a truly awful film! Waterworld with Kevin Costner. If you ever have a free two hours with your life avoid this film!!
Oh and incidentally we are close to the remotest island in the world, here’s more:
Bouvet Island
Above: Bouvet Island (wiki)
Bouvet Island (Norwegian: Bouvetøya, also historically known as Liverpool Island or Lindsay Island) is an uninhabited sub-Antarctic volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, south-southwest of the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). It is a dependent area of Norway and is not subject to the Antarctic Treaty.
Bouvet Island is located at 54°26′S 3°24′E / -54.433, 3.4. It is 49 km² in area, 93% of which is covered by glaciers which block the south and east coasts.
Bouvet Island is the most remote island in the world. The nearest land is Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, over 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away to the south, which is itself uninhabited.
It has no ports or harbors, only offshore anchorages, and is therefore difficult to approach. The waves have created a very steep coast. The easiest way to access the island is with a helicopter from a ship.
The glaciers form a thick ice layer falling in high cliffs into the sea or onto the black beaches of volcanic sand. The 29.6 km (18.4 miles) of coastline are often surrounded by an ice pack.
The highest point on the island is called Olavtoppen, whose peak is 780 m (2,559 ft) above sea level. A lava shelf on the island's west coast, which appeared between 1955 and 1958, provides a nesting site for birds.
Because of the harsh climate and ice-bound terrain, vegetation is limited to lichens and mosses. Seals, seabirds and penguins are the only fauna.
Despite being uninhabited, Bouvet Island has the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) .bv, though it is not used.
A handful of amateur radio expeditions have gone to this remote location (call signs used here begin with 3Y). There is no telephone country code or area code, and no telephone connection (except by satellite, but there is nothing installed).
There is no postal code and no postal distribution. Ships approaching the Bouvet Island fall within the UTC Z time zone. There is a Norwegian law saying that the time zone of Norway is UTC+1, except for a part of year (daylight saving time). This suggests that the legal time zone for the Bouvet Island also should be UTC+1. However, since this law does not apply for the Norwegian Antarctic territories (Bouvet Island, Peter I Island, Queen Maud Land), UTC Z is the proper time zone for Bouvet Island.
Discovery
Above: Aerial Image of Bouvet
Bouvet Island was discovered on January 1, 1739, by Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier, who commanded the French ships Aigle and Marie. However, the island's position was not accurately fixed having been placed eight degrees to the east, and Bouvet did not circumnavigate his discovery, so it remained unclear whether it was an island or part of a continent.
In 1772, Captain James Cook left South Africa on a mission to find the island. However, when arriving at 54°S, 11°E where Bouvet had said he sighted the island, nothing was to be seen. Captain Cook assumed that Bouvet had taken an iceberg for an island, and he abandoned the search. [5]
The island was not sighted again until 1808, when it was spotted by James Lindsay, the captain of the Enderby Company whaler Snow Swan. Though he didn't land, he was the first to correctly fix the island's position. Since this deviated greatly from the (incorrect) position previously recorded for Bouvet, it was initially assumed to be a different island and was named Lindsay Island. Only later was it established that Bouvet and Lindsay must be the same.
The first successful landfall dates to December 1822, when Captain Benjamin Morrell of the sealer Wasp landed, hunting for seals. He took several seal skins.
On December 10, 1825, Captain Norris, master of the Enderby Company whalers Sprightly and Lively, landed on the island, named it Liverpool Island, and claimed it for the British Crown. Again, it was not known with certainty at the time that this was the same island found previously. He also reported sighting a second island nearby, which he named Thompson Island. No trace of this island now remains.
In 1898, the German Valdivia expedition of Carl Chun visited the island but did not land.
The first extended stay on the island was in 1927, when the Norwegian "Norvegia" crew stayed for about a month; this is the basis for the claim by "Norvegia" expedition leader Lars Christensen on behalf of Norway, who have named the island Bouvet Island (Bouvetøya in Norwegian).
The island was annexed on December 1, 1927, and by a Royal Norwegian Decree of January 23, 1928, Bouvetøya became a Norwegian Territory. The United Kingdom waived its claim in favor of Norway the following year. In 1930 a Norwegian act was passed that made the island a dependent area subject to the sovereignty of the Kingdom (but not a part of the Kingdom).
In 1964, an abandoned lifeboat was discovered on the island, along with various supplies; however, the lifeboat's passengers were never found.
In 1971, Bouvet Island and the adjacent territorial waters were designated a nature reserve. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was some interest from South Africa to establish a weather station, but conditions were deemed to be too hostile. The island remains uninhabited, although an automated weather station was set up there in 1977 by the Norwegians.
On September 22, 1979, a satellite recorded a flash of light (which was later interpreted as having been caused by a nuclear bomb explosion or natural event such as a meteor) in a stretch of the southern Indian Ocean between Bouvet Island and Prince Edward Islands. This flash, since dubbed the Vela Incident, is still not completely resolved.[8]
On October 19, 2007, the Norwegian Polar Institute announced that satellite photos no longer show the research station built on the island in 1994. It is believed that the uninhabited station has been blown out to sea by the wind. An earthquake in the area in 2006 supposedly weakened the building's base, and is believed to have made it more exposed to the powerful winter storms in the area. An unmanned weather station on the island is reportedly still intact.
Bouvet Island in fiction
Bouvet is the setting of the 2004 movie Alien vs. Predator, in which it is referred to using its Norwegian name "Bouvetøya" even though in the unrated edition of the film, a satellite focuses in on the island which is geographically situated in the approximate location of Peter I Island.
The island figures prominently in the book A Grue of Ice (also published as "The Disappearing Island") by Geoffrey Jenkins. It also features in "Warhead" by Andy Remic.
Above: Iceeeeeebeeeeeerrrrggggg
Above: This berg had lots of thin blue veins running through it
Above: This image shows some of those veins
Above: As does this image
Above: Dave has a fiddle with the EK500
Above: Whilst John sits at the CTD station
Above: Squibby and Dave
Above: yes a draw full of T-bags!!
Above: Mark and Dave
Above: To quote Mark "This is not a smile it's a grimace because of the cold"
Above: CTD Recovery
Above: Mark recovering the CTD
Above: putting the CTD in the hangar for sampling
Above: Non-tabular berg
Above: close up of a tabular berg
Above: big tabular berg
Above: non-tabular berg
Above: and again!
Above: Steve and Tiny
Above: CTD
Above: CTD deployment
Above: CTD deployment
Above: CTD deployment
Above: Steve and Tiny!
Above: CTD deployment
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