Cruise JC030
Tuesday 1st January 2009
Day 7 (I think) at Sea:
Getting Kinked - Whales - More Bergs
JDAY 001
Lunch: Mixed Grill
Dinner: Various buffet and sweets!
Weather: Nice and smooth - Force 4/5 A bit more bumpy!!
Distance Travelled Tpday: 90.92 Miles
Total Distance Travelled: 1401 Miles
Activity: CTDing
Sea Temperature:1.6•C
Air Temperature:0•C
"If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.”
Andrew Denton
And a perfect start to a brand new year! Re-terminating the CTD cable 2:30am 01/01/2009
Hi from the middle of nowhere. So, Firstly I must once again thank all those who have sent emails commenting on the blog – totally appreciated. Big hello to Brenda!
Also secondly a public apology. Yesterday I said that Amy and Des rang the ships bell four times on either side of midnight. They actually rang it eight times. Thanks Tiny for noticing my mistake!! I got the wrong number of bells for watch changing!! Whoops! Is this why I'm always late?
Ok, well today – the first day of 2009 - started just after midnight when the first CTD came back onboard at about 1ish. As it was recovered it was noticed that the cable had become kinked in a number of places.
Although the CTD had preformed fine on the way down it was essential that we removed the kinked sections of wire. After all we don’t know what sort of damage has been done to the wire strength or the communications line inside which allows us to speak to the CTD and fire the bottles.
What a way to start a New Year – 1st Day of the New Year and our 1st science CTD has to be re-terminated!
Termination is a long process of cutting out the damaged sections of wire and then reconnecting the wire and internal communications line with the CTD.
So in the freezing cold snow (the temperature had dropped to about -4 and with the wind chill factor it was bitter!!), Dave and I cut the old wire and made the new termination. I was amazed that it started getting light at about 2:30am!! By 4am it was almost daylight!
At 5 I finally got to bed and had a really restless sleep!
When I woke there was so much stuff that needed to be done with the start of science! Up until now the scientists had not needed to use the onboard computing facilities as extensively as they do now that scientific sampling has commenced.
With the CTD reterminated it was deployed throughout the day at various sites with lots of samples being taken! The weather has warmed up slightly but it’s still cold and there is still the occasional snow flurries! The scientists are taking no chances and are already wearing their X4 foul weather gear as the CTD hangar is open to the elements.
More bergs were spotted – we saw about five during the course of the day. Helen’s New Year resolution to see an iceberg was easily fulfilled. Whilst the majority of bergs were roughly 50m long - one of the bergs that were sited on the horizon was huge and probably a good few hundred metres long!
We also saw our first whales today. The bridge phoned down to the main lab just after lunch after sighting a number of whales off the portside. As I was between jobs I had five minutes to spare and went up on the focsle with the camera. The whales were some distance away and it was hard to make out what type of whales they were. I’m guessing that they were either Sei, Minkie or Fin whale although I don’t think I could possibly pin it to any of these species. The whale’s dorsal fins were occasionally breaking the surface and it was obvious from the repeated blows that there was more than four in the pod.
I spent a few hours in the evening writing a program that displays the sea surface temperature for the scientists and helping the principle scientist configure some of the computers – see it isn’t all excitement at sea!
Early night today! After the excitement of the last 24hrs I need to catch up with my beauty sleep!!! Hahahhaah
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