Sunday 21^st March

We have spent nearly a week at sea now and there is a lot to tell you. Our first whales, our first storm and our first data churning through the computers.

The first few days at sea were sunny with very little wind, as good as one could hope for in the Southern Ocean. Tuesday was spent getting equipment to work, and organising data processing. The test station was south of the Falklands, its location chosen to be in deep water outside Argentinian jurisdiction. It went suspiciously smoothly, and soon we were heading west to Cape Horn. Cape Horn was clearly visible, steep blue mountains rising out of the sea. Later as darkness fell we could make out the beam from the lighthouse.

We began our section across Drake Passage in the early hours of Thursday, on the continental shelf just south of Chile. We are repeating a set of oceanographic (CTD) stations done by German oceanographers 10 years ago, and one of our goals is to see if there have been changes in the ocean physics and chemistry. So every other station is a ‘Roether station’ and is sampled fully for trace gases. We are putting extra stations in between to get a more detailed picture of the currents. We really threw everyone in at the deep end, because the first few stations were extremely close together as we crossed the continental slope into deep water. This meant that barely had the water been taken from the bottles from one station, when it was time to deploy the CTD again.

We have now been doing stations for 4 days and are halfway across Drake Passage. After only 2 days everyone felt that they had been doing stations for weeks. Overall things are going well, although we’ve had our share of hassles. The CTD wire has had problems and John had to reterminate the CTD every morning for 3 consecutive days. After yesterday’s retermination it was decided to let the CTD wire unwind itself by spooling it into the water with a heavy weight on the bottom and a swivel at the top. Fingers crossed, this may have eliminated the tendency to get kinks in the wire. Nick has had to replace the Lowered ADCP unit. Pat is rebuilding an XBT processing unit from scratch.

Team Chemistry have been working very hard. Alison has the unenviable task of coaxing temperamental gas chromatographs to work, measuring CFCs. This has been very stressful and she deserves a medal, and at the very least a Mention in Dispatches. There have been a series of problems which she has solved carefully, and today she has at last looked more relaxed and less exhausted. Fiona has put her own SF6 work to one side for a while to support Alison, Sally has been learning CFC analysis ‘on the job’, and Uli and Oliver have been helping with sampling and trouble shooting. The nutrients/oxygen team are busy but seem to have everything under control. Well that’s what they tell us anyway.

We have had a few sightings of schools of pilot whales near the ship, causing great excitement. We saw them spyhopping – this is when they lift their heads out of the water using their flippers to balance, to have a look around, presumably out of curiosity. There have been large numbers of birds, mostly various types of albatrosses (Black browed and the big Wandering ones), and also a pretty delicate pied bird called a Cape Petrel.

As we turned south across Drake Passage we found ourselves beam on to a large swell. During Saturday conditions worsened, it began to rain and the wind got up. The last station of Saturday night was sampled in mountainous seas, and Sally was at one stage drenched to her waist. Sunday morning found us hove to, sitting out the storm into wind. The wind during the night was up to force 11 but had abated to 9 by morning. Everyone was groggy with lack of sleep, as the ship had rolled and corkscrewed all night. Dave L was found curled on the floor of the main lab claiming it was the most comfortable place. He has struggled on stoically despite suffering the worst seasickness of all of us.

By lunchtime Sunday the wind was decreasing but the seas were still confused. A number of us were in the bar for ‘tabnabs’, pre-lunch snacks, when the ship gave an almighty roll (measured at 39 degrees). All the tabnabs went flying. There was mayonnaise over the Mate, tartar sauce all over Lucy. John was thrown from his chair, somersaulted over Sally, hurtled out of the door and back in again, all without spilling a drop of his gin ! Down in the lab even more devastation had occurred. Nick’s computer had, lemming like, decided to throw itself off the bench to which it was screwed down. Kate showed incredible presence of mind. She threw down the can of coke in her hand, launched herself at the computer and managed to catch the hard disks, while the monitor dangled on its lead an inch off the deck. Seconds later she was attacked by a flying metal waste bin which has given her a very nasty bruise on her knee. We have given her stick for the mess caused by the coke can as there were 2 other waste bins within reach which she managed to miss, but she definitely wins this week’s prize for heroism beyond the call of duty.

Stations began again on Sunday afternoon when the waves had abated somewhat. We hear rumours that another low pressure system is on its way. We are just crossing the Polar Front. Today our passenger, Crispin Day, whom we are dropping off at Rothera, gave us a slide show about Antarctica, which has certainly whetted our appetites for the ice and scenery to come. Something to look forward to this week.

Karen and Dave

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