Hi Everyone,
We are really starting to get into the meat of the cruise now as we arrived at the P3 mooring today. This is the first mooring we are taking in and is about 200 miles NW of South Georgia. We managed to bring it onboard smoothly and then the rest of the day became a hive of activity trying to get all of the instruments sorted. For each instrument this involved taking them off the mooring, cleaning them, extracting data, replacing batteries and getting them back on the mooring, as well as fixing any issues that may have come up in the 2 years since it was last visited. Not an easy task!
The mooring consists of 4km of rope with a true plethora of instruments, from those measuring the currents, to the temperature or the pressure of the water. There was also a sediment trap to sample floating sediment, as well as measurements of underwater sound. This was a lot to do and everyone had to put in a lot of work, especially when some of the instruments had compasses that refused to acknowledge directions other than North!!!
It is also important to remember that all of this is taking place on a moving ship. Believe it or not, this makes literally everything so much harder. Even screwing something together is ten times harder when everything rolls away whenever you put it down. The waves today were some of the stronger we have had so far, around 3-4m average, up to 5.7m as a max height (high for us, but apparently quite standard for this part of the world). There has been a joke going around that this makes the ship the world’s worst rollercoaster, because it is quite repetitive and more importantly…. You can’t get off!
The waves today have led to a huge amount of chaos, with bottles and personal items going everywhere. Even in the galley the salt, sauces and even food was flying around, making for some entertaining scenes. One student described their shower experience as “Naked and Afraid”, which is understandable when the room is rolling around, you’re having to hang on for dear life, and the water is merrily flowing straight out of the shower all over the floor. A lot of entertainment and hilarity, which helps make up for the frustration.
The rest of the day passed quite smoothly, I head a few rumours of penguin and whale sightings from the boat, but by the time I had run over they were always gone. Happily, I was treated to some great albatross and seabird sightings so I can’t complain. I finished up the day with some midnight CTD sampling, nothing like taking water samples on a cold deck at midnight, you have to love it!
I hope you are all having more warm and comfortable holidays, and getting ready for New Year’s Eve.
28/12/22
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