At Neumayer Station

In parallel, we test new vehicles and drilling equipment, which we acquired for mooring recoveries in thick sea ice, but also for the upcoming major project MOSAiC (https://www.awi.de/im-fokus/mosaic-expedition.html) in the Arctic.  A new tracked vehicle, boldly baptized FLASH (Fast & Luxurious AntArctic Sea Ice Hopper, Fig. 2) proves useful as a speedy transport means for material and personnel.  It even would be capable of floating in case of emergencies, a rather assuring feature when working on sea ice.  The drill (Fig. 3), however, has its issues with the ice shelf, and does not like going deeper than 1 metre without jamming.  However, the sea ice, which we ultimately seek to drill through, will be much softer than the hard ice shelf.

After just over two days, cargo operations are complete, but before departing for the Weddell Sea we need to wait for our new meteorologist and the nautical officer, who shall be flown in Thursday, along with urgently needed spare parts for ship and science.  Meanwhile we use the time to recover the fish trap and the fish mooring which we had deployed a few days ago, yet not without having had a brief farewell drink with the Neumayer team.  On the evening of Wednesday, back in the polynya described in the previous weekly report, we cast another RMT, and test the newly repaired SUIT (Fig. 4), which had suffered quite some damage during its previous deployment, before returning to the Nordanleger on Thursday morning.

And indeed, shortly after we welcome our new meteorologist and nautical officer, capacities which we clearly missed during the past weeks.  Without a meteorologist, the (weather) routing is quite limited and the helicopters may be used in close vicinity of the ship only, while the captain and the 1st officer had to take extra watches. This occasion is also being used by a high ranking delegation on its way to inspect Neumayer Station regarding its operation and utilization, to be informed first hand on board our old lady Polarstern, on the synergy between station and ship when conducting and organizing German and international polar research.

Shortly after the delegation’s departure, we are on our way into the Weddell Sea proper, where many stations await us.  We circumnavigate an intense storm, which slowly is encroaching on Neumayer, by proceeding swiftly west along within the coastal polynya, but not without lifting the spirits of our sea ice biologists when conduction more SUIT, RMT and under-ice ROV surveys.

A once again nearly fully occupied Polarstern sends its cheers from the southernmost point of our expedition, slowly starting to make its way through the Weddell Sea.

Olaf Boebel