ANT-XXIII/9, 2nd Report, 19 February 2007
At the weekend we boldly venture the ship into a field of ice covering 90% of the sea surface. It is reminiscent of a bumpy road. In a 30 knot wind one must subtract 20 degrees C from the freezing point (windchill!) and the student with the shorts from Santiago must finally swap them for proper long legged pants. Used sea ice, untethered, perforated, banded brown, and inhabited by algae, bobbsd in slow motion to the lazy swells. And snow falls on deck and off the door at home.
It is somewhat of a spiritual setting. The bridge in twilight, a hundred colorful bulbs revealing the ship in full function, a monitor showing a film, minimal art, water brought to light from the abyss. Just a little turn of a compass ensures: this is no still image. This is cinema: life! It is rumored that a jellyfish just went by. The tone of the film follows crisp instructions as to the position and bearing of the ship. The captain himself steers. Each bit of technology is concentrated on the hatches: a container full of steering electronics, a special winch wound with fiber optic cable to transmit information from depth to deck and to send orders back in the other direction: we are searching for MABEL (Multidisciplinary Antarctic Benthic Laboratory)- the first deep sea observatory in the Southern Ocean- operated by Italian and German colleagues from Berlin.
But Neptune does not readily allow observation of his southernmost sea. To put it briefly: The cable has a loose connection, our colleagues have a problem, and MABEL must wait another year to be retrieved.
We release our first station on Sunday afternoon; a CTD cast: temperature and salinity are measured down to a depth of 2800 m. And then there is all this effort to drop a steel cage several thousand meters (and get it back)- ah, but the contents! One loss to geology would be for this place to become a new titanium deposit. Internal sensitive electronics must be protected against the pressure at 6000 meters of depth and the pleasure of seawater to corrode metal; the use of only truly noble metals ensures the longevity of the releasers of the ocean bottom seismometers. A cable hanging too deep gets bent- the ship's propellers cut those things very fine- hydrophone sedimentation. But each bit of titanium makes it back up on deck in good shape.
The Weddell Sea is crossed and Neumayer looms within shouting distance. Concert of our echo sounders for PALAOA (1). But with ten tenths sea ice coverage covered with all of last year's snow, all engines need to push. PALAOA must be satisfied with a short propeller minuet. The planned profile symphony falls victim to the opera of grinding through the ice. The ship has anchored against Antarctica. Faces show excited bewilderment and questions. Truly slipping into Antarctic mode happens in this white space, or "white out" in pilot jargon. The eyes desperately look for a focal point- nothing- only white, no contrast, what happened to topography? Where are the landmarks? One's gaze drifts without being stopped by anything. If you have never seen nothing, you cannot quite understand. Just the weekenders' settlement at the beach (quote of the chief scientist, viewing Neumayers containers close to the ice edge) gives some form to focus on within the diffuse whiteness of the landscape.
Than the sun breaks through and the group breaks out. The following day is stuffed full of impressions that would overload the weekly report. Walks over firn, helicopter transports, a green library-on-ice, Neumayer in the midst of the ice shelf and blue skies through the ozone hole above us. Personal accounts should be sent home as a supplement. Special reference must, however, be made of the evening "goodbye and have a nice few months" party held at the ice edge for the Neumayer overwintering team. The sun meets the horizon in a sharp angle and one takes the time it would take to have a leisurely dinner to, warm rum punch in hand, drink in the backdrop of icebergs filling the bay. Then the ship blows her horn, calling us in, so she can make her way free of the ice. The wind has turned and the old floes have now to leave Atka Bay so the autumn storms may be able to build fresh ice. Slowly the sun slips below the horizon and an Antarctic dream day comes to an end while the first mate plays music over the ship's PA system. Nothing like a ship plowing through ice to opera.
We travel now generally east, and steam and steam through blue water, through grey water, through black and through white water, depending on light and aggregate conditions. And from time to time a solitary float (2) is tossed over the side.
Impressed greetings from the Southern Ocean- all is well and lively!
(1) In the framework of the efforts of AWI to study the Southern Ocean thoroughly, a hydrophone was lowered through the shelf ice in the vicinity of Neumayer to paint a picture of the underwater noises that are constantly being made: ice bergs colliding, penguins enticing killer whales, singing seals. Then anyone at home can listen to the underwater noise life himself thanks to the internet connection at the station. To find out more about this, check the "Palaoa" pages on the AWI website. To adequately describe the transmission of Antarctic sounds through the under water ear of Neumayer is well beyond the possibilities of this report.
(2) For continuous observations of the ocean's physical properties (temperature and salinity), Argo floats have been deployed for several years. For four years these self-contained buoys deliver their measurements to a central system via satellite, after their return to surface from a dive of a ten days period. Once posted, these data are immediately available to the scientific community. At the moment, roughly 2800 Argo floats are swimming around the world ocean. We will deploy 15 more on this expedition- in a region which hasn’t seen one of them before.