18 August to 24 August 2008

In the first part of the week we continued to steam northward. On August 20th, the ship arrived at the entrance of the NW passage. Only the longer daylight indicates that we are really sailing towards the Arctic Ocean. During our transit we are also continuously passing different time zones. According to the local time, the ship clock is set back by one hour every second day. At the moment we have a time lag of 6 hours to the Central European Standard Time. Ignoring the timing consequences for sailing west would have left those of us working in the research area in a situation where we would work during the local night and sleep during the day.

During our passage, the ship’s TV programme showed a documentation on the historic facts of several expeditions to discover the NW passage. Everybody is now well informed about the difficulties the Franklin and Amundsen expeditions encountered while operating in this area. Contrary to Roald Amundsen, who was the first to sail the sea way, we needed only 4 days instead of 3 years. However, the beautiful landscape of the Canadian islands is rarely visible. Only for a few hours the constantly present fog allows a view on the snowy coasts. Finally, during sailing through the NW passage, we passed the rim of the magnetic North Pole. This point is presently situated underneath the northernmost Canadian islands.

This week, every scientific group finished the installation and tests of their equipment. On August 21st, the geologists took the first bottom samples of the cruise south of the Inuit settlement Resolute Bay. Afterwards, we continued to make good progress by steaming westward. Only few small ice fields forced the ship to reduce its speed.
Today we entered the Canada Basin. This deep-sea basin with water depths of up to 3500 m was formed approximately 130 Ma. Parts of Siberia and North America started to drift apart. The continental drift, which formed the young Arctic Ocean, was accompanied by strong volcanism. Some 20-30 Myr ago, the continental drift ceased, and the Canada Basin received since then up to 5000 m of sediments, which were eroded from the surrounding continents. Details of this young geological history are still poorly understood. Thus, one of the main geoscientific objectives of this cruise is to better understand the geological development of this area.

However, at the moment there are still hardly any research programs active. The weather has significantly changed for the worse: Snow fall, dense fog and temperatures around 0°C. Fortunately, the sea ice has retreated far to the north along our track, and only small ice fields in the Canada Basin force the ship to slow down. Thus, we choose the direct course to reach our research area. We hope that we can start our regular science programme next Wednesday.

Best wishes to the readers at home                    Wilfried Jokat

August, 24th, 2008        74°48’N 130°38’W         -0.7°C