At Neumayer Station

Here, the Ekström Ice Shelf extends into, or rather onto, the ocean.  Being about 150m thick and free floating, about 15m of it tower above the sea surface.  At our berthing site, its height above the water line is only 12m, perfect conditions for providing the Neumayer Station with supplies and fuel.  The “land-side” operations can easily be observed from the ship’s bridge and the reduced height facilitates the transfer of fuel and containers.  The loading operations have been planned meticulously since long and shortly after our arrival they commence.  A total of 24 containers with provisions and material, a Pistenbully (Fig. 1) and 320,000 litres of fuel are landed while 32 t of return cargo are loaded aboard Polarstern.

5. January 2017, 2 weeks and 6 days at sea

The Pistenbullies of Neumayer Station sedulously tow sledge after sledge alongside the ship.  Loaded with containers they are then parked nearby (Fig. 2) for later journey inland to Neumayer Station. As hoped for, perfect weather conditions prevail today, allowing the inaugural scientific flight of “our” new helicopter, a BK-117 (Fig. 3). Personnel and equipment are transported onto the fast ice of Atka Bay to install an observatory measuring the growth and melt of sea ice for many months to come. The ice on which the observatory resides will survive, so we hope, the coming summer, and float with the Antarctic Coastal Current towards the southern Weddell Sea. Another helicopter flight takes us to an old acquaintance: PALAOA, the Perennial Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean.  The observatory records the underwater acoustic environment around the northern berth of Atka Sea Port, which (temporarily) constitutes the northernmost tip of the Ekström Ice Shelf. A conundrum of whale and seal calls, but also the hissing of waves and explosion-like sounds when the ice shelf calves are recorded here for now over 10 years. Our maintenance serves to check on the noise level measurement’s calibration (is the ocean really getting louder as frequently claimed?), to exchange batteries and to install improved hardware. Safely tucked away in a box hidden a meter under the snow cover, the system now records the ocean’s sound for another few months at studio quality. The recording rate of 96,000 Hz allows capturing the presence of beaked whales which click at frequencies well above the human hearing range. In about 3 months, our colleagues from Neumayer Station will again visit this remote site to refurbish batteries and memory cards to ensure the continuation of these recordings.

6. January 2017, 3 weeks at sea

Our last day at Neumayer. The transfer of fuel starts at 8 AM, as during the days before, and lasts into the early hours of the evening, just like the restoring of containers left aboard and the loading of cargo returned by Neumayer. Finally, at 7 PM, we are ready.  Work is finished, everything is tied down for going back to sea, and after a short farewell drink, we wave goodbye to the Neumayer Team standing on the edge of the ice shelf. This time, it is a very special goodbye, as it is the last year for our long-time colleague Eberhard Kohlberg to coordinate the summer activities (and hence the cargo operations just completed) at Neumayer. An era is coming to a close.

However, the ship (or is it the ice) is not well-disposed towards our intentions. For now the departure is stalled, even waving goodbye for hours does not help. Thick ice floes, more than 6 metres deep and with 2 metres of snow on top, keep us at our berth for the time being. When the wind blows across large areas of water or ice, it pushes these forward at an angle of 45° (anticlockwise in the Southern Hemisphere), an effect known as Ekman Spiral. This time to our disadvantage, as, since last night, the stiffening easterly breeze pushes the flows more and more against the ice shelf edge. For now, only changing tides and shifting winds have the power to loosen the icy grip.