Friday 21 August 2009

Day 13 – 19th August

So as I mentioned yesterday before running off to find out more about the satellite images, we had begun to move south again back to the section were we plan to deploy the new moorings. The new section is located slightly further north than the 2007 section (when the moorings were deployed), between Jo Island and Ellesmere Island. As with recovering the moorings, I was not particularly involved with their re deployment, so my day was pretty quiet. However the three technicians onboard, Joe, Dave and Ron have been working incredibly hard for the last few days in preparation for putting the moorings back in the water. Between them the have refurbished or rebuild all the battery case, acoustic releases, floats, frames, Kevlar mooring lines and lots more that isn’t immediately obvious. As you can imagine, a lot of care and attention to detail has to go into their work as any problem is likely to prevent the mooring from being recovered in two years time. A significant loss when each ADCP mooring is estimated to cost $150,000 Canadian dollars to get into the water!


However, as I news flashed yesterday, the mooring work was quickly put back in the queue of priorities when new satellite imagery came though showing a clean path through the ice into the Petermann Fjord. Humfrey (the chief scientist, and my supervisor) and the captain decided to turn the boat around and head back up north to complete the work we had been unable to do a few days ago. We were all pretty excited at the prospect of having to break more of the thick ice I mentioned a fews days ago and at the possibility of seeing the Petermann Fjord which according to those who have been here before, is one of the most spectacular parts of the cruise! So after completing another CTD section we all went to bed hoping the ice wouldn’t shift to much overnight stopping the ships relentless march northwards.

No comments:

Post a Comment