January 19

Yesterday started (at midnight) like all the other days since we reached the Ross Sea. Bright and sunny with no winds and flat seas. There were some clouds to the south. As the morning progressed, it became cloudy and it started to snow, just flurries. The winds increased from the south. As the day wore on, the winds increased to 35 kt and the seas built to 3-5 feet. The ship actually moved a bit in the waves. We have not felt that in awhile.

By noon, it started to look like Antarctica outside. The temperature dropped to -8 C (12 F). It snowed off and on. It remained cloudy. These conditions eased a bit in the afternoon, but are still with us this morning.  

We did two more stations yesterday afternoon and then headed for Ross Bank which is in the south center of the Ross Sea. It will be about 8 hours of transit which will let several groups catch up on work.

The heavy red line is the ship track. 

On the way, we have been throwing XBTs (eXpendable BathyThermographs), which measure water temperature without requiring the boat to stop. One of the measurements indicated subsurface warm water of over 2C, which is the signature of a type of water that we came here to study. We decided to turn back (about an hour to return) and sample the feature. Unfortunately, when we got back to the same place, there was no sign of water warmer than -1.5C. The measurement was due to a bad XBT, or some other instrument failure.  So, we resumed the transit to the Ross Sea.

When we saw the warm temperature, notice went through the science party to get ready to sample. Many had gone to bed to get some sleep during the transit. Most were now awake again, but not thrilled by the prospect of more work.  There was considerable relief (it seems) when the warm water turned out to be a false alarm. Most of the tired folks went back to sleep.  Such is life on a research cruise.

Research cruises are sociologically interesting. Most of us had not met one another before the cruise, or were only casual acquaintances. Over the first week or so, everyone meets everyone. After another short while we get comfortable together and become a sort of family. Then, we become a slightly dysfunctional family. We are starting to enter that phase now.

One of the Info techs likes brownies. The cook has been making brownies and other cakes and cookies for us to enjoy.  Someone has been putting new brownies on the tech's desk, making the point that he enjoys them a bit too much. Then several people put sweets on his desk when he was not looking. He started to refuse the brownies (as he was eating some at meals).

Yesterday, the cook made some interesting, high octane, brownies with chocolate chips and were covered with ground espresso and icing. The brownies had sugar, chocolate and caffeine--high octane, as I said. The captain made a point of delivering brownies to the tech at his desk to make sure that he got his allotment.  It remains a mystery if the cook just happened to make the extra good brownies or if someone put him up to it (the Captain, perhaps). It is hard to tell at this point in the cruise. We have about 3 more weeks to go, so we will see where this goes, or if some new game arises. 

On some ships, especially a number of years ago, it was hard to keep track of what was going on. Unless you visited the bridge, it was hard to tell where we were or where we were going.  The Palmer has a very good way to distribute information around the ship--a closed circuit TV system.  There are 15 or 20 cameras around the ship showing various places where things might be going on. For instance, there is a camera in the Baltic Room so we can see the CTD coming and going.  In addition, there are a number of information screens so we can get various information. In fact, each cabin has a small TV so we can follow activities on the ship from our cabins.

The dry lab is a center of activity. Most people pass through an ask for information about what is happening and what is coming up and when. Typically, our group (the CTD group) is the one that people ask. There is an array of TV's in the dry lab (photo below) that we use to keep informed.

Each of these TVs can be set to whatever channel (there are over 100 channels) we want to watch. During the day, we change channels to follow various activities. We are now in transit so we are monitoring the bow and stern cameras along with screens showing weather conditions, navigation information and surface ocean conditions.

The bow camera shows flat seas and no sea ice or icebergs.

The stern camera shows what is happening on deck and we can monitor what the A-frame is doing.  It is the big structure that is used to lift instruments from the deck into the water and then tow them behind the ship.

This panel below shows weather information. Notice the temperature of -6.9C and a wind chill below -22C. It also tells us the date and time (Greenwich Time, not local time). It is easy to lose track of days on a cruise. With the sun always up, we do not get any hints about the local time.

The navigation panel shows our location (latitude and longitude) as well as boat speed and heading. We put in waypoints so we know how long before we get where we are going. This shows that we are on the way to Ross Bank and it will take 6.5 hours to get there.

Finally, we are making measurements on water that is taken into the ship to cool the engines. Some water is diverted to run through a number of instruments. The surface water is a bit "warm" at 0.711C which is about 34F.  Swim call, anyone?