The end of an adventure

After fishing was done we headed "around the corner" to Dutch Harbor. It is absolutely beautiful but definitely a working port. Many of the crew have not been off the ship for 55 days so port was a welcome site. For the science crew the harbor was bitter sweet - we accomplished a LOT in a relatively short amount of time: scads of moorings, 172 ctd's....the list goes on and on but we'll be leaving behind new friendships with promises of visits to various marine labs across the country. And I was lucky enough to see (and walk on) Arctic ice before it is all gone.

tug that helped us dock in dutch harbor

Final cruise track.

Land ho!

We have finally seen land and some of it was Russia! We came right through the Bering Straits and Bryon and I got very busy as birds and mammals picked up. The fog lifted just a bit so we could see 2 countries simultaneously. This was a busy time on the bridge and lots of photos of foggy land were taken.

to run from weather and kill some times, we made our way to a beautiful fishing spot

We continued on and made such great time that the berth we were to occupy was unavailable so the captain decided to "park" the ship in a pretty little Aleutian cove and give the crew time to fish. A few small halibut were caught but everyone had a great time. It was sunny - something we have seen little of - so everyone tried to soak up as much as we could.

fishing on the fantail

sunbathing in the Aleautians

Next stop....Dutch Harbor.

Hey, it's time to eat again!

One thing about the Healy, you will never go hungry. We have meals at 0700, 1100, 1700 and "mid-rats" at 2300. Cooking for a group like this is a challenge, so thought i'd include a few photos of our galley. Too tired to write much more...

waiting in line for food...yet again!

Our head chef, always happy!

 

 

One of the galley tables - note that it doubles as an operating table.

 

 

Food scraps go into a disposal called the "red goat". Sometimes silverware goes in by accident as well and then makes it to the wall of shame.

what happens in the arctic when you don't recycle

A few of my favorite things....

Look for the little ship - that's us by the island. The yellow line is our course to Dutch Harbor.

 Yesterday was an amazing day for sightings - lots of whales so we were on the bridge all day and well into the night. We had a gray whale come up right next to the boat and leave a big cloud of mud in his/her wake. No photos as most animals were far away but glad we finally saw an animal we could id. A little sad when they announced, in pirate voice and ship's bell ringing, that we had crossed the arctic circle. The officers on board took off their red hats and replaced them blue ones. 

We are steaming as fast as we can (18.5 kts!) toward Dutch Harbor, a not so picturesque  town where we face the prospect of being stuck for multiple days due to multiple storms. Everywhere you go on the ship right now you can hear people talking about the end of the trip, what junk food they're going to eat, how they can't wait to see their families (most of the crew has been on the Healy since May), how they can't wait to see a tree, etc. But mostly it's dreaming about favorite things that you've missed. I am really missing home but am not dreaming of food at all. This did get us all talking about some of our favorite things on the ship. Two of mine have been seeing the Northern Lights and polar bears. So here are a few photos of those things (note: these photos are from crewmember Shu).

The water is glowing in this picture because the ship had it's ice lights on during the night.

This was a phenomenal evening - we had the moon, northern lights and sunset all at the same time!

Northern lights and aloft con - shot taken with a long exposure which is why you can see the stars so well.

Sun at last!

We had forgotten how great it was to see the sun! It was a really beautiful morning and we went back through some ice. We almost didn't care that we didn't even see any birds all morning. I'm really tired and the web is really slow so just a few quick picks. We have one last mooring to deploy in the very early morning - pretty much back where we started. Then we boogie west, and around the corner to the Chukchi and Bering Seas. Our sightings should really pick up then but so will the weather - there is a huge storm in the gulf of alaska (30'+ seas) and one that will be in this area but so far we are dodging all the really bad weather.

It's good to have friends in high places....

 

As I think I told everyone, we have some water issues on board. Laundry has reached critical mass but have no fear the Coast Guard is here. Today was the day they flew our missing part in to us. The C-130 has a routine training run so they came to us. Once again even this operation required lots of waiting....something we have all gotten very good at. We launched our RHIB to stand by to retrieve the part. We finally heard the plane overhead, they circled lowered and dropped a flair as a marker. They then circled back and dropped the part almost right on top of the flare - pretty impressive. Of course they couldn't resist a few more passes - some very close as you can see. We should have things fixed very soon but it will take a few days to build up our water supply again.

Gray daze

This is where Bryon and I do our visual survey observations.

 You would think that standing and looking at nothing all day would be easy but I assure you it is not. As I think I wrote (I'm really not sure anymore - the days are blending into one) I am now watching for marine mammals and recording my observations. So far my data sheet is pretty sad....even the Coasties were commenting on how desolate it's been. We went way north and were only 15 miles from Canadian soil so Bryon and I thought we'd have a great chance of seeing lots of birds and maybe belugas or bowheads. After a late night writing a report, I drug my tired self out of bed at 5:30 am and went up on watch. Bryon was a little smarter and slept thru his alarm. We packed it in at around 3 this afternoon. A few birds and that's it.

This new sign appeared last weekend on the scientist level of the ship - a very popular way to pass the time on board is humor and jokes. If only we had a sauna on board. And how 'bout the arrows to the bars and lounges!

My colleague Josh did put some sonobuoys in today. These are floating microphones or hydrophones that you toss into the water and they telemeter the acoustic data back to the ship. We have a computer terminal up on the bridge so I can see what he's recording and we can coordinate our acoustic and visual observations of marine mammals. All he could hear was a Shell Oil company ship doing an really loud acoustic survey in the area. I'm sure things will pick up. As we move further west we should run into many species as they migrate south for the winter. Keep your fingers crossed!

Walking on (frozen) water.....

We went pretty far north, and are now heading southeast deeper into Canadian waters.

It was a pretty noisy night - crashing thru the ice is a noisy task. Bob decided to stop when we got close to a 9 mi wide piece of ice we were watching on the satellite images and thus the CTD team was back on (I'll explain what they do later this week). So we basically parked the ship in the ice for the night if you can imagine that. They mount special lights on the ship to monitor the ice. I was really tired but it was almost clear nite so those of us on the day watch tried to stay awake for the northern lights....no luck. I crawled into bed at around 1:30 and guess what I missed - A POLAR BEAR CAME RIGHT UP TO THE SHIP....and no one woke me! People got good photos so I'll have to post them later. We found out the next day that the Russian icebreakers actually feed the polar bears - really not a good idea. They are curious enough without baiting them. I did get to see 2 polar bears far from the ship while cruising thru the ice (the picture was not very good) so that helped.....a little.

Besides waking up to that disappointment, the clouds rolled in and we could no longer get good remote ice images. We got to the spot we dubbed "ice island" and guess what - no island. Just patchy old ice. We then basically bashed our way back to where we started and finally found a piece of ice that looked ok for the met station. It looked pretty small and we were all pretty sad that it looked like our ice liberty was not going to happen. The CG is very very careful on the ice - we had a big meeting where they explained that the rescue swimmers would go first and drill a few bore holes to check things out. Then the met team would go and install their station. The captain then told us "and then we'll assess the stability of the ice and determine whether there will be ice liberty". Hmmmmmm - things were looking up but we didn't want to get our hopes too high. We all watched the rescue swimmers flag off the floe, and the safe spots got bigger and bigger. The announcement then came that ice liberty was on! Everyone lined up to go down the companionway and there we were - standing on a floating piece of ice in the Arctic. Truly amazing. The crew actually played a short game of touch football. Everyone seemed refreshed but really tired if that makes any sense.

Goldie, the little stuffed retriever from Nye Beach Montessori, snuggles with Elizabeth, our local Inupiut. Yes, even Goldie got to step on Arctic ice.

 We are now heading further east and hope to see some more wildlife. I seemed to be jinxed and they are only seeing animal life when I am NOT on watch!

ICE!

We finished our CTD line this am and headed north to the ice - and look what we found! We have been watching this all day, as the fog rolled in and out. Tough day on watch as there were very few birds and 1 distant seal, but the prospect of ice kept us going. Finally at dinner we were truly in some ice - so fantastic we all couldn't stop taking pictures!

Red track is us (see boat) black and white is remote ice image.

We are now in Canadian waters (Hi Louise) and bashing our way thru the ice - very noisy and bumpy and really fun. Not sure we're going to get much sleep tonite. I have a talk to write for tomorrow nite and I've been on the bridge all day as this was the first clear day we've had for mammal and bird watch so I have to make this short. YIPES! just got knocked from my chair! This is light ice for this ship so no worries. There is also a chance for northern lights as we have a few small patches of clear sky. Here are a few more images from today - we are all greatful for digital cameras as we can't stop shooting.......oh and by the way - we are running short on water so they have closed the laundry, removed certain drinks, and we're using paper plates and cups and plastic utensils. We may be a very stinky bunch soon. The good news is they will be dropping the part we need from a C-130 during a scheduled training run - I LOVE THE COAST GUARD!

view from my porthole

Fog and ice and a little bit of sun.

Foggy thoughts.....

Today was our last mooring - it is amazing to watch this deck crew work. We decided that watching John was like watching a surgeon - things that take us all forever to do he can do with his eyes closed. He has a few very colorful expressions that we are also fond of but they are a little too colorful for this G-rated blog! I am now switching to the bridge to watch for marine mammals. Of course that is difficult to do when you're in a fog - which I am and we are. I am having a little trouble leaving the action of the lab and instead staring at gray water and gray sky. I haven't needed much in the way of caffeine as I think the terror of having to be ready with my mooring stuff kept me awake...until today. Both Bryon the bird guy and I agreed that caffeine is directly correlated to the quality of our data.

We have been going in circles because of weather etc. but no more - soon we will be turning and heading north into the ice - we are all very excited. Bob will be deploying his met instrument there. The sad  news is we are having to travel a long way to get to ice - 20 years ago you could never steam around the way we are because there was too much ice. We have also seen very little wildlife....everything is connected and it shows. For those with doubts of climate change check out the Inupiat part of the outreach website for this cruise and the section re: questions from the school kids - we were all asked if we believed in global warming or not. Also take a look at this NASA site:

http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
There is talk of ice liberty - something the Healy hasn't done in a while because of a past diving accident. It will involve people with guns patrolling for polar bears and scientists and crew cavorting on the ice. Keep your fingers crossed!

We will also be heading east into Canadian waters (we have special permission from the native hunting villages) and will lose internet for a few days......so keep those comments and emails coming as I am missing home!

Stitches are out.....mooring is in!

Lt Christ and one of my shipmates.

Another exciting few days aboard the Healy. Yesterday was a quiet day as the mooring team was pretty exhausted, so I decided it was a good time to get my stitches out. Natalie, they said that right now there is no such job as a nurse on a USCG helicopter but they thought it was a pretty good idea! My knee feels great! I took it easy and iced it and wrote up mooring reports.

Today I was scheduled to do my last mooring this afternoon but the weather was a bit iffy so we decided to do it FIRST. Yipes! but as usual all went well and got the mooring in just fine. I know I haven't explained what these data  will tell us - hopefully I'll get to that soon.

Dave and I with my final mooring ready to go.

We are headed east - the sun came out FINALLY and it was chilly but fun on deck. We saw our first ice on the horizon and hope to see lots more soon. And yes Natalie, we often go in circles! Hello to all - I miss you!

A good day

Although it may at times seem like I am at camp I assure you I am not. I have not had a break for more than a meal since I left home. Because the schedule changes a lot due to weather and well, due to lots of things, I had to have all 3 moorings ready to go and be ready to recover 4. One mooring was missing some very important parts so I needed to consult with my experts aboard and come up with plan D (I am way past plan B). The instruments and boxes weigh a LOT and so do the releases so I need help moving everything and keeping everything organized. I needed to reprogram 2 of the instruments and one would not wake up. But the good news is yesterday and today were very big days. Yesterday I put in 2 and got 2 out of the water - really fantastic. I was really tired and then Bob, our chief scientist, told me that we'd try to recover 2 moorings today and be ready to go with my third deployment just in case. So a late nite in the lab (things take a lot longer when you can't kneel ) and a 5:30 wake-up. The fog was really thick today so that slowed down the first recovery but then it was my turn. We had a pretty stressful start - no release talking to us at all - until we discovered the ship went to a different location than we had requested (the sites are close together and we are doing a lot of recoveries and the names of the moorings are similar) and I got the other 2 moorings back. YAHOOOOO! I can't tell you how relieved I am. My deployment won't happen until Wednesday and that's good 'cause everyone needed a break. There was a lot of scrubbing and cleaning and dragging around heavy objects so now I am really really physically tired but happy. And so is the crew.

"the board of lies" - nicknamed because our schedule is always changing. 4 of the agenda items were mine yesterday - I was busy!

 I have not had my stitches out yet and that is good as things have been strenuous. I'll probably do it tomorrow. Ice was close today. Seas are picking up and the ship is shuddering and we still haven't seen the sun since the day we helo'd on. But today was still a good day.....and it ended with pecan pie!

What am I doing here?

I have asked myself this question many times during the last 10 days - and I have had many answers depending on the day! My main role aboard the ship is to pick up and deploy hydrophones or underwater microphones that sit in the ocean for a year, record the sounds they detect and then write those acoustic data to a hard drive.  The deploying end of this involves a kind of scavenger hunt aboard the vessel - I had to find all of the equipment that was shipped to the Healy six months ago by two different labs, then get all the pieces for each style of mooring (2 different types) then get each mooring put together as best I could in the lab, then we do the final assembly on deck and THEN we get to put the mooring in the water.


We have an amazing assortment of people on board, including two men (one from Woods Hole and one from UAF) that have almost 75 years of mooring experience between them. In contrast, I have never put a mooring together in my life and had little prep before I left because my colleagues for whom I am doing this were both out to sea. So this has been the proverbial pressure cooker which has involved on the job training and lots of patience from those around me. I can now say I am quite fond of cotter pins whereas a few days ago I was cursing them! And luckily I brought chocolate for those helping me! Once things are assembled the floats and a railroad wheel (yes an old heavy > 700 lb wheel) is attached as an anchor and the entire "string" is carefully deployed from the stern. We then wave goodbye, hope the instrument works as designed and have to come back next year to pick it up.

Deck crew and CG MSTs (Marine Science Technicians)

My array ready and waiting for deployment.

Hydrophone mooring is lifted....

Instruments lowered into water.....

Anchor then lifted from deck....

Anchor lowered in water and rope removed. Anchor goes to bottom and instrument floats in water column.

CG RHIB - grabbing string of floats that are attached to the hydrophone.

 The second part of moored instruments is getting them back. These recorders  have an acoustic link in the string - you send a certain pattern of sounds at a particular frequency and this opens the acoustic link which releases the wheel, leaving it on the bottom. The flotation then sends the string of instruments to the surface. Isn't that amazing? Yes it is....when it works. Lots of times you'll get to the study site, send the code and there is no answer. OR the release answers, you send the release code, and the instrument never comes up. One then begins to wonder if you have the right code, or we try turning the ship or we move the transducer a bit deeper when we are sending the code. Or you release the instrument and the fog rolls in and you can't find it. This is all very stressful....everyone usually comes out on deck to help spot because out of desperation you send the release code many times and there is a small chance the instrument did release and it's bobbing around out there not talking.

Reeling in our hydrophone and floats. Fish on!

We've had one instrument (from Scripps) talk back and never come up. We think it's buried in the mud (this is a very dynamic area). When we finally spot the floats the CG RIB comes to the ship, grabs a line, takes it to the floats, attaches it and then gets out of the way. We slowly reel everything in with our giant winch. My moorings are quite small compared to some of the WHOI ones that weigh >2,000 lbs. The instruments then come on board for cleaning, we let them warm up (the water is 4 degrees C) and we hopefully get the data off the hard drives.

Every step of this has to be correct or you lose a year of data - YIPES! So that's what I'm doing here.......wish me luck - I have four of these hydrophones to get back. Last year they had three that never made it to the surface :( ......

Saturday Nite in the Arctic

It has been a busy few days. I have all of  my equipment "bits and bobs" (an expression from one of my English shipmates) finally together and organized- no small feat as the equipment was everywhere and some important pieces are missing. Luckily, there are 2 mooring guys on board that have over 75 years experience between them and they have helped tremendously and helped me devise plan b. Tomorrow I will pick up 1 mooring and put in 2 - a big day - and I'll describe what that means in my next post.

This is the craziest ship I have ever been on - right now I am doing LAUNDRY if you can believe that! It took me a little while to find the laundry of course - I had to go thru the gym (yes the gym). We have decided that this is like being trapped in a bad hotel - the ship is so stable and the seas so calm that I put a cup of water on my desk today and forgot about it - and all the water  was still in the cup 10 minutes later. For those of you that spend time at sea you know how remarkable this is. Football was on the big screen tv in the coast guard side of the galley (yes Nat, I could watch football if only I had time).  Because today is Saturday the schedule was a bit different. Saturday is cleaning day so we had to scrub the labs, clean our rooms and PASS INSPECTION. Yes they inspect the scientists rooms too as this is a military ship and we are all treated the same.  No hats at the table, etc. We also have to check in on a website twice a day, and if you forget more than others then it becomes your job to find the people that have not checked in - not fun. Luckily we all help each other remember. Tonite to give the galley a break another unit cooked and they barbecued burgers and dogs on deck. Apparently the scientists will try to take a turn doing the same - THAT should be interesting!

Now I am totally floored -they just announced that BINGO is about to begin and that the prize is noise canceling headphones! I think I'll finish laundry.........

A room with a view

For most of you that haven't been on a ship, you should know that usually you have a tiny cabin and you sleep with your stuff in your bunk. When on the Regina Maris, we didn't even have cabins - we had bunks in the main dining area and my bunk got wet from the bilge when seas were rough. On the Healy, we have big cabins, big bunks and we share a shower and toilet with 1 adjoining cabin. We even have wireless, tho that's only for the internal science network.

We also have an internal website that shows us what's supposed to happen that day (a photo of a white board in the dry lab nicknamed "the board of lies" because the schedule changes all the time) and a real time map server where we can see where we are, where we've gone etc.

The red line is our ship track, green and brown is land and the blues are the bottom contour data collected by this ship and others.