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.