This night to Sunday, the two Belgian participants of the cruise, Katja and Henri, organised the "Belgian Night 2008" and had brought a whole box of different types of Belgian Beer to taste. They also served French fries of fresh potatoes. This was a very nice event and the bar was crowded. On Sunday, 13th of January we were caught between the fast ice and heavy pack ice and the storm was up to 9 bft. We had no chance except from drifting westward. This day was the first day for me to recognise that I was counting the coming days on "Polarstern" backwards. We did not have stations to do for many days, some scientists on board became afraid of loosing all planned stations and this also was topic in most of the chatting going on.
For getting some alternatives in the daily program, I decided to organise a small and private "The Blues Brothers" night. The plan was, to sit on the cosy sofas in the Blue Salon ant watch the movie on the laptop. Dress code: Sunglasses! But soon, a lot more friends were aware of that and I decided to relocate that event to the seminar room. The scenery of men with sunglasses, with faces like stone, sitting together in a dark room was very funny. Somehow the word was spread all over the ship and some people just went by and heard the movie and suddenly the room was full.
And most of the people realised quickly, what was going on and went out again to fetch their sunglasses. This was a nice evening. Until Tuesday, 15th of January, I could not believe that we would have another scientific station. Daily progress seemed so small. And the storm had filled up the canal with pack ice again. But after the storm last weekend a huge ice flow was broken off the canal's eastern side.
"Polarstern" broke that flow to pieces and pushed them out of the canal carefully. Once this was accomplished, the icebreaker could turn easily within the double sized canal. The strategy of ramming was changed by captain Pahl: From now on, ice was scraped off the fast ice edge by 45°
ramming, interrupted by straight ramming every now and then. As three people had birthday this and the coming day, some celebration took place and almost no one noticed that within some hours we reached the shelf ice edge and even a large landing site was prepared. Only some hours of sleep remained, until chief scientist Uli woke me up by phone call: "I'd like you to be on the heli deck in 30 to 45 minutes. Better 30!" "Ok!" The message was clear. I got my equipment together, erased data from my camera's memory, changes batteries and was ready for take off. I was and still am overwhelmed by this opportunity Uli gave me again and I am very thankful for that. This time we used the helicopter to show the success of this two-week operation. Big relief could be felt on board as most scientists could hope for stations. And the AWI also is very happy now, as the unloading of "Naja Arctica" and the construction of "Neumayer III" can finally start now. A lot of pressure fell off the shoulders of the captain and Uli, I think. `"Polarstern" in the canal, close to the "Nordanler" ice edge´. That was the message, our pictures were supposed to give to the AWI and to the press. Around midday we left Atka Bay and headed for the first station of the final transect of this cruise. Saying goodbye to "Neumayer", Atka Bay and the shelf ice made me feel a little bit sad. Who knows if I will ever see this panorama again? But looking forward, there is hopefully another deep-sea station. And last but not least, I am getting excited coming home again.
Today is Friday, 18th. We are in Minke Whale country. Angelika was lucky to help with the helicopter counting today as we passed an ice free area with many Minke Whales. We passed that area before and Bram and Victoria saw those whales jumping and playing. I still got lots of work to do. Many samples wait to be sorted and many isopod legs wait to be dissected. Hopefully see you soon!
Yours, Torben
For getting some alternatives in the daily program, I decided to organise a small and private "The Blues Brothers" night. The plan was, to sit on the cosy sofas in the Blue Salon ant watch the movie on the laptop. Dress code: Sunglasses! But soon, a lot more friends were aware of that and I decided to relocate that event to the seminar room. The scenery of men with sunglasses, with faces like stone, sitting together in a dark room was very funny. Somehow the word was spread all over the ship and some people just went by and heard the movie and suddenly the room was full.
And most of the people realised quickly, what was going on and went out again to fetch their sunglasses. This was a nice evening. Until Tuesday, 15th of January, I could not believe that we would have another scientific station. Daily progress seemed so small. And the storm had filled up the canal with pack ice again. But after the storm last weekend a huge ice flow was broken off the canal's eastern side.
"Polarstern" broke that flow to pieces and pushed them out of the canal carefully. Once this was accomplished, the icebreaker could turn easily within the double sized canal. The strategy of ramming was changed by captain Pahl: From now on, ice was scraped off the fast ice edge by 45°
ramming, interrupted by straight ramming every now and then. As three people had birthday this and the coming day, some celebration took place and almost no one noticed that within some hours we reached the shelf ice edge and even a large landing site was prepared. Only some hours of sleep remained, until chief scientist Uli woke me up by phone call: "I'd like you to be on the heli deck in 30 to 45 minutes. Better 30!" "Ok!" The message was clear. I got my equipment together, erased data from my camera's memory, changes batteries and was ready for take off. I was and still am overwhelmed by this opportunity Uli gave me again and I am very thankful for that. This time we used the helicopter to show the success of this two-week operation. Big relief could be felt on board as most scientists could hope for stations. And the AWI also is very happy now, as the unloading of "Naja Arctica" and the construction of "Neumayer III" can finally start now. A lot of pressure fell off the shoulders of the captain and Uli, I think. `"Polarstern" in the canal, close to the "Nordanler" ice edge´. That was the message, our pictures were supposed to give to the AWI and to the press. Around midday we left Atka Bay and headed for the first station of the final transect of this cruise. Saying goodbye to "Neumayer", Atka Bay and the shelf ice made me feel a little bit sad. Who knows if I will ever see this panorama again? But looking forward, there is hopefully another deep-sea station. And last but not least, I am getting excited coming home again.
Today is Friday, 18th. We are in Minke Whale country. Angelika was lucky to help with the helicopter counting today as we passed an ice free area with many Minke Whales. We passed that area before and Bram and Victoria saw those whales jumping and playing. I still got lots of work to do. Many samples wait to be sorted and many isopod legs wait to be dissected. Hopefully see you soon!
Yours, Torben
1 Kommentar:
COOOL...I wish I was there. Was Øl Ølsson there. I can imagine him there in his sunnies singing & dancing "Come on let me see ya shake ya tail feather..." LOL.
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