Sunday 7 March, Day 52

As promised, let's get back in time to show some pictures.

As we headed south after the geological survey of the South Sandwich Islands was completed, we finally reached the ice covered parts of the Weddell Sea, and I could enjoy again the beauty of this landscape and the stillness of the sea surface undisturbed by waves:


I could also enjoy again the presence of my favorite animal in his natural environment:


Then our work began: the recovery of the moorings we had deployed last year.
We started with the shallowest mooring, where an automated water sampler had been deployed. Once the instrument was on deck, I could read John's mind: "Are you gonna come and help me drag this thing inside the lab, or are you gonna keep taking your bloody pictures?"


Once in the lab, I inspected the instrument, which looked in good shape after having spent a whole year in freezing cold waters where huge icebergs ocasionnally drift by and could have smashed it into pieces...


I immediately started to retrieve the water sample bags from the plastic bottles, and put new bags in place for a short 24-hour redeployment, in order to have an idea of the high-frequency variability which could have aliased our weekly sampling measurements. I owe a big thank to Simmon Day, one of the geologists, who patiently helped me through the whole day, and without whom I would not have been ready for the redeployment by the end of the working day!

In the meantime, John was bringing in the lab other instruments from the moorings, such as this Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler:



(to be continued...)

Friday 5 March, Day 50

Even longer silence, but not due to a lack of events to report, this time. We have indeed successfully recovered all our instruments, including a short redeployment of one of them. I have been too busy with the subsequent water samples analysis to update this blog. Then, 25 people from the Halley research base on the Brunt Ice Shelf came onboard, and the only two computers with an internet connection available for us on the JCR have been occupied most of the time since then, with sometimes even a queue to have access to them. Not ideal to keep up with this blog. I miss the internet connection in my cabin I had last year on the Shackleton!

We are now on our way back north, our destination being Montevideo. We should arrive there on the 13th or 14th, and fly back to the UK on the 15th, arriving at Heathrow on the 16th. I am counting the days before I can take Margot and Anael in my arms and kiss Marion!

I have loads of new pictures, but no time to upload them, sorry... I'll see if I can upload some from time to time before the end of the cruise.

Friday 19 February, Day 36

Long silence: not much to report as the geological survey of the South Sandwich Islands was progressing, and I was working hard on another paper! Nothing like being isolated at sea from everyday life tribulations, with meals prepared for you, to write those papers I have kept in the back of my head but never found the time to write yet. This one is about a new derivation of the Coriolis force (the force that makes all things moving on a rotating body drift sideways, and playing a central role in the atmospheric and oceanic movements), which sheds light on the fact that there are two slightly different contributions to it, and helps explain some counter-intuitive results in the dynamics of inertial waves (wind-generated currents that turn in circles because of the rotation of the Earth).

But I still found time to take some pictures.
Let's start with the volcano theme:


Saunders Island in the sunset, with steam rising from Mount Michael.

Montagu Island, with steam rising from Mount Belinda (hugging the crest, but hard to distinguish from clouds).

Steam rising from Bellingshausen Island caldera, the smallest of the three islands composing the Southern Thule island group. The largest of this group is Cook Island:


Now, a bit of history (source: Wikipedia):
From 1976 to 1982, Argentina maintained a naval base named Corbeta Uruguay, in the lee (southern east coast) of Thule Island (the third of the Southern Thule group). Although the British discovered the presence of the Argentine base in 1978, protested and tried to resolve the issue by diplomatic means, no effort was made to remove them by force until after the Falklands War. The base was eventually removed on June 20, 1982. Here are some remains:

And to finish, another round of iceberg shots (I can't get bored of them, they come in so many different shapes and colors!):

At last, the geological survey of the South Sandwich Islands has come to an end, and we are heading South again! In three days, we should arrive at the SASSI mooring sites, for a frantic 48 hours or so of uninterrupted work! I hope we will be able to recover all moorings... I forgot to mention that John (last year's McGuiver who made a cable from scratch to connect to an instrument) has developed in the past few days a horrible toothache, and is not in very good shape. I hope he is going to get better, otherwise the mooring recovery is going to be like hell for him!

Monday 8 February, Day 25

I did not had anything to report this past week, mostly open water cruising over the Protector Shoal, a submarine volcano that our geologists studied in details, and heavy fog when we were close to Zavodovski Island, the northernmost island of the South Sandwich island chain. By the way, these islands were named by Captain James Cook, when he discovered them in 1775, after the 4th Earl of Sandwich, 1st Lord of the Admiralty. The word "South" was later added to distinguish them from the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii, which were also "discovered", more than a thousand years after Polynesians discovered them, by James Cook in 1778, who also named them Sandwich Islands (lack of imagination?).

So, during this eventless part of the cruise, I worked hard on my paper reporting last year cruise's SASSI observations, which I have just finished yesterday! Now I deserve a bit of rest, and I can take some time to put some pictures here.

Back to the dredging operations, here is the dredge being deployed.



Then, after having let it rake the ocean floor for some time, it is brought back on deck, and Simon and Phil (the chief scientist) sort their treasure!



In the meantime, chinstrap penguins are playing in the water all around the ship. Actually, the waters around the South Sandwich Islands are full of chinstrap penguins everywhere, it is amazing!



At last, yesterday, the clouds disappeared to let the sun shine. Penguins are enjoying a sun bath on top of a large iceberg (can you spot the tiny black dots on top of the iceberg?).



And I am enjoying the sun on top of the ship (on the Monkey Island!).



The sun finally set as we were approaching Montagu Island.



Montagu Island houses an active volcano, Mount Belinda, which was last seen erupting 2 years ago. Ashes are still visible on the low level slopes of the glaciers that cover it.



Why have they not been covered up by snow, as on the higher slopes? Maybe because the glacier is so crevassed as it approaches the sea, that snowfall cannot stay on the crevasses crests...



To finish today's post, a few specimens of the nice icebergs that surround us:

Sunday 31 January, Day 17

I forgot to show the first iceberg of this cruise, when we were near South Georgia Island (in the background), before coming back to Stanley:



And while in Stanley, during the refueling, I wanted to take a shot of a sign post which I had noticed when running at the beginning of this trip. It reminds me of the sign post Marion and I had made for our wedding to symbolize our project to travel around the world for our honeymoon (which is still in its project form...):



Then we headed back past South Georgia, towards the South Sandwich Islands.
When we arrived in their vicinity, the geology team started to dredge the sea floor with the "instrument" shown below, to take some rocks and analyze the composition of the sea floor they are mapping:



Probably thinking that we were catching fish with big nets, a flock of chinstrap penguins gathered behind the stern...



... and were flying above the water to catch up with us!



Taking advantage that the ship had finally stopped for dredging, we tested the CTD (Conductivity-Temperature-Depth) system and two LADCPs (Lowered Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers), which I compared to the measurements from the shipboard ADCP (SADCP). The results were quite encouraging:



After this test and the first three dredging locations, the winds increased and the sea became quite rough again during the night and all day today. Here is how it looked like towards the bow (as seen through the lounge windows, which were covered with water droplets)...



... and towards the stern:



As Renaud would say:
"C'est pas l'homme qui prend la mer, c'est la mer qui prend l'homme, ta, ta, ta!"

Tuesday 26 January, Day 12

Retour case départ!
Back to where we started from!

During our survey of the sea floor around South Georgia, one of the crew members got ill, abdominal pain I heard, maybe appendicitis, so we headed back to Stanley to transfer him ashore. We encountered strong winds and heavy seas on the way, with a nasty swell coming from sideways which awoke me at 5 am. I couldn't close my eyes again for the rest of the night as I was sliding up and down my bunk! Good thing I don't get sea sick, though: I was still able to work on my papers for the rest of the day. Arriving in Stanley was a relief, and we spent the night in the bay, waiting for a space along the dock to refuel, which we obtained this morning. We could get ashore for two hours, and I took the opportunity to walk and stretch my legs!

Below are a few pictures about life onboard, taken by Mike Gloistein.


Lunch in the Officers/Scientists saloon (I am sitting in front on the far right).


Lunch in the Officers/Scientists bar on Sunday (I am wearing the green polo).

Friday 22 January, Day 8

One week already I have started this trip!
I have worked hard on my papers and made good progress, so tonight I am taking a bit of time off to upload some pictures on this blog.


This is my cabin, with a perfect view of the sea (although you can't see it because it is too bright)!


This is the ship, the RRS (Royal Research Ship) James Clark Ross.


On Saturday, prior to the ship's departure, four of us made a hike to see some penguins. Here is a magellanic penguin, at the doorstep of his house.


On Sunday, I made a visit to Stanley's town center, to find presents for Margot and Anael. I miss them so much already!


On Monday, we sailed away, direction...


... South Georgia Island! Unfortunately, we are mapping the sea floor on the edge of the shelf and slope, so this is the closest we'll get from this island.


The sea has been relatively calm so far. But things may change!...

Oh, I almost forgot: yesterday I saw a whale (a fin whale, according to the second mate).

The picture is not sharp, sorry, but the whale was very far, I took the shot with my big 400 mm lense, but with the ship motion and the air humidity, it is already not too bad.