It is currently day 10 aboard the USCGC Healy! Kaleigh and I have received the full onboarding experience, including donning our survival suits. These ones are extra nifty, and can even hook together so you don’t drift apart. They remind me of how otters hold hands while they sleep! Making sure that everyone knows exactly how to don a survival suit ensures that, in the event of an emergency, it is a quick process with no confusion. Reaction time makes a huge difference in dangerous situations at sea!
Along these same lines, we ran many drills. Most of them were for the sake of Coast Guard training, but they are vital for everyone on the ship. Man overboard, fire, gas leak, and medical emergencies are some of the various drills that are practiced frequently. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make for efficient response times. Everyone knows their duty and where their muster station is. Confidence in ability is half the battle!
The marine technicians onboard the Healy run 24hrs a day, in 12 hour shifts. I am on the midnight to noon shift with my mentor Maya, and Kaleigh is on the noon to midnight shift with Tyler. The tech lead of our team, Christina, is on watch from 0600 to 1800. Having this overlap ensures that our turnovers go smoothly, and adds an extra hand to the times when science is most likely to occur on the cruise. This setup does mean that I don’t get to participate as much in the science, but gives a realistic view into the life of a technician.
In this photo, Christina (left) and Maya (right) are troubleshooting one of the many softwares that keep science aboard running. On the wall of monitors, each system can be observed at a glance. Generally, green lights mean things are running well, and red ones mean things need to be checked. Hope you aren’t color blind!
Though having this many screens may seem overwhelming, it is an asset. Nothing can be forgotten when it’s right in front of you!
Being a marine technician has much to do with variety. Having a wide scope of skills and working with many different instruments means always learning. A new piece of equipment for me is the gravimeter. Measuring marine gravity is an interesting science, and a subject that I know little about. I won’t bore you with the details, but check out this short, informational video for more info. My mentor Maya walked me through the process of a weekly test called “Test points”, where we use a multimeter to check resistances. We track the numbers in a spreadsheet, as well as enter the numbers into the deck box for calibrations sake. Next week, it will be my turn to teach Kaleigh, our other intern, how to perform the test.
While on watch, we make several rounds throughout the ship, touring through any space that has equipment and instruments under our supervision. We inspect deck boxes and cables, and remain vigilant for alarms, red lights, or low fluids. One of those spaces is the gravimeter chamber where the unit lives. I have come to quite enjoy our rounds, as it is a nice break from the lab, and we occasionally are able to see others up and about in the dead of night.
While transiting to science stations, it is a perfect time to test equipment. The CTD was due for a thorough look over, bottles and all. The day shift was working on sensors and the CTD “fish” itself, so it was up to the midnight marooners to test the niskin bottles. First up: do they hold water? Well, they were all full already. So the easy answer was yes! We drained them all out, giving us the chance to test the petcock drain on each bottle.
Interestingly, one bottle refused to drain, even with the vent screw wide open. After dismantling the bottle trying to troubleshoot, we found that it was the fault of a defective vent screw. The vent screw had no vent! A simple replacement solved the issue.
One of the spare bottles had a small leak, and we identified a crack right at the base of the bottles handle. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to repair the bottle, so it is simply out of commission. All the other bottles got the A-OK, so I clambered back up into the hangar loft and got the bottles back onto their storage rack.
After a couple long days of work, we spotted our first patch of ice. And then another, and another! It’s official, we have entered into the Arctic Circle! This is definitely the most unique and incredible environment I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. The farther North we chug, the thicker and more consistent the ice becomes. As it scrapes along the side of the hull, it sounds like a wild animal trying to escape the steel. The slow push against the floes sends cracks racing down the surface, and pierces the quiet air as a bullet through the fog. No polar bears yet, but we’re on the lookout always. Kaleigh is keeping a polar bear count in her blog posts, so be sure to keep an eye out for her updates as well!
The ice has quickly become a target of my fixation, and I wind down every day by just watching it float by. As an ice breaker, the Healy is specially equipped to come to areas that other ships are seldom able to traverse. As the ships local biology nerd, I am on the constant lookout for wildlife. Besides the occasional bird following the ship, there have been absolutely no signs of life up here in the ice. The binoculars are getting their fair share of sea time while we endlessly search the horizon for a polar bear, whale, or even just a seal. It is impossible to truly capture the ice and its presence in a photo, but it doesn’t mean I don’t keep trying!
Another stop that we make on our daily rounds is the Mica stores. I have yet to find someone who can tell me why the space is called that, but it gets my Micah Stamp of Approval! A huge variable to take into account with science in the arctic is the cold, duh. Things have a tendency to freeze up here in all this ice! One of the systems that keeps things running smoothly are these ‘head tanks’. This creates a glycol-water mix for filling the transducer wells, which prevents freezing. Our only responsibility here is to check the levels, and to alert the engineering crew if they look low. We noticed that a few were low, so once they were freshly filled, we added labels to the level with the current date, for future reference.
Another new piece of equipment I have encountered is this Lebus winch. I have worked with other winch types of winches before, but this one looks akin to a pasta maker! This machine is especially good at pulling loads with long lines and heavy instrument packages. It has special ‘gates’ that can be opened and closed to allow shackles and thimbles to be wound through with no problem. I have not been able to see this winch in action much yet, but I am hopeful that one of our science stations will be on my shift in the upcoming week!
Ice breaking is simultaneously an exciting and a rather dull activity. Essentially, once we arrive on station, we do donuts in the ship, which leaves us with some interesting track lines. We break the ice sheets up while steering in concentric circles at varying speed, which leaves behind a nice slushy spot in the middle for us to conduct our scientific endeavors within. Occasionally, we may get lucky, and our operation will happen right amidst a pool of open water, which saves hours of ice breaking. Either way, the science must go on!
As the sun sits stable on the horizon and watches us slowly crush the ice sheets, that’s all I’ve got for you today. At a balmy 2 degrees Celsius, I am hiking up my longjohns and getting to work!
Forever staring out the window, signing off.
Micah Barton – God Bless – 07/25/2025