Author: Chaii Layne-Neubauer

We are at the end of the 6 week of the this cruise and the end as whole is just around the corner. It has certainly been an eventful week. On our transit to the final station we recieved a distress signal from a vessel with a broken mast and running low on fuel. The Marcus G. Langseth was the closest ship to the distressed party and made the easy decision of changing course in order to provide assistance. After back tracking for several hours we were able to spot the small sailing vessel nested in a thick fog. The ship’s crew wasted no time in preparting to assist. They loaded up one of our small boats with fuel cans and a small party of three to meet the ship approximately a mile away from us. It is quite a process to deploy the boat and all were in attendance at the spectacle. Luckily there were no issues and the distressed vessel was able to make its way home safe.

With our own small boat and its party secured again we made for our heading towards the Arctic Circle. We passed right by Iceland on this transit and quite possibly may have seen it if the continuous fog didn’t follow us. As we passed the Arctic Circle we have truly come into a place of eternal daytime. Unfortunatley we have not been able to utilize this extra light to our advantage as we have suspened operations for several days due to the weather. Once it clears we will finish up our final station and make our way to Reykjavic for a well needed sight of land.

This marks the end of 5 weeks aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth. It is hard to believe that we have but a few weeks left on our cruise. This week has been quite productive in regards to our primary mission of collecting sediment cores. Most of the days we were able to do 4-6 deployments of the multi core with decent returns on average. I say on average because we have had several deployments with perfect returns and a few with none at all. It certainly is a practice in patience when we spend three or so hours on a deployment to only end up with no mud. The more challenging aspects of deck operations, such as running taglines and operating the winch, have also began to come easier and smoother. I still have much to learn but am worlds better than I was at the beginning of the cruise. Our work hasn’t only been on deck though as we also have been doing work around the shop on small projects as well as organizing all the copious data files from our instrumentation. Excel can at times be just as challenging as operating heavy machinery.

Luckily we have collected all the samples we needed for that station and are now headed towards our last intended station, north of the arctic circle! I am antsy to reach such a northern location especially with these extremely long summer days. By the time I head in for bed the morning light is already beginning to show even at midnight. Looking forward to our transit further north and beginning at our last station.

We’ve passed our 4 week mark on our cruise aboard the R/V Marcus G. Langseth. We’ve been steadily making our way north and its becoming apparent. The days have become much longer as well as colder. We’ve had a steady stream of fog that comes in most days for several hours at a time. We are almost done with our current station and have been working at a steady pace for the last several days.

Recently I’ve been learning how to operate the winch during deployment and recovery of the mutli-core instrumentation. This is certainly been one of the more challenging technical skills I’ve had to learn while aboard. Both deploying and recovering instrumentation takes quite a bit of coordinated effort between several different people. While I am in the winch booth operating via a remote joystick, there are two people running tag lines, someone operating the A-frame and a deck leader managing everyones actions. It is quite an intricate dance and one where safety is paramount. It can be an anxiety inducing build up but is done within a moment and comes with elation when everything works well.

Tomorrow we will begin setting our sights even further North, riding along the Eastern coast of Greenland. I will be keeping my eyes out for any auroa borealis though seeing the occasional pod of whales has been a good consolation prize if not.