11/07/16
Backing and Ramming
Since I last wrote we have made considerable progress: We sailed through Unimak Pass in the Aleutians, north through the Bering Sea, past the Diomedes and the Bering Strait, and finally across the Arctic Circle. Though now our progress has come to an icy halt. Four days ago we began crunching through thinner first-year ice, avoiding pressure ridges and following the path of least resistance as far as it would take us.
This lasted roughly a day before the ice got so thick that we had to begin the process of backing up and then ramming into the thick multi-year ice. This has been going on virtually constantly over the past 48 hours. Our GPS trackline has changed from straight on course to a curved sawblade, as we back and ram constantly within the drifting ice. Fortunately we are drifting towards our waypoints where we can then hopefully begin science operations. I say begin because we have only done two test stations which were meant to smooth the process of deploying and recovering the instruments.
The samples and measurements from the trial stations were nothing groundbreaking so the science party has little left to do but wait. The marine techs and I are also in somewhat of a holding pattern. We have been able to help some of the scientists get their instruments talking nicely with their computers and making sure the Healy’s veritable cornucopia of geophysical sensors are functioning. So far this has involved making terminations for winch wire, rewiring communication lines, cocking niskin bottles (for water sampling), and of course power cycling the gravity meter. Quite alot of time has also been spent trying to figure out the server that displays the map, position, and various image overlays like the daily satellite ice image. When not doing any of the above we’re usually eating, watching ice break from the bow (never gets old), or looking out for wildlife. Speaking of which we have seen THREE polar bears in the past four days. A pretty spectacular start I think.
And again I will say I will have some updates by next week since we will have made our first (hopefully second) station by then. It has been said that “No plan survives contact with the ice”, and that is certainly ringing, or rather, rumbling true.
Photo of Nick and MapSurfer from Croy Carlin