12.02.2013-16.02.2013 - Krill survey

12.02.2013 (Tuesday). We sort the dredge until 04:45. It seems that something is broken (or no longer works) inside my Sigma macro objective. A new and extremely expensive objective. It is still possible to use it but this will be difficult. I wake up at 11:00. Again several calm days in front of us, as there will be another krill transect. We are again deep into the ice, and we have again a cloudy weather. No more tabular icebergs as the two days before, but a lot of hummocks. In the afternoon we identify some of the specimens collected in the dredge. A consequence of our sleepless night: I am terribly tired in the evening. Our lab starts to look a bit disordered and I feel that we will have to put some order in the coming days.

Marie identifying amphipods.

(Cédric)

13.02.2013 (Wednesday). Night of navigation into thick ice. The ship is shaking a lot. Feeling of earthquake, or rather of 'iceshake'. Gray sky but no fog when I wake up. We identified almost all the amphipods collected during the previous days. Only those put in the freezer have not been completely processed. As usually, we got some interesting species. With the ongoing krill survey, we will have very little to do for a couple of days. We try to relax in anticipation of the second part of the cruise, which will be almost entirely focused on the bottom fauna (benthos), which concerns us.  I fear that during the second month of the cruise, we will probably have sleepless night after sleepless night almost all the time. Not in a good mood today (mostly for my camera problems); also a bit homesick.

(Cédric)

14.02.2013 (thursday). Cloudy sky above icepack and some polynyas. For already three days, the only fruits we get are apples and oranges. Already no more tomatoes for some days. Salad and cucumbers are already long gone. We still have peperoni and raw carrots. We carry out the last identifications. the plankton people also bring us some more pelagic amphipods from their former stations.

(Cédric)

15.02.2013 (Friday). Nothing new under the sun, ...or rather under a pale gray sky.   Still pack ice with polynyas. The krill survey continues, which means very little to do for us. I ordered properly all our samples, both the frozen ones and those conserved at room temperature.

(Cédric)

16.02.2013 (Saturday). Already one month that I have left Belgium. Fatherland looks very very far away. I am meditating on my life. We are slowly steaming towards the Larsen area. We will probably not be able to sample in the Larsen embayments themselves because they are supposed to be full of thick ice, but some people are still dreaming to sample in front of them. I sarcastically say that I will see the Larsen area when I will be back in Belgium, in the form of a drop stone of the Larsen A, which I collected six years ago... and that other people will not see the Larsen. The ice is getting very thick, much thicker than the previous days. Some big hummocks (small ice elevations in pack ice) too. The sky is cloudy as the previous days. These days of inaction before the next benthic sampling are quite boring. I am also becoming very lazy. Today I have got up at 11:00 while I did nothing special the evening before. 15:10, fog and hummocks. I identify pelagic amphipods received from the planktonologists (Ryan Driscoll, Annicka Elsheimer and Christina Fromm). In the evening we have a mid-cruise barbecue party. The meat is barbecued on deck and we eaten inside. Nice evening.

Barbecue on deck of the Polarstern.

(Cédric)