21.02.2013 (Thursday). We have to
wake up fairly early as the Agassiz trawl was supposed to be put in the water
at 06:45. However when I get up, I see that we are deep into the ice: not good
for the trawl. In the red saloon, I am informed that everything is postponed
for several hours. Yesterday, late in the evening , the colleagues working with
the multicorer (Enrique Isla, Freija Haucquier, etc), had a problem: their gear
was frozen on deck and they had to defreeze it, wait until the end of the next
operation on schedule (plankton sampling) and try again afterwards. So, these
colleagues spent a horrible sleepless night. Our own work will have to be done
later, which is actually a MUCH lesser evil.
I am looking at the latest samples
of the planktonologists: more than expected. At 09:10, we are in deeper ice
than two hours ago. Around 10:00, we are supposed to start our trawling
operations. I am skeptical that we will succeed even later on. As a reply to my thought, at 10:30, Julian Gutt make the following general
announcement through the speakers: "due to the ice conditions the station
off Dundee Island is cancelled". When looking by the window, it appears
that it is indeed evident that any trawling operation is absolutely impossible
in such a thick ice. The ship is actually progressing with a lot of
difficulties through the ice; she has to go back and forth for breaking
icefloes. The sun has now appeared and it is shining on fields of high hummocks
rising from thick pack ice. At 10:58, we stop into deep ice. I first think that
we are stuck in it. However at lunch (11:30), the captain explains us that he
deliberately set the ship into the ice for a routine reparation of a back
crane, requiring an absolute immobility of the ship.
After lunch, we go outside. Unlike
the previous days, the sky is blue and the sun is shining bright. The reflexion
on ice is blinding and I have to put my glacier glasses. Everything is white.
In the distance we see Rosamel (now without cloud cap), Cockburn and James Ross
Islands. There is almost no wind. everything is very calm. We see the
helicopter taking off, to reconnoitre the surrounding icescape and finding a
good pathway to get out from the pack ice. The conditions are ideal for
helicopter flight. In the afternoon, I receive an e-mail of Henri Robert, who
provide me with useful instruction for a better use of the Rauschert dredge,
especially for increasing the size of the opening of the bag, in stretching it
with iron wires (and also for reducing the time of the dredging process). It
took me a fairly long time to proceed to these modifications, but I really
think that it will work better like that. I finish that job around 17:15. After
diner, I go out again. The icescape is extraordinary: a complex immaculate
architecture of irregular pack ice and icebergs. The helicopter is turning
several times around us. I guess that the journalists of the German television
on board wanted to take pictures and videos of the Polarstern from the sky in
these ideal light conditions.
At the daily meeting of 19:30 in the
conference room, Julian Gutt explains us the planning for the three coming
weeks. There will be three sectors to sample in the Bransfield Strait and two
or three in the Drake passage, theoretically with four stations at different depths
and in different topological conditions of the sea floor (but it is likely that
some stations will have to be skipped out). We are supposed to do one station
per day, with the following succession of gears: CTD (vertical profile of water
physical characteristics), OFOS (underwater video camera), GKG (box score),
MUC10 (sediment corer), MUC6 (other kind of sediment corer), AGT (Agassiz
trawl), RD (Rauschert dredge) and sometimes ATC (amphipod traps). If we indeed
have one station per day, this will be OK (two station per day is too much for
working properly and would be exhausting), but let's see if this schedule will
indeed be followed. Problems arise too easily or we could lose time due to bad
weather... After the official general
meetings, the benthos people (including us) have a further informal meeting and
we discuss some points of details in order to plannify our forthcoming work as
properly as possible.
After the meeting, we go once more
outside. We are (very) slowly appoaching open water. The surrounding view
becomes more and more fantastic. As the sun sets and the moon materializes into
the darkening sky, the icescape becomes dreamscape, with an improbable blend of
pastel colour tinges. At West (port) the sky takes an intense orange-fire hue,
and at the East (starboard), everything becomes all blue and pink. The
combination of the moon and jagged icebergs looks truly surrealistic. Later on,
as the night slowly falls, the calm open sea afar reflects the silver
moonlight. I use my camera as a machine gun, but it is truly worth: the
photographs (and the video) are truly astounding; there is not a single
picture, which I regret. Especially, while using the function 'sunset', I got
wonderful colours, much better than with the automatic function opf the camera.
Again an evening never to forget, most probably the zenith of the cruise from a
non-scientific point of view.
Last embers of the sunshine on the pack ice.
Icescape, dreamscape.
Shimmering reflection of the moonshine on the Antarctic sea.
Then it gradually becomes bitterly
cold. Around 24:00, even with my neoprene boots I feel the cold at the tip of
my toes. We are almost in open water. It is getting colder and colder, and
darker and darker, despite the moonshine. However we are facing a last unexpected
obstacle. Just behind the ice margin, the Polarstern is in front of a unusually
solid icefloe. She hits it a first time and go backwards. There is just a tiny
little scar left in it. She goes back and forth, again and again, many times.
The icefloe stands. It is as if the ice wanted to keep us prisoner for ever in the
embrace of its frigid arms. The pilot (Felix Lauber) has to use all his know
how to get us out of this. After many attempts to break the icefloe, a crack
appears in its middle. A narrow crack... The ship still has to go back and
forth two or three times to widen the crack. It resists. It resists with tenacity,
but finally the steel Leviathan is the strongest. The ice palace has to open
wide its gates to release us, and we finally reach a long stretch of open
water. However this still water remains full of danger in the form of many
small icebergs hiding in the darkness. Felix has to put on the powerfull light
spots of the ship. The white giants of frost appears into the beams of light
and their malign attempt to sink us into the icy chasm of the sea won't
succeed...
Spotting dangerous icebergs in the close open water.
Then I go to bed. It is 01:30.
(Cédric)
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