Sandy's in the STORM!

Isa Rosso

OH MY!!! These days have been really “rock & roll”!! And not only for my guitar skills that are improving.. ehee!! Small waves, big waves, this ship doesn’t care. It’s like being on a rollercoaster. I love it..! hehe Not so much a shared feeling by those poor souls who got seasick from the very first day.. and still cannot get over it. 

Especially today.

Sandy the float -- before the storm

The weather has put us in stand by, but finally around lunch time today we started the CTD casts (6 in total), to collect water samples, from 2000 m up to the surface, plus others from 200 m to the surface samples, for biological studies. The rosette (soon I’ll post a photo) is one tiny little guy, with only 12 niskin bottles (used to collect the water at different water depths). I got my samples, sealed the pH bottles and froze the nutrients. After the CTD casts, we had another couple of operations at the same station location, and after that we got to deploy the first SOCCOM float of the SOE10 expedition!!!! Woohoo!! This is always a great moment for me, I feel a lot of responsibility, I want everything to go smoothly and then I can’t wait to see the first data coming in!! 

“Sandy” is the name of the deployed Navis #0690 float, named by the class at Long Beach Island Grade School (NJ). They chose this name, as it has a significant importance for the students, due to the impact that this storm had on their school and community on Long Beach Island. Now.. we deployed Sandy at 40 kn wind!!! Just before that, we almost flew from one side of the helicopter deck to the other. Bottles fells, boxes, gears, my guitar (!!!) all got shifted (I should say thrown) to a different location. Quite dramatic! Sandy does really call for a big storm!! The deployment, which was exceptionally perfect considering the huge swell and the strong wind, was at 40 02.4209S, 57 37.2273E on December 15, 2017 at 16:39 UTC.

You can follow its life on the SOCCOM website. Just search for the float with number 0690, and easily plot its profiles, or download its data… once the first profile comes in ;-)

Dramatic deployment

Tomorrow is my birthday, and like every year, I feel a little bit pensive. I celebrated my birthday on a plane (twice), in 3 different continents, but on a vessel in the Southern Ocean, with such a rough weather, it’s pretty unique! Hopefully some whales will come celebrate with me tomorrow ;-)

Me. Taking pictures of birds. While doing silly faces. 

And to finish with some wildlife: the first petrels and beautiful albatross appeared, with their elegant way to cut through the wind (sometimes they fly so close to the ocean and just touch the waves with the tip of their feathers.. I could spend hours looking at their mesmerizing dance). Then, we had some dolphins playing in front of the bow. Uh!! And a sun fish came to check on the ctd while we were on station!! That was really cool!!