“Zazzies, Mac & Cheese”

Isa Rosso

December 31, 2017

All is ready for the New Year’s Eve celebration of tonight. Decorations and lights are up, ping-pong table is ready for the tournament, the bbq’s out. There’s a lot of excitement, lots of happy faces. The science activities have not stopped, though, and there are several scientists operating the CTD, collecting samples, running filtration. But all should be completed by 6PM, when the party will start! Funny thing: the sun basically doesn’t go down at all... just barely touches the horizon. So, we’re gonna have a midnight countdown with sunlight outside!! How cool is that!?

The Agulhas I sailing through pieces of sea ice

We are 65.5S, 72E, steaming towards 73E. The ice maps, images of ice concentration from satellite data, show us pretty high concentration of ice in the area we were supposed to cross. So, the initial decision was to avoid completely that area (a bit sad, I confess, as we won’t be able to see penguins, seals, maybe orcas), but now it seems we’re going to try, to go farther south and access the situation (fingers crossed!!!).

Landing on a freezing water

The other day we were surrounded by, not only giant icebergs, but also drifting pieces of sea ice. Some of them were sparkling white, some had beautiful blue reflections, and some had the sign of some phytoplankton activity. It’s pretty incredible, I think, that some organisms got adapted to such an environment. We saw the first 2 penguins on a piece of ice as well, but they were so distant that it was hard to see them properly :-( sigh…. I’m really hoping we’ll be able to see more as we move more south!

On December 27th, at 22:27 UTC I deployed my last SOCCOM float for the year 2017: Zazzies, Mac & Cheese (#12755)!! Its deployment occurred at the freezing 63S and 70E location. The float was named by the Seaside Middle School, after the first 3 pets of the class: Zazzy was a fish, Mac&Cheese was 2 mice.. adorable!!!! 😀 I hope I did a good job drawing their design on the float.

My guitar sessions have become a stable part of my ship’s life. I love it! I spend many nights playing and singing with some of my ship mates, and we’re becoming pretty good! Ha! ;~P We already decided our band’s name: “The Frozen Pompoms”. I’m knitting headbands with pompoms at the moment. We also have our first song written: “The Southern Ocean Blues”! We’re planning to record a video!! I’ll let you know how it goes.. 

So long from the Southern Ocean for the 2017. We all wish a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you!!! Wherever you are, may you have a wonderful end of 2017, and a successful and adventurous 2018!!!