How cold is it, really?

The other day, one of the crew came into the lab between stations, and
asked if we wanted to see something cool. I put my exposure suit on and
went out on deck. She pulled out a bottle of bubbles, the kind kids play
with, and started blowing. the weird thing is, the bubbles first shrank
and shriveled up a bit, so they were all wrinkly, and when they popped,
the liquid part was frozen in 'bubble shape' and the bubble broke into
pieces. There were little bubble shards floating away in the wind.
Unless you live in Fargo (you know who you are) it probably won't work
where you live.

Marisa, from CBL, went out onto the ice to do some ice coring with one of
the other groups two days ago. By the time she got back, she could not
feel her fingers and her nails had turned white. She was on the verge of
getting frostbite. In the temperatures that we are dealing with exposed
flesh can freeze in less than ten minutes. Two days later and she is
still getting feeling back in her fingers.

At our last station, the day team was attempting to get 30 good haps core
samples for a researcher on board. A haps corer basically takes a
cylindrical plug from the bottom of the ocean and brings it up intact, so
that we can see the various layers in the bottom sediment. It was so cold
the the haps corer had chilled to below the freezing point of seawater
(which freezes at a lower temp than fresh water). Even spraying it
continuously with hot water while on deck, and while it was being lowered
into the water, the trip mechanism would freeze solid within a few
seconds of hitting the water. They could not keep it warm enough to
actually get all the samples they needed.

In a nutshell, it's F'in cold!

Trying my best to not freeze off anything I still need,
Steve