On station!

First, I know everyone wants to know how the tin can challenge went. Six
teams of four each had to eat a one gallon can of unknown food. First one
done wins. I am happy to report, the team of marine science techs pulled
it off. The amazing thing is two of the team were women that weighed
about a hundred pounds each. Glad I didn't have money on the challenge.

Next, and more importantly, we were finally able to do some work. We
were supposed to get on station about 1am, so I basically took nap and got
up before we arrived. Unfortunately, we didn't actually start doing
anything until 6am or so. We spent the night doing crossword puzzles.
When we were able to get started, the first thing we do is drop a device
called a CTD over the side. I say drop, but we actually lower it with a
crane. It's pretty big. It measures temperature, salinity, conductivity,
and sometimes some other things in the water from the surface down to the
bottom. It also takes water samples at various depths so it can be
analyzed for various things. We are only concerned with chlorophyll
(algae) and and the oxygen isotope O18. Then we do grabs. we drop a big
scoop over the side and pick up a load of muck from the bottom, wash out
the mud and gunk, and save the animals for analysis back in the lab later.
We do this 4-6 times. By the end of it,two hours later, I'm covered
with a mixture of muddy slushy ice that is quickly hardening on my
exposure suit. Then we go inside and do it again at another station. I
think we are going to do about 65 stations like this over the next two
weeks. Fun.

Afterwards, another scientist, who is doing some work analyzing ice algae
and single-celle organisms in the ice, asked if I wanted to go help out on
the ice. I wasn't thinking straight so I said yes. We drilled holes in
the ice to trap sediment, measure light, and incubate algae in the water
column while we were out there. We also drilled a few cores for analysis
back in the lab later. It was pretty cool. The really strange part is
that we had to have two crewmen from the ship come out with us with
rifles in case we were attacked by polar bears. They just stood there
with their guns while we worked, just in case. Pretty freaky.

Well at the end of the day, I was running on about three hours of sleep
and ten cups of coffee, I was exhausted. Hopefully this will burn off
some of the food I've been overeating for the last week.

Tonight, more of the same.
Steve