Land Ho!

Good afternoon. I suppose it will be around noon when you can first read this.

This morning was quite beautiful with a great variety. We (Ken, Harriet, Colm, a couple of the transit crew, and I) just finished collecting cast #18 when the sun started to rise. the sky was mostly cloudy from the snow we had encountered earlier in the morning. There was small pancake ice floating in the water and the sun was trying to peak through the clouds. Not too long after that the large field of pancake ice diminished and turned in to many parallel streaks of the pancakes going off at an angle from the ship. I could see petrels flying off on the edge of the boat lights, even a couple giant petrels.

I went back down to do some work in the O2 lab and when I finished up the ice had returned in full to larger lily pad like ice that was ~2m across. I got some nice pictures/video of this. Again shortly there after the snow returned with the large lily pad ice, but I could still see the edge of blue sky to the south with yellow sky to the north. Now at breakfast the sky is clear, the sun is out for the first time in several days, the ice is gone, and the wind is clam. All within a few hours and not many miles traveled.

Last night was also very cool with the blowing snow (40 kt. winds). I went up to the bridge with Sonja and Mark. The wind was from the NE so it was quartering out back. From the bridge we could see the undisturbed free-stream flow, and then the turbulent flow coming off of the bridge. What made it especially interesting is that out 3-D anemometer mounted on a pole ahead of the bridge was in the variable area with the laminar and turbulent flows, so it should be interesting to look at that data.

The cable that holds the rosette sustained some damage on it's way in from cast #18, so we are siting at station 19 now waiting for the fix (another 2 hours or so). Otherwise the going has been slower than usual because of the ice. When the times get icy we have to slow down and deice the engine coolant water (I don't know how this happens). Ultimately that means we go 6kts instead of 10. The last 2 casts should be fairly short though since we've hit the trench and are on the shallow side of it now. I hope I'm awake to see the sights when we first hit the peninsular coast. Deception Island sounds like it's a really neat place but I think our chances of going there are very small.

The engines just shut down while we're waiting...the ship is so much quieter now.

I'm not sure what time we'll make it down to the peninsular islands, but I hope it's during the day time and that I'm awake too. The last couple of days I've been going to bed after finishing lunch and then getting up around 1900. It's really fun to watch the Cape Petrels fly around the boat without having to flap at all. Even when they drop down to catch some food (I suppose) then never really stop flying, then just let their feet touch and dip their beak into the water while keeping their wings spread out. It's really amazing that they can fly faster than the boat without really loosing any altitude; it boggles my mind how petrels and albatross can do what they do. The water is a really pretty blue out in the deep ocean. The undisturbed water is a nice deep blue with maybe a bit of purple hue to it, but when air gets mixed into the water you get the nice aquamarine color found in the tropical island waters.