Back to business

by Isa Rosso

We had quite a week.

After spending some of the calmest days at sea I have ever experienced, and keeping a tough rhythm with the casts and sampling, last thursday (ship time) we had to interrupt the CTD operations. A storm, which wrapped around New Zealand, kindly threw some strong wind and big waves to us (see figure below). We had wind gusts up to 50-60 kn and wave height up to 6-8 m, just big enough to make the CTD deployment and cast impossible. 

Wave height and direction forecast. The star is approximately where we were.

Every few hours Jennie Mowatt (our super Marine Technician) and I assessed the ocean conditions either from the baltic room (where the CTD is deployed from) or outside on the back deck. Looking in the darkness of the night was actually pretty terrifying, given the restricted vision of the size and direction of the waves O.o The pitch black sky was interrupted only by a few stars and a very bright half moon.. pretty nice!! The wind was strong, and the ocean looked angry. After the first big wave came through the baltic room door (the power of that wave freaked me out!), our decision was pretty easy to make. From that point on we checked the conditions from the safer back deck.

 

(left) Jennie Mowatt, the dark ocean and the moon :-) (right) water coming in the baltic room

HaPpy BirTHdaY Manuel!

 During those days, we waited and hoped for the weather to calm down. And in the meantime we celebrated a birthday…

..played ping pong (there's a competition going on here)…

David Cervantes

..and Eric Hutt playing ping pong for the tournament

Sabine and David are the spy master of the game..

…and Codenames.

And we watched movies and relaxed in the sauna (yes! there is a sauna).




Since yesterday, we are back to business with the CTD casts. Although we had the time to relax and catch up with some analysis, not everything was so pleasant. Unfortunately we had a medevac of one crew member: we sailed towards New Zealand, and met with a helicopter rescue ~100 mi from the coast. The rescue went perfect, and the patient was taken to the hospital. Our thoughts and energy are with the patient, and we wish them the best!! 

 

Helicopter rescue