Day 10 Moonlight and icebergs

Moonlight on a clear night in the Southern Ocean

Iceberg ...

... more icebergs.

... and some bad weather on the horizon.

Position approx. 62°S 30°W on a northerly bearing. It's -2°C outside with a slight breeze at 10-20 knots. The weather was perfectly clear last night and the view out of my cabin porthole treated me to a fantastic moon spectacle. A near full moon rose on our portside illumintaing the sea surface and everything on deck. An iceberg drifted into the moon-lit glint on the surface. It was stunning to see that from my "bedroom".

During the day the ship passed through a fields of more icebergs. The photos show some of the bigger ones. Not all of them are berg-sized, most are just bergy bits scattered around. On the horizon are some mega bergs, so it looks like these smaller ones next to the ship are the remains of bigger bergs that disintegrated. It make me feel the ship is passing through an iceberg graveyard.

We've been doing lots of CTD casts, and the ship has settled into a routine. The physical oceanographers work in tag teams - 4 people work in teams of 2 for 12 hours each, from midnight to midday and midday to midnight. This keeps the CTD running the whole time when the ship is at station.

I'm the fifth in the team, working during the day in the "salt lab" to analyse the water samples for their exact salinity. The instruments mounted on the CTD frame are pretty accurate, but it's better to take a few in-situ water samples and cross check them in the lab. The analysis reveals any sensor drift in the conductivity probe. The in-water measurements of salinity can then be calibrated against the salinity values from the lab.

Nothing more to report, folks. I'm holding my fingers crossed for more whales and wildlife. We'll see. Weather forecast looks rough though...