13-Feb Mount Melbourne and Tera Nova Bay

13-Feb Mount Melbourne and Tera Nova Bay

On our port side Mt Melbourne 2733m stands out magnificently above Tera Nova Bay and Cape Washington. The mountain is conical and the most prominent mountain in the neighborhood. It is one of the very few volcanoes on Antarctica itself, (most other are on islands) and was named by Ross after the British prime minister in 1830 -40

Terra Nova bay – between Cape Washington and the Dryglaski Glacier. Named after Ross’s relief ship. A collection of blue and orange buildings here is Italy’s base, the Mario Zucchelli research station

The mountain range is called the Tran Antarctic mountains and tracks all the way from Cape Adare right to the Weddell Sea on the other side. It divides Antarctic into West and East Antarctica and is one of the longest mountain ranges in the world. This mountain range acts like dam and holds back the east Antarctic ice shelf.

A magnificent blue iceberg drifts past us while we are on station. Most icebergs are whitish because of their snow and bubble-filled ice. However, some ice can appear bright blue and different shades of green. This is because dense bubble-free ice absorbs only a small proportion of red light from the light spectrum entering it so appears blue. Some icebergs even appear to be layers of liqorire strips with white icing between. These are caused by moraine debris that the galcier has picked up on its way down the glacial path.

Toothfish today was raw with wasabi. And for dinner ‘Toothfish Ala Fencepost’ - smoked in wood shavings that Lindsay had specially shaved off using the lathe from an old fence post he had found in the workshop.

12-Feb Toothfish

12-Feb Toothfish

Fortunately, it is calm today but storms whip up very quickly down here. We are very far south in the bottom of the Ross Sea – almost as close as possible by sea to the South Pole.

We are steaming off to our next station at the moment. We should get there about 2000 hours then - nets over the side and we do it all again, multi corers taking bed samples and midwater trawl samples. All quite interesting stuff really with all sorts of samples of sea life coming on board. How the hell anything would want to live in these frigid conditions, I will never know or understand.
We caught a huge tooth fish, 32 kilograms, I think, and about 1.3 meters long. The scientists took it down to their lab and dissected it in order to find out how it prefers to dine. They found some nice sized squid and ice fish. Toothfish are also known as Antarctic Cod to Americans and is famous for producing antifreeze glycoprotein that allows it to survive in the ice-laden waters sourounding Antarctica. It has a heartbeat of once every six seconds and research may lead to advances in cardiac medicine involving conditions where human hearts beat slowly during certain medical procedures or fail to beat fast enough due to hypothermia.

The tooth fish has been carved up by the scientists in the fish lab and delivered to the galley. Bryan, the cook, gets all excited and starts thinking about how many different ways he can serve it up over the next few days or so.
On the menu today is TnT - (Toothfish smoked in Tealeaves). It is a very oily fish with a strong taste - very high in Omega 3 apparently so must be good – I try hard to like it.

11-Feb After the Storm & On With The Survey

11-Feb After the Storm & On With The Survey

We have just come through the worst of a short and sharp but fairly major storm that struck us without warning yesterday. Although the fury of the snow storm has now passed, we are still rolling around crazily in the storm swell. It is still snowing and the decks and machinery are now almost completely covered with snow. Regardless - the crew and scientists are back on deck, into swing of the survey and carrying on with what they are here for. Midwater sampling trawl goes out and then hauled back in again under the careful and orchestrated direction of the bosun. The crew work hard, they seem to be constantly at it during their 12 hour swings and out in all kinds of weather, rather them than me. I hope we don’t get too many of these storms, as it would account for a good deal of unproductive downtime - not good for our mission.

Boy is it cold outside, a few more repairs to be carried out on deck for Lindsay and I. I’d better get my long johns back on, I think. A busy day for us engineers today as well today - some equipment requiring repairs as a result of the rough weather and a few more breakdowns to attend to today - trawls and winches to fix

I am now the proud owner of my first piece of Antarctic real estate - my own prehistoric Antarctic rock. However it just looks like any other rock though.

We are about 30 miles off the Sub Antarctic Mountain range but can’t see a dicky bird yet. Hopefully in a day or two we will get a bit closer, I hope. I want to start painting the mountains and sea.

10-Feb Storm

10-Feb Storm

The day started with a furious storm - 50-knot winds and enormous seas, 8-metre high waves. This one sprung up out of nowhere. The snow doesn’t fall on our deck but blows horizontal looking for a vertical surface to stick to. Storms come through very fast in this part, the storm factory of the south. And this is supposed to be the more sheltered area of the Ross Sea, sheltered by the pack ice barrier. Not much vcan be done today by anybody and I wonder how many weather down times we might end up getting on this voyage.
I see a copy of the weather fax and see a whole string of cyclones on their way from the west en route to hit us - five in fact. What is interesting is that they are all small but very powerful. They can hit you suddenly and can often have passed over the next day. But yesterday was a good day. In fact we had the most sunshine hours this trip, probably about four hours, all at the end of the day.

9-Feb Heavy pack Ice

9-Feb Heavy pack Ice

We are trudging though the huge amounts of broken pack ice and it’s snowing again. But we are very nearly through to the open Ross Sea that we are trying to get to. To get into this open stretch of water in the Ross Sea, we had to punch through a huge ice dam on the inner edge of the pack ice barrier. This is where storms in the inner Ross Sea have packed up pack ice on top of each other. Apparently it has never been so big, it took us three days to work our way through.

Bob, the ice pilot, mentions that he has never known it to be so bad as it is this year. He also mentioned that the current is opposite to what it should be - maybe due to do with global warming. Well, that's partly what we are here doing a study for anyway - not “us” actually, but rather the scientists on board. We are just the “bus drivers”.
It’s hard to believe that it’s summer, except that night never seems to come. On top of it all, we had an eclipse this afternoon. One could just make it out when there was a break in the clouds. I missed most of it though as I was in the engine room at the time.

The days are actually so very long that you actually have to force yourself to turn in at night. Last night when the sun was out, it just seemed to duck below the horizon and then bob back up again, a few kilometers to the east from where it ducked down, and then another long day began. Fortunately the part of my cabin where my bunk is has no porthole so I can still get a decent sleep.

SQ got lost overboard today, well we presumed she was. I searched everywhere for her and thought she fell overboard from out of my back pocket whilst I was working on the aft deck incubator units. I am sure some of the crew thought it was a conspiracy so that I wouldn’t have to continue with the “SQ sails home” story.

8-Feb Sculptured Icebergs

8-Feb Sculptured Icebergs

We are making slow progress, finding our way through the pack ice and progressing in a zigzag pattern at a slow 2 knots. Down below, the noise is amazing as chunks of ice clunk against the ship’s hull. The ship momentarily stops as we come up against a big one. It gradually gives way and lets us through, or else the ship managed to slice through it.

More icebergs - the sight is amazing - one can stare at these ice islands for ages. The ice blocks come in all forms, shapes and sizes - thousands of exciting sculptured shapes. The Ross Sea is in fact like a huge Henry Moore sculpture garden. I am enjoying the shapes of them and inspired by their varied colours and lighting. They come in brilliant shades of white, grey, blue and turquoise. The cabin studio is in full swing each evening now. The long light means that I can paint late into the evening.

I have fun plans to take the watercolours outside to try to paint, but I know this will be futile, as I know my palette will instantly freeze up on me.
More penguins and seals. I query Bob about the turquoise stains underneath the pack ice. He tells me that this is algae, part of the diet of krill - the source of life for all baleen whales, most penguins and seabirds.
Antarctic krill are shrimp-like invertebrates (fish without back bone). They can grow to a length of 6 cm, weigh up to 2 grams and live in large schools, called swarms, sometimes reaching densities of 10,000–30,000/m3. They are actually designed wrong in that they weigh more than seawater and spend their lives swimming upward. They feed directly on the minute phytoplankton in the top layer of seawater. A year of light ice means more sunlight reaches the sea, more photosynthetic diatoms, and more krill and hence more whale and penguins etc. Krill are the key species in the Antarctic ecosystem. They can live up to 6 years and the female lays about 1000 eggs a year. They are supposedly the world's most abundant life form.
I have taken a few photos of our l’il penguin in the engine room giving us a hand. Actually I just saw a genuine penguin standing on an ice island, looking all confused - head bobbing from side to side as he watched us slip past. Someone yelled out “Whale”. But by the time I got there it had sounded.

7-Feb Adelie Penguins & Snow Petrels

7-Feb Adelie Penguins & Snow Petrels

It is hard to believe that we are now actually in the Antarctic. I had another three ‘firsts’ in my life over the last few days. On February 5, my first iceberg, February 6, when I knew we really were in the Antarctic, it had just hit home, and today, February 7, the first time I ever wore long Johns. Yes, it is bitterly cold down here at the moment and we have memelink history in the making.
Tonight I found an exciting new way to combat the problems of painting in watercolours in this completely dry atmosphere. My new method is to first draw the outline on the cotton paper, then soak the paper both sides. After letting the excess water drip off and dissipate, it leaves a beautiful damp surface to paint on.

Penguins appear on the ice islands we pass, but these ones don’t have the orange nicotine stain under their necks as I was expecting them to have, like the little film stars do in ‘March of The Penguins’. These are pure black and white with little white rings around their eyes.. I am informed that these are actually Adelie penguins not Emperor Penguins as I was expecting. Reading up about them later in my guide – it appears Adelie penguins were named after the wife of French explorer Dumont dUrville. Though I think they should actually be re‑named Butler penguins, they have a habit of standing around on a piece of ice in their white suites and little black dinner jackets. They look up at us like bewildered butlers ready to announce that dinner is served and with their arms flapping behind them as if they are freshening their armpits. Some of the penguins look like they have dipped themselves in syrup and then dived into a vacuum cleaner dust bag; they are half covered in grey fluff. I guess these must be the young ones. This breed of penguins actually have a special claim to fame - they are the breed that feature in Bluebird Chips ads.

Adults also like to play a harsh sort of chasing game with the kids, They prefer the kids to chase them for the food that they bring home for them, this way food is not wasted on any weak or unhealthy kids.

Around lunchtime we passed a lazy sea leopard on his blood soaked piece of pack ice – he looked like he was having an after lunch nap – he probably one of the “butler” penguins I think.

Saw a beautiful pure white seabird flying alongside the ship this afternoon and discover that they are called snow petrels. Beautiful white plumage with a black beak and black feet. Later I saw a few more gliding over the pack ice and blending in gracefully and adding to the calm. One of the scientists on board, Chazz Marriott, is a brilliant photographer and has so far uploaded some magnificent photos of seabirds onto the ships shared digital photo album. One is of a snow petrel flying low over an iceberg ,the soft shadow it casts over the snowy surface makes for a prize winning photograph.

It has been snowing all day and I discovered the design of a snowflake today. The forward portholes of my cabin are sloping. I watch the snowflakes land on the window and grab my glasses and discover that it is all true; each snowflake has amazing and different geometric designs.

6-Feb Slow Passage Through Heavy Pack Ice

6-Feb Slow Passage Through Heavy Pack Ice

We are well inside the pack ice barrier now and well inside the Ross Sea, slowly picking our way through narrow fingers of navigable waters between the built up pack ice - where we can find them. The sea temperature has dropped further to minus 1.5 degrees, just above the freezing point of seawater and the engine room bilges are are freezing up. We have changed over to the next set of double bottom FO bunker tanks which have been diluted with10% kerosene. This was added during bunkering in Wellington so as to avoid the diesel waxing in these extra cold temps.
Looking out of my porthole, it is snowing again and miles of snow-white islands of broken pack ice are drifting by. The occasional one has a sea leopard and lazy seal waving to us with its upturned flipper or small groups of puzzled penguins.
I met Bob, the “Ice Pilot”, today, a special deck officer who has expertise in sailing through ice and years of experience in Antarctic ice navigation under his belt. He was Captain for many years with Greenpeace on their Antarctic missions. The Tangaroa is not an icebreaker as such, but does have an ‘ice rating’. This ice rating allows it to break through 0.3 metres of year-old sea ice but anything thicker we can simply shove out of our way. However we do limit our ice contact, where‑ever possible.
The Ross Ice Shelf itself is about the size of France and like so much of this area was also discovered by James Ross in 1841 and was later named after him. On the 5th of January 1841, a British Admiralty team, led by Ross in the three-masted ships, Erebus and the Terror with specially strengthened wooden hulls, were going through the pack ice in an attempt to determine the position of the South Magnetic Pole. However they soon came up against the edge of the enormous ice shelf. Sir James Clark Ross, remarked at the time ”Well, there's no more chance of sailing through that than through the cliffs of Dover”. Ross, who in 1831 had located the North Magnetic Pole, spent the next two years vainly searching for a sea passage to the South Pole.
Both Amundsen and Scott crossed this ice shelf to reach the Pole in 1911. Scott's polar party, which had embarked from Ross Island, later died on the ice shelf during their return trek in 1912. They died in what scientists now believe was a freak cold period. "The new study of the weather on the Ross Ice Shelf, only carried out in the past decade or so, shows Scott really was unlucky. He travelled through an exceptionally cold spell, some 20 degrees Fahrenheit colder than usual."
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica and is about the size of France. The ice shelf is the main outlet for several major glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and contains the equivalent of 5 metres of sea level rise in its above-sea-level ice."
The presence of the shelves actually acts as "breaks" for the glaciers. These shelves serve another important purpose - they moderate the amount of melting that occurs on the glaciers' surfaces. Once their ice shelves are removed, the glaciers will increase in speed due to meltwater affecting it and because of the reduction of braking forces. They may then begin to dump more ice into the ocean than they gather as snow in their catchments thus unbalancing the equilibrium.
The near vertical ice front at the edge, where the ice shelf meets the open Ross Sea, rises about 30 metres + high above the sea level and is more than 600 km long. The ice mass is about 800 km wide and 970km long. In some places further in on the ice shelf, namely its southern areas, the ice shelf can be almost 750 metres thick with more than 90 percent of the floating ice being below the water level. The Ross Ice Shelf pushes out into the sea at the rate of between 1.5 metres and 3 metres a day. At the same time as the glaciers feed ice into the shelf, the freezing of seawater below the ice mass increases the thickness of the ice.I have been struggling a little with the watercolours. I think it’s because the atmosphere is so dry. The humidity is in fact zero. It is so dry in fact that the carpets in our cabins tend to shrink. I keep trying. I am now painting the scenes that appear outside my porthole.

5-Feb Storm

5-Feb Storm

Storm - Some heavy seas last night at about 65 degrees South. I got rolled out of my bunk a couple of times and heard some big ‘kathumps’ from the Captain’s cabin next door. It turns out his computer went for a good tumble last night.

At breakfast I heard that there was a nice Aurora Australis display last night. I made a pact with the night watch keeper to put me on the shake if they came again tonight. I thought it would be a good challenge to try and paint them in watercolours.

I finished my first commission of an iceberg and delivered it to the bosun yesterday. He was stoked. It was a painting from a photo that he won a prize for two years ago. It showed a snowstorm brewing over and a huge tabular iceberg. More commissions arrived and more swaps negotiated.

We entered pack ice later today. The ship’s speed is reduced to about 3 knots as the pack ice thickens and the mates look for fingers of clear water for the ship to pass through. The sea is flat but still there’s a slight swell coming through from the rough seas outside, bobbing the growlers and white islands around. Pack ice is basically large masses of broken up sea ice that can be made up of one, two or three year ice. The ice consists mostly of frozen sea water, sea ice is formed by sea water freezing when its temperature drops below 1.8 degrees.

The ship is graunching and groaning and shuddering its way through it all until we can get a patch of clear sea. There is a lot of talk about growlers and I learn that they are the mini icebergs, a little bigger than two-year pack ice. The next size after growlers are “Bergy Bits” and then I think come the Icebergs. I am slowly coming to terms with the new unusual terminology.

Antarctica

Antartica is Earth’s southernmost continent, surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.4 million km², it is the fifth-largest continent in area and 98% of it is covered by ice. It is the coldest, driest and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the other continents. Antarctica contains 70% of the world’s water (as ice) - in fact 29 million km3 . If this all melted, it would be enough to raise the sea level by 60 metres. It was thought that the amount of snow falling equates to the rate that icebergs melt, thus keeping the cyle in equilibrian. However this could be changing due to global warming.
It is so dry in fact that the continent is technically the largest desert in the world. It dawned on me that we are actually going to the opposite to the Arctic, that is “Anti Arctic”. A bit of research tells me that Antarctica actually comes from the Greek word “antarctikos” meaning opposite to Arctic. Further research shows that between the 15th and 18th century the imagined land was refered to as Terra Australis (Southern Land). Terra means ‘land’ in Latin and ‘Austral’ means ‘southern’. This became “terra Australis ingonita” meaning “the unknown land of the south”. The first confirmed sighting wasn’t until 1820 by the Russian expedition led by Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev.

The Antarctic Treaty
The Antarctic Treaty was signed in1959 by twelve countries involved in Antarctica, including New Zealand. It was set up to preserve the area, prohibiting military activities and mineral mining. The Treaty supports scientific research and protects the continent's natural wilderness. The Treaty suspended all territorial claims and no nation may enforce sovereignty or territorial claims on the Antarctic. Many more countries have since signed the agreement.

4-Feb The Ross Dependency

4-Feb The Ross Dependency

We are now in the top area of the Ross Dependency and the Ross Sea so last night was a calm night finally, and we managed to catch up on some much needed zzzzzz’s. I finished my last watch of the day at midnight and managed shut eye right through until 0700 hours.
The Ross dependency is a pie-shaped segment of Antarctica that New Zealand has laid claim to. It is a strange triangular segment with the pointy bit right on the south pole. The top side of the segment boundary is the parallel of latitude 60 south and the sides of the segment are the longitudes 160° east and 150° west, The dependency comprises mostly sea, including the Ross Sea, most of the Ross Ice Shelf but also a bit of dirt on either sides.

The Ross Dependancy which, according to wikipedia, takes its name from Sir James Clark Ross who discovered the Ross Sea, and was originally called King Edward VII Land. It covers some 450,000 km² and has a wildly fluctuating population at the bases depending on the season. The Dependency includes most of the Ross Ice Shelf, including Rosevelt island, trapped under the huge ice dome in the ice shelf, Ross Island, Balleny Islands and the small Scott Island. It mentions that it is on New Zealand time, and was entusted to New Zealand in 1923 by Brittain but has NO national anthem?

The huge Ross Sea (roughly about the size of Australia) freezes over each winter and ice can be up to three metres thick and the temperature plummet to minus 50 degrees Celsius. Then in summer, with the extra long days and more light, it all breaks up again. And so the cycle continues.

The Captain and Scientists will now get several regular and different kinds of satellite photographs of the Ross Sea area. This will allow them to plan the best route through the pack ice to the clear water where the scientists wish to do most of their work and studies. The pack ice has been slow to break up this year, apparently the worst pack ice conditions in 30 years. The scientists seem a bit worried about getting all the work done that they had hoped to. If necessary, they may need to re-plan the survey schedule accordingly. Some satellites that provide these ice maps can even look through the clouds to show the heaviest pack ice zones. To make an ice map RADARSAT, using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), sends microwave energy to the ocean surface and records the reflections in order to track icebergs. Another type ENVISAT uses Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). This can detect changes in surface height accurately. Makes me wonder how the early explorers did it without any of this modern technology. They would have had no idea of the ice conditions that lay ahead of them and could only find their way by sending a shivering seaman shimmying up the mast.

3-Feb Iceberg Ahoy

3-Feb Iceberg Ahoy

The sea is calm again but with a big rolling swell. Outside the temperature is still dropping. It’s below zero today and the sea temperature is just below one degree. A light snow is falling and we now have to wear full cold weather gear if we wish to venture out on deck. This includes the thick felt gumboot liners, at least two or three pairs of gloves, and thermal underwear.

We find out at breakfast that the “Iceberg ahoy!” call came from the bridge watch at 0200 hours. Our powerful iceberg searchlights picked up the first decent sized iceberg, about the size of a house. The latitude of the sighting is 64 south and the winner is Ed, I think.

We guessed that 64 in French must be something like “Soixante Quattro” so at our morning toolbox meeting our little mascot penguin gets told of his new name. (Better find someone on board who can speak the French lingo to make sure we spell it properly). But our little mascot didn’t like his new name and would rather be called “SQ” for short instead.

Lindsay, the second engineer, hollers me from down below at 0930 hours - ”Iceberg, iceberg”. I charge out on deck for my first encounter with an iceberg.

Outside it feels like Christmas, lightly snowing and in the grey gloomy mist is my iceberg. This ice block looked huge to me, about the size of a house but apparently it was a little one. Lindsay made me take a photo of it, being my first one; I’ll remember this one he said. As it was too small to warrant a name by the NIC (National Iceberg Centre), I decided to officially name it AM01 (my initials and my first one). A fascination for icebergs was to be born this day and I started to learn about these magnificent pieces of natural sculpture. I discovered that they are timeless but living works of art.

An iceberg actually begins as snow. Originally conceived millions of years ago in the middle of Antarctica, it snowed and this snow formed a granular laver called ‘neve’. This is compressed to denser ‘firn’ and as even new layers fall on top, the firn gets compressed yet even further, forcing out more air bubbles. Pure Glacial ice is 200 times denser than fresh snow. In fact the complete layer of ice is so thick and the weight so heavy that it depresses the whole continent by 1km.

The build-up of ice over Antarctica is like a giant pancake, and the ice becomes fluid like very slow moving treacle and it so journeys to the sea in a glacier. When the glacier meets the coast it either enters one of the ice shelves or forms and ice tongue out into the sea. At the seaward end of the glacier or ice shelf, the ice, being lighter than seawater, starts to hinge and gets worked on by tidal and storm action. This action causes large chunks to break off, called ‘calving’ and so icebergs are born and set free to the sea to be continually sculptured by nature into beautiful new forms.

Icebergs form mostly during the spring and summer, when warmer weather increases the rate of calving. An iceberg floats because it is less dense than water, the density of pure ice is about 920 kg/m³, and that of sea water about 1025 kg/m. Thus usually 7/8 of a new iceberg is underwater with the most dense and heaviest part of it being the core. When the lighter top including more recent snow gets washed off, it becomes even denser and as little as only 1/10 it might show above water.

An iceberg can live for many years and during its lifetime, it can tumble and upturn many times as its centre of gravity changes due to the underneath part being sculptured by the sea. 93% of the world's mass of icebergs is found surrounding the Antarctic and if it all melted, it would raise the sea levels by 60 meters.

ICEBERG SHAPE CLASSIFICATION
Officially there are two basic types of iceberg forms: ‘Tabular’ and ‘Non-tabular’.
Tabular: An iceberg with steep sides and flattop. Most Antarctic icebergs start off as tabular and this is the shape that they are in when they have just broken off from a glacier or an ice shelf.

Non-tabular: Describes all other icebergs that are not tabular. This category is further subdivided to include the specific shapes described below. If no other description applies, the iceberg is simply referred to as a non-tabular but we are free to invent new names for these if we want to.

Non-tabular Iceberg Shape Classifications
Blocky: Basically small tabular icebergs. An iceberg with steep, vertical sides and a flat top. It differs from tabular icebergs in that its shape is more like a block than a flat sheet.
Dome: An iceberg with a rounded top. This includes the policeman’s helmet shaped one we saw.
Pinnacle: An iceberg with one or more sharp peaks.

Wedge: An iceberg with a steep edge on one side and a slope on the opposite side.
Dry-Dock: An iceberg that has eroded so that a slot or channel is formed. The castle-like icebergs we saw would probably fit into this category.

Interestingly, the amazing forms of icebergs encountered are not due to melting from the top but instead due to erosion by the warmer seawater underneath. Wave action can erode out magnificent caves at sea level and gradually as this happens the iceberg gets lighter and slowly rises. While this erosion is occurring from below, the top has remained relatively still in tack and the center of gravity subsequently shifts. The iceberg then reaches a point where it becomes unbalanced and, with a thundering crash, topples over. They may then for the first time reveal and show off the magnificent freshly sea sculptured forms.
This sculpturing and topsy-turvy action can happen several times during the life of an iceberg.

As well as shape description an iceberg is further classified by its size as follows.

Growler– less than 1m high & 5m long (named by early sailors who often heard a growling as hey bob in the water)

Bergy Bit 1-4 m high & 5 – 14m high

Small 5-15m high 5-14 m long

Medium 16-45m high 61-122 m long

Large 46-75m high 123-213 m long

Very Large Over 75m high Over 213m long

2nd Feb The Southern Ocean

2-Feb The Southern Ocean

Deep down into the Southern Ocean now, the least hospitable ocean in the world and includes all the sea north and around Antarctica – up to latitude 50. The temperature outside is steadily dropping, and so is the barometer. The weather is getting rougher. I am getting used to the ship’s doctor, Jen. She bursts into the mess at 0700 hours for breakfast, and while we are still rubbing off sleepy dust with grumpy greetings of ”morning”, she bursts in full of beans sort of singing a spirited “Good morning” with a smiley face like she is opening a TV morning show.

A list goes up on the mess room whiteboard above a jar to put $2 into - not a swear jar but the Iceberg Sweepstake Jar. Apparently we have to guess the latitude where we encounter the first iceberg and the winner gets the jar - with the money in it.

Our mascot, a little stuffed emperor penguin given to me by nephews and nieces, came down to the engine room with me this morning, tucked snug in the top pocket of my overalls, and joins us for our kick-off control toolbox (coffee) meeting. The toolbox meeting decides that it would be a good idea to introduce the penguin to the rest of the crew via the ship’s shared computer photo album. After our second coffee it was decided that it would be named after the latitude (in French) of the first iceberg sighted. The first photo shoot of the penguin is shot – story begins – penguin gets discovered as a stowaway hiding in a pipe.

After morning muffin and coffee time, Doc Jenny gives us a lecture about the dangers associated with working in the extreme cold temperatures that we are about to encounter. A snap refresher course on hypothermia and we learn how to ensure one lasts longer in the extreme cold. ”Take lots of breaks for hot drinks”, she recommends. (Sounds good to use – more coffee breaks). She hands us a survival pack of lip balm (lips and skin dry out fast in the completely dry air) and sunscreen, (BIG ozone hole over Antarctica we are told). We are informed that there is a big blue shipping container on our foredeck packed with emergency rations for crew, including many ‘one square meals’ and bars of chololate. We practice donning the emergency survival suits, and had lots of laughs taking turns trying to get into the cumbersome red floater suits.

On my rounds to the Bow Thruster room, I hear honking. No, not ice scraping and bumping against the hull yet but our Captain, Andrew Leachman, practicing his sax in the computer room. Some cool jazz sounds wafting out.

Apparently we are due to cross the ACC today so I am told. My understanding is never to cross the ACC as it is a governement department. But no, this is aparently a different sort of ACC. This ACC stands for Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This is the main current in the Southern Ocean, a 21,000 km current that travels from west to east right around Antactica, flowing between the Lattitudes of 50 and 60 south. It is also known as the West Wind Drift. The ACC is the biggest current in the world and transports 150 billion litres per second of water at up one kilometre per second. The Southern Ocean is in one of the windiest parts of the planet and its currents are driven mainly by the wind. The wind that blows over the surface of the ocean passes its energy to the water molecules in the ocean, giving the water more kinetic energy. Friction between the sea water and the bottom of the ocean cause the movement of the water or current to slow down. It is the balance between these two forces that stops the currents from getting faster and faster.

The ACC is right on the Cnvergence Zone, this is the line where the colder North Antarctic water creeps below the warmer sub Antarctic sea water. There is a sudden change of water temperature, Foggy misty atmosphere.was told that as soon as we cross into it, the sea temperature would plummet. It sure did, from about 7 degrees to minus 1.5 degrees.
We all get issued our cold weather packs, several sets of long johns, short johns, thick socks, many different sorts of gloves, balaclava and special thick felt boots that fit inside gumboots – all serious cold stuff.

1st Feb Heading South

1-Feb

The weather today is calm, the sea slight with a rolling swell. We are heading due south and are about directly east off Banks Peninsular. Our engine is running sweat and there is a hive of activity on deck as the scientists and crew prepare their equipment. Everyone is making the most of the relatively warm weather and calm seas and people are still in shorts. It will soon be bitterly cold, I am reminded that any job that isn’t done now will otherwise take twice as long to do down under.

There are two engineers on board, myself as chief and Lindsay Battersby as second engineer. Our shifts are slightly different to the crew and scientists. We cover twenty-four hour watches and simply put the main engine to bed and set the engine room alarm system to UMS (unmanned machinery space) when we are not actually in there. We hope with our fingers crossed that things will run smoothly with minimal middle-of-the-night callouts.

Our engineering day typically starts with our first inspection rounds at 0730 hours followed by our own private ‘toolbox meeting’ in the engine control room, (really a good excuse for a coffee brew). Our typical day is taken up with repairs, all sorts of maintenance, playing at being plumbers, electricians and general Mr Fixits. At the end of our day’s work in the engine room, we simply do our last rounds, put the engine to bed, so to speak, and switch the alarms over to the duty engineer’s cabin. When not in the engine room, we carry a pager and when this vibrates merrily in our pockets, we jump into our boots, slip into our overalls and slide down the stair rails as fast as we can to attend to whatever the problem might be.
The RV Tangaroa “RV” stands for “research vessel”, like SS for steamship, and MV for motor vessel. RV Tangaroa is the New Zealand reserch vessel operated by NIWA (National Institute of Water and Atmosphere). She is 70 metres long, nearly 14 metres wide and has a 7 metre draft.
For the scientific work to be accomplished in the Ross Sea, there are several laboratories on board. The main lab is below deck (on the factory deck). This is where fish caught in the trawls are identified, measured and preserved as samples if required.
On the trawl deck there is a dry lab, a plankton lab, and the Benthic Sorting Shed, which is the area where the ‘Benthic Babes’ hang out and where the sea floor dredgings are brought to for sorting through and identification. Next to this is the Bacteria Lab where Else and Stu do their microscopic stuff. Deep in the bowels of the ship is the Electronic Hub of the ship, the computer room that houses the multi beam echo sounder and other equipment.
Equipment on deck include the trawl nets and bottom dredges which bring up the fish samples and benthic things, the DTIS (Deep Tow Imaging System), CTD Rosette (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth Rosette) for bottom core sampling and the MOCNESS (Multiple Opening/Closing Net Environmental Sensor System).
I met Max Quinn today from the New Zealand Natural History Film Unit in Dunedin. He is on board to do a documentary on the voyage. He is a very interesting chap with a great sense of humour. It turns out he has affliction for cold documentaries and has some amazing cold experiences under his belt to tell us about. We watched the first of his documentaries - an amazing documentary of the great Alaskan sled dog race.
It looks like I will have to get my paints out well before we arrive in Antarctica. I was approached at “smoko” today by Mike, the bosun, and Glenbo, second crew boss.

“We hear you paint”, they said. ”Can you do us a painting from photos of our last trip to Antarctica?” ”What will it cost us?”

“Sure”, I said and looked forlornly towards my empty beer fridge. I had missed the duty free order when the ship was in port, so there was now every prospect that this two-month trip was going to be a dry one for me.

They got the picture and before I had even started the painting, my fridge was filled. My paints and brushes came out and my beer fridge got stocked up. So I was away painting Antarctica before I had even seen it myself.

Voyage newletters and blogs

www.niwascience.co.nz/rc/antarctica/ipy-caml
www.cousteau.org/caml
www.caml.aq/voyages/tangaroa-2007-2008/index.html
www.sciencelearn.org.nz/ipyvoyage

31-Jan Departure Wellington

31st Jan 2008 Departure Wellington

Departure Wellington - It always feels so good to be sailing out to sea again. I remember what an old salt friend once said to me as we were sailing again after a long port stay. ‘’This is what a ship is meant for, a ship only rusts away when alongside in a port.”

There is something special about being at sea - an adventure ahead and a sense of leaving the rat race behind, - just the ship, your shipmates, the sea and me. In a sense, a wonderful form of escapism. There was of course the added excitement of the adventure that lay ahead. It was a calm sunny late afternoon as I stood at the deck rail and watched the Wellington heads drift past. We were heading for a destination that I never even dreamed of ever heading to. The NIWA Research Vessel (RV) Tangaroa is on its way to the coldest, stormiest and driest end of the earth - Antarctica, a land where it never rains but only snows.

This voyage happens to be one of eleven scientific voyages to both polar regions as part of the International Polar Year (IPY) involving twenty-three countries. Our contribution would be to focus on the Ross Sea region, a New Zealand Dependency. This special IPY year marks fifty years since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty. This IPY programme began in March 2007 and runs until March 2009, covering two polar summer seasons. This voyage also forms part of the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), to survey marine life and habitats around Antarctica and to determine its diversity. The aim of this global scientific programme is to better understand the land and sea environments of the Arctic and Antarctic regions and the effects of climate changes on them. Scientists will colect samples of marine life including viruses, bacteria,plankton,benthic fauna,cephalopods, fish as well as undertake undersea mapping projects.

Every bunk on board is occupied - all forty-four of them. Some of the crew I already know, having sailed with them before, but there are many new faces yet to meet, lots of scientific looking people with big scientific beards and very interesting characters. The reason why there are so many scientific personnel on board, twenty-six, in fact, is that the ship will be operating around the clock once it reaches the Ross Sea region. They will be splitting into two, twelve-hour shifts, changing over at midday and midnight. The deck crew will also work 24-7 in two watches, each with four men.


I met the ship’s doctor Jenny tonight, taking photos at the deck rails. Jenny is a lively fun person to have on board, as I was soon to discover. It turns out that she is of Dutch heritage, and we think we could form a Dutch club as there are four of us on board. We think this would be good to practice our lingo as we are both a bit rusty on it. It is not usual for ships to carry a doctor these days but because of the sheer remoteness of where we are heading to, Jenny will be there to stitch us up or super-glue our wounds if we need attention.