25th March 2010, 3:37 PM
Location: 61°S, 56°W

First of all, apologies for not updating the blog more often. But the last few days have been very busy and we have not had the chance to write a lot. Since our last post, a lot has happened. As we were coming from the first station, the sea ice was covering most of the initial cruise track.

Even though the JCR can go through ice, it considerably slows things down. Mike, the chief scientist, decided to change the start of the track to avoid the sea ice. The new cruise track goes across the Bransfield Strait up to Elephant Island and then goes east between Elephant Island and the South Orkneys (see the map). We saw our first icebergs on the 25th March as we were entering the Bransfield Strait. We sailed near Bridgeman Island, a tiny volcanic Island.

The day was clear and sunny and everybody enjoyed the view. Our first station, close from the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula was done during the evening of the 25th March. Since then, the stations have been coming one after the other very quickly and we had to do a lot of work. Sampling the bottles, running analysis, making sure everything is running smoothly. We have been pretty lucky with the weather so far (fingers crossed!) with little wind and waves which allow us to work in very good condition (even though the temperature is pretty cold!). Our main concern so far has been the bottles that did not close properly. During one cast, one bottle closed at the surface before going in the water and as the CTD was going down, the bottle full of air imploded under the tremendous pressure of the water (see photos). This is a good example of how strong the pressure is in the deep ocean. The blow took the adjacent bottles out which gives some pretty impressive pictures! We also deployed the first of our ARGO floats. ARGO floats are a very useful tool for oceanographers. They are autonomous floats that are deployed from a ship. They sink down to 1000 metres and they will drift for a certain amount of time, recording temperature, salinity, pressure and position as they drift. Then they will surface, recording vertical profiles of temperature and salinity. Once at the surface, they will transmit their information via satellite and the data will be almost instantly freely available to anybody. A map of all the positions of all the existing ARGO floats can be found at:http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/FrAbout_Argo.html Hopefully, we will be able to write more often now.

The CTD coming back on deck.

The cruise track, with the lastest position of the ship (29th March) and the sea ice extent.

Some pictures...