HLY1502 letter 06 from Jim Swift

Sunday, 13 September 2015, 7:00 pm, local date and time (0500 14 September UTC)

85°48’N, 150°34’W (on the northern flank of the Alpha Ridge)

air -13.4 degC / 8 degF

water -1.4 degC / 29 degF

wind 4 knots from NE

on an ice station following hydrographic station 041

Dear Family, Friends, and Colleagues,

We are now about 250 nautical miles south of the North Pole, following the planned track toward Alaska along 150°W longitude. Tomorrow we will begin crossing over the very rarely visited Alpha Ridge (where a 55-hour Geotraces “superstation” is planned). Part of the area we traversed here from the Pole was not passable on my previous expeditions due to very heavy ice. We found this year that the ice has changed over the past decade to the point where Healy is able to work here solo. Still, the going has sometimes been tough, but we do keep on going. The Healy has plowed through long stretches of ice which looked to be two meters thick. Occasionally there are back-and-ram operations, meaning that if the ice stops the ship, the ship backs up in its track a ways, revs up, and pushes forward again, repeating as needed. There is quite a bit of snow on the ice, which impedes motion by increasing friction on the ship’s hull. The result has been some slow, long hauls between stations. Heavy icebreaking is noisy - ice impacts on the hull reverberate through the ship - and causes the ship to lurch about, both of which disturb sleep for many, but I do not find it bothersome.

Our measurement work is a methodical process, following a planned and practiced suite of well-honed procedures. Sometimes the ice or the Arctic cold has its say. Today the skies cleared - the sun on the ice is beautiful - but meanwhile under those clear skies the air cooled quickly, temperature dropped to well below 10°F, and we needed to improvise a bit to keep sensors and samples from freezing. I confess that while we were later sampling water in the near-freezing rosette staging bay, I was thinking of the present heat wave back home - perhaps both we and those at home would have gladly switched places for at least a few minutes of relief!

During an ice station last week, Bill Schmoker, the PolarTrec teacher on board, put his waterproof GoPro camera on a pole and pushed it down a hole drilled in the ice, pointed up, to see what there was to see. When he was reviewing the short recording, he saw he had recorded a seal swimming by (see photo, taken from a video frame) - no one had any idea there was a seal in the area.

Saturday night is “morale night” on the ship. One of the ships’ groups cooks dinner - this weekend it was Philly steak sandwiches. There is also an event, in this case “sumo wrestling” in the helo hangar, with contestants in huge padded costumes (see photo). Hilarious!

We are busy with our work, crew and science team alike. The part of the program I oversee (the water column temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and nutrient measurements) is going very well. This is a long cruise, but we have passed “hump day” - the halfway point. We press on with the planned work, with another goal always ahead of us. For my part, I find the sameness of the days helps the weeks go by, meanwhile feeling quite satisfied with our progress.

All is well.

Jim Swift

Research Oceanographer

UCSD Scripps Institution of Oceanography

PS - We are limited to 100 kb total message size, so I can include only the two photos. The image of the seal swimming past the GoPro is from Bill Schmoker, PolarTrec, and the sumo wrestling photo is by Jim Swift, SIO.