Final weeks of science - Ice station G and one of the best days of my life (30-31.8, 1-2/9)

In this posting, I will give an overview of the work and activities that have happened in the end of August and beginning of September - where two 24-h ice stations are included and two transits. Here I will include ice station G and the transit afterwards. The update of the first week in September will come out in the next coming days.

Ice station G (30-31/8) - Tuesday one of the best days of my life!

Monday 30/8 morning we stopped during transit for a CTD and then travelled for the whole day towards Station G - heading to the region in the Greenland Shelf nobody has been before! Most of the day I was working on the computer for data analysis - I was making a plot showing the results of our balloon competition! Everyone who want to can launch a weather balloon and will then automatically be included in the competition who gets the highest (or lowest) balloon. Of course, there will be a price for it. Me, John or the doctor on ship will be responsible for preparing the radiosonde and weather balloon, and whoever wants to can then release it. Currently, I am the one holding the lead, but as we travel southwards, the chance to get higher balloons increase and someone else will have the change to win (I have the highest now) - maybe!

We arrived at Station G in the evening around 5 pm and this station started with CTDs, longline and fish traps deployment by helicopter and in order to save time, the ice work was scheduled for the night 8 pm to 2 am!! We went out at 8 pm and went to a lead in front of the ship. The weather was amazing and it did not feel that late being out there on the ice with blue sky, sun and high clouds above us. The ice thickness was about 2m, with some ice ridges. We stayed out for three hours and managed to do all of our measurements, it was definitely a successful ice station for our project work. Apart from us, also SAS ice coring team was out for collecting ice core samples, as well as other project work groups. We returned to the ship at 11 pm just in time for John to launch the midnight weather balloon and for me to go to bed for getting up at 5 am for the next day early morning weather balloon. 

Let me now tell you about one of my best days of my life: On Tuesday 31st of August, the beam fish net begun at 7 am. As I launched the weather balloon at 5.30 am, the sun was gone and it was snowing and the sky was cloud-covered. As the CTDs and water sample analysis were on the whole night, for many of us, breakfast at 8 am for me was evening snack for others before going to bed. My day started pretty relaxed and there was cake for fika as left-overs from yesterdays Birthday cake - no vegan cake though. Before lunch there was time for some sports and writing emails to friends and at this moment, I had no idea how this day would turn into. During lunch we got the information that, despite the beam net being operated in the back of the ship, there would be space for some project work in the afternoon. This meant that in comparison to the previous ice station, we would now have the opportunity to return to the same lead and collect more data, for e.g. consecutive day flux comparison, during our stay at the station G. So I would be allowed to go on ice three days in a row!

 However, the day got even better! As the plan was to leave station G around dinner time to transit for the next station(s), the longlines and fish traps had also to be retrieved by helicopter in the afternoon. Usually, four people are allowed to join the helicopter flights - the pilot and 2-3 more researchers. After some discussion and organisation, I jumped up from joy when I was given the opportunity to join them for the helicopter flight!! It was me, Emma and Frank together with our awesome pilot Ted. For Emma it was the first time on the helicopter, for me the fourth, but still as excited! I got to sit in the front while flying to the traps and giving Emma the honour to sit infront on the way back to the ship. I was so excited to FLY HELICOPTER! And to learn how the work on ice for other groups work - it was both me and Emmas first time in retrieving the longlines and fish traps, so we were somewhat trainees on this trip. I also brought one of our ice chambers with us for doing some science for gas flux exchange while working with the ice traps. The weather changed again and to our advantage - the cloud layer got thinner and the sun was shining through the clouds, being magically reflected on the lead surface close to the working space on the ice. There were temporally fog patches passing through, hiding Oden for a while and in the next half an hour, the fog was gone and the sun was shining again. As we were flying to the ice, we had to do some extra turns around the area for polar bear survey, whereas on the way back, we flew even more extra rounds - above the fog layers, on different heights, diagonally, almost vertically sometimes!! - to check the ice situation as a preparation for the departure. This was amazing and no words can tell how amazing it was! Regarding the work on ice, we got no fish in the longlines and also not in the traps - not even a jellyfish (got two small shrimp-alike creatures in one of the traps). The work was fun and sometimes while pulling up the traps, also physically requiring, but it was so much fun, being out there in the magical landscape with lovely company. John return to the lead together with another scientist and measured gas fluxes in the afternoon - I am soo happy I was allowed to join the helicopter flight! Even though we do not have that many days left, I truly hope for at least one more helicopter station - either for our project work or the fish-project. I am available!

As we returned to Oden around 5 pm, there was still some time left before dinner and time for sauna to warm up after three hours on work on ice. And the day was not over yet - another close to my heart activity was fulfilled this day - we had our second Lindy Hop social dance evening   at 8 pm. We begun with a short crash course teaching a promenade- move and then played swing songs for everyone to dance with everyone. We were about 10 people joining the dance event. It was lovely! Also, in the end of the social event, we were lucky to dance to live guitar to a swing song written by one of our scientist on bord. It was absolutely beautiful! The day ended with a film in the cinema. It was a long but a lovely day - in bed around 1 am to get up at 5 am. But totally worth every part of the day and would re-live it any minute!

The plan for our next destination was changed completely from now on, as we really desired to reach the Greenland Shelf but were not sure if we would reach it or not. To our luck, the ice was drifting and giving space to thinner ice cover and more open water, and thus the captain together with the SPRS secretariat decided to change the plan of the trip in order to reach as far as possible into a region where nobody has been before. One of the pre-planned longer ice stations were cancelled and a new, Station Q - Q stands for Question - was planned, following the ice situation and then being placed at location question mark when we know the current ice conditions. We were heading towards Greenland! And we had a two day transit ahead of us, with some CTD stations on the way, before reaching the final Station Q on Saturday the 4th of September in the morning around 7 am. Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd were devoted to transit and CTD stops and some overside sampling for our project work. The evenings were filled with creative activities: dancing - a Lindy Hop dance class on Thursday eve, where the Swingout was taught - puzzles and knitting. 

More about Greenland, Ice station Q (4-5/9), Ice station H (5-6/9), and SAS coring station (3/9) coming soon!