16th August

Thursday 16th August 2012

Most folk had a long lie for the first time since the watches began, in my case 7am. Iceland was nowhere to be seen as there was a heavy mist but the sea was flat calm.

Around 9am, the pilot boarded the vessel and guided us in to port. I had heard that the skyline of Reykjavik as you enter the harbour is spectacular but not today unfortunately.

The big clean up has begun. All the labs must be emptied and equipment packed and stored for the return trip to Southampton. All log sheets have to be entered on computer and the sun has just come out. The students have all gone ashore leaving the rest of us to envy them.

There is not much more to be said other than the views of Colin Griffiths, the Principal Scientist. It has been a very successful Extended Ellett Line trip with all work accomplished, additional stations sampled, no downtime and no equipment failure. The weather helped enormously. Of the students he was very complimentary, saying they were very supportive and professional.

                                      Colin (R) having a briefing session.

The final word should come from our Captain, Antonio Gatti, who has been with NERC for 20 years. For fourteen of these he was based at British Antarctic Survey and the last 6 at NOC. During this time he has sailed into many exotic ports such as montego Bay, Cape Town, Valparaiso, Montevideo, Antigua and many more.

This is his second last trip on this old Discovery but he is looking forward to joining the new Discovery in January for her sea trials.

What were his impressions of this cruise? Well apart from being blessed by the weather, it was a fairly uneventful trip with no need to run for shelter. He looked forward with trepidation to the prospect of having so many students with little or no seagoing experience but was pleased to find that they settled in well to the ship's routine, worked hard and gave no cause for concern.

A last picture now of the pilot whales that were with us a few days ago courtesy of Lewis.

Well here endeth the Extended Ellett Line, Discovery 2012 blog and here starteth a few days R&R in Iceland.

Goodbye

15th August

Wednesday 15th August 2012

My watch started as usual at 4am just as the 'A team were finishing sampling in the most horrendous rain storm. Fortunately it had cleared up by the time we had to emerge on deck.

The last CTD was completed at lunchtime and the afternoon was spent in a flurry of packing up gear and samples. The little turnstone? was still around and not quite as nervous as yesterday but not eating the titbits offered. I suspect a crust of bread is not as tempting as a juicy worm anyway.

Today it is Kirsteen Allison's turn to do some blogging. She is a SAMS/UHI undergraduate who is about to do her 4th year having spent last year in the Arctic studying at UNIS.

Today is the last day of sampling and the last day of watches. I am in Team Expendables and our watch is 8-12 so it’s the easiest for our sleep pattern. We don’t miss any meals and we have one more person than the other shifts, hence our name, but that just means we do more work! Today we did the last CTD, which is nice as we also did the first CTD way back in the Sound of Mull. I woke up to the view of Iceland off the portside (left) of the ship and in the distance we could also see the famous Surtsey Island. The island first reached sea level in 1967 making the island only 45 years old, which is younger than the ship we are on the RRS Discovery (being 50 years old)!

It was a beautiful ending collecting the samples from the last two CTD’s (IB22 and IB23) with Iceland in the background. This was slightly hampered by the fact we were surrounded by hundreds of noisy birds, that thought we were a fishing boat! :) Once all the samples were all collected it was photo time!

Team Expendables from right to left Karen, John, Olly, Kirsteen (me) and Charlotte.

After our sad farewell to the CTD and Team Expendables, it was time to pack. In only a few hours most of the equipment was packed away in the chemistry labs. The samples were wrapped in many layers of bubble wrap, tissue, cardboard, tape, bean tins (Alex), zip ties and then put in boxes which are then put into even bigger boxes. So once the samples have survived their cozy journey to the labs, I think it might take much longer to actually get to the samples than it did to take them. :)  

To top it all off tonight we had a wee social gathering to celebrate the cruise and the chefs kindly brought through platters of food. Tomorrow we will be heading in to Reykjavik and will be our last night onboard and our farewell to the ship before it goes on another few trips before its retirement.



14th August

Tuesday 14th August 2012

At 3am I woke up clinging to my bed. Yes! The weather that any marine scientist should expect while working in the north Atlantic had arrived. We have been very lucky so far so can’t complain about a few 4.1 metre waves tossing us about. The forecast is for it to subside a bit then return again tomorrow but we have managed to deploy our 100^th CTD.

Twice today a pod of about 20 pilot whales ‘buzzed’ us but it would be a brave person who would expose their camera to the elements.

The other wildlife story is our little stowaway bird, a lbj, who was staggering around the deck looking for food. Lewis managed a photo and sent it away to be identified as a meadow pipit. This morning it had moved into the hangar but unless it eats and drinks it won’t survive until Iceland.

Later another land bird, some sort of wader, perhaps a turnstone, took up residence for a while.

Today's blog is supplemented by Rosie Houlding, a SAMS/UHI student who is also going to the Arctic to spend her 3rd year at UNIS.

As an upstanding member of the 'Slackers' day gang, I spend most of my day correcting the mistakes made by the tired, and generally confused, watch shifts.  I arrive on shift at 8.30, by which point the 'Living dead' have returned to their preferred comatose state and the 'Expendables' are at the height of their working day (watching the waves from the hanger and setting up a playlist for the next four hours, the highlight of today's being Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing).

My work consists of analysing chlorophyll samples collected by the watches, then inputting the data into software that maps contour plots of the surveyed area, much to my dismay I get quite a bit of enjoyment from this, sadly earning my status as a science geek.  My workload tends to be relatively short lived, normally comprising of roughly two hours of analysis in the morning.  The duration of my '12 hour shift' tends to include short bursts of data crunching (possibly more accurately described as data manipulation), followed by distractions from the other watch members, especially the 'gAy team' with their muscle flexing, face stroking and entertaining outbursts (such as the incredibly accurate rendition of 'Everybody Dance Now!').  With my shift I'm normally unfortunate enough to manage a gym slot every day, thankfully the weather is rocky enough that I can excuse myself for the time being and occupy myself with 12 cups of tea and 4 packs of hobnobs a day instead. 

The weather has taken a bit of a turn for the worst over the last couple of days, nothing drastic, just a bit dour, force 7 this morning, makes tea making a little more interesting. (I think two weeks ago that would of been more of a 'ohhhh sheeeeeeett!!!')  Haven't seen the sun in a few days, wildlife's been a little quiet too, but i can now successfully identify a seagull.  We saw a wee pod of pilot whales this morning which was pretty cool.

Tonight should be interesting, a few of us seem to have taken on the task of watching every s**t film that the ship has to offer, tonight's our last chance so we'll have to surpass ourselves.  Then tomorrow we can do our student selves proud after all our 'ardcore sampling.

Cheers

Rosie

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally the day couldn't go by without mentioning those who see to our well-being and managed to produce an outstanding curry night. As luck would have it, a CTD landed on deck just as it was being served and those of us on that watch had to work whilst salivating at the smell which wafted from below. Eventually we got there and it was well worthwhile.

All this was prepared by the very shy and retiring Lloyd an the left and Mark, right. Thanks guys.

12th August (part)

Sunday 12th August 2012

A grey and slightly chillier day. The air pressure has been dropping steadily for a couple of days and a little more thought is required when moving about the ship so maybe we will be experiencing some more difficult conditions.

This morning a lonely little common dolphin came to play with us for about 15 minutes, coming quite close to one side then disappearing underneath the ship to emerge on the other side. This first cetacean sighting in several days caused a little excitement. It was moving too fast for a photo so Zoltan chopped this from a video he took.

My brother has sent a message to correct the A team. Apparently it is wrong to refer to those not on watch duties as 'slackers. ”. The correct term as used in Nelson’s Navy is “idlers”

From next station onwards we will be following the 20 deg line of longitude northwards so once again the mast will be interfering with the internet connection. Karen had written about the Apex moorings, the second of which was deployed about 4pm, but her laptop has taken ill and is now in Zoltan's sick bay. Hopefully it will be fixed for the next blog.

13th August

Monday 13th August 2012

The day started grey and dreich but I still have not needed my wet weather gear. It is definitely becoming more difficult to walk in a straight line and is advisable to hold when going up and down stairs or through doors.

The 3rd Argo float was successfully deposited at a deep station in the middle of the Icelandic basin and we have only 12 CTDs to go with an estimated finishing time of Wednesday late afternoon.


Today Jason Dobson, who has just completed first year of the Marine Science degree at SAMS, is in charge of the blog.

Days on board the Discovery have become very ‘routine’. Shifts have been set out, meal times are scheduled and sleeping patterns are now running smoothly, in my case meaning, not sleeping between 12pm and 4am, missing breakfast and lunch and having the regular nap on watch. It’s a good feeling to know my back is covered as the incredible ‘A team’ work through the night. As I am the baby of the cruise I am susceptible to making a few novice mistakes. Fortunately, my team have taken pity on me and named me ‘the face’ from the ‘A Team’. These mistakes regularly occur through the night shift after deprived of sleep and reluctance to nap before shift as I would never be able to wake up on time… as I have already shown.

This morning’s shift started right on 12am as I took post and found out there was minimal work to be done as the station required little sampling and wouldn’t surface for over two hours. This gave me an opportunity to finish my book while struggling to keep my head from falling unconsciously onto the desk (time well spent I know). Work can be very relaxed during the nightshift as much of the sampling takes time to filter and log, another area where being a novice has induced several minor mistakes; from labelling wrong, to placing 2 filters in the same tube. Not to worry though as all is resolved in the morning when our star chlorophyll analyser is impatiently waiting for me to rouse from my cabin so she can mock me for being such an idiot.

At the end of every night shift there is always a little amusement in watching the 4-8 watch members (the Living Dead) wander into the lab to start shift as the stumble aimlessly and speak incoherent drivel. But they soon come to life when the cold air, wind and spray from the vessel attack them as they work on the next CTD. When I finally made it to bed, eyes shut and ready for sleep, I remembered that I am within meters of the engine room and sleep is almost impossible without some bangin’ tunes. I’ve had to download a bit of James Blunt with the hypothesis that no one can stay awake long while listening to him. After 10 minutes my theory is proven and I’m sent into a deep sleep. However, this master plan works so efficiently that waking in the morning is a struggle and being called for lunch is a regular occurrence to which my fellow students seem to have given up on.

The afternoon watch 12-4 consisted of three hours and fifty minutes of boredom while carrying out the usual hourly checks until the CTD surfaced which is likely to be the busiest of the trip. Luckily the ‘A team’ were in control and worked overtime until the living dead resurrected and started their shift. Once all the hard work has been done its time to dive into juicy steak and relax for a quiet evening before shift.

This cruise has been an incredible experience for all the students who have partaken. Some have discovered their inner scientist and adoring their work. Others have taken the chance to get an early start on their dissertation and living the dream. For me, this cruise has been a real eye opener and has given me an immense motivation to drive me through the following years of my degree. I am beyond thankful for being given this opportunity and extend my gratitude to those who made it happen. Thanks guys!

12th August (part 2)

Sunday 12th August (part 2)

Karen Wilson is a SAMS/UHI undergraduate just completed 2nd year. She hopes to do semester 2 at UNIS in the Arctic next year. Her laptop has recovered after its operation so here is her blog.

Along with the task of sampling the Ellett Line and servicing the Wyville-Thompson Ridge mooring we have been charged with deploying 4 Argo floats in the Iceland Basin as part of the United Nations World Climate Research Programme. At the end of my eight to midnight watch last night we dumped the first one into the fog. It wasn’t quite the photographic opportunity it could have been as the fog closed in mid afternoon and 24hrs later it’s still with us.

 

Argo floats are free drifting devices used to measure the temperature and salinity of the upper 2000 m of the ocean.  With over 3000 floats in operation at any time it allows continuous monitoring worldwide.

          Cruising depth and cycle time is pre-programmed before deployment .Metoffice.gov.uk

The depth of the float is controlled by an oil and bladder system which alters the buoyancy of the device allowing it to rise or fall within the water column. Although depth can be controlled the floats are at the mercy to the ocean current. The data gathered is useful for studying the influence of ocean currents on climate change.

Apart from the excitement of CTD sampling the highlight of any day is if any wildlife is spotted, some of the crew are particularly interested in the seagulls. Today was my first mammal sighting in almost a week, one lone common dolphin that joined us at the side of the aft deck for a while. Hopefully there should be more wildlife sightings before we reach Iceland at the end of the week.

                              

11th August

Saturday11th August 2012

Another day of calm waters and little wind. There was an unannounced safety drill at 10:30 with a few grumpy people in pyjamas gathering for a 'man overboard' exercise so for the unsociable watches it was a day of grab a sleep when you can.

Today Ribanna Dittrich, a SAMS/UHI undergraduate who has just completed 1st year, shares her thoughts with us.

My day started quite early in the morning at about 8(ish). I am a member of the “day gang” or the “slackers” as the watches call us. I don’t really understand why. According to the plan, we do have the longest shift from 9(ish) a.m. to 9(ish) p.m. That’s a 12-hour-shift! Ok, we might finish work 3-4 hours earlier…every day…and we might have a few breaks between work…every day. But it would probably be really exhausting if we worked the whole time, I guess. There is not much to do for me though as a first year student who has been very lucky to get one of the highly coveted places on board the Discovery.

I am assisting Clare Johnson analysing aluminium concentrations to trace water masses. Chemistry is used to underpin physics. Amazing, isn’t it?! (or as we would say on board “This is some Big Boy S***!”) Samples are only taken in deeper depths of more than 1,000 meters. That means we don’t get as many samples as all the other busy people around us. Even though we are also analysing samples of last year’s Ellett line, there is still plenty of time left every day to be squandered away. During the last couple of days, I found myself planning our first night out in Reykjavik. The first night after 3 weeks of counting and rationing our weekly alcohol units (you have to know that we are only allowed to drink 14 units per week. The guys get 21!). So next Friday is going to be legendary!

The North Atlantic is still on its best behaviour so far. The sea is very calm and we had as many sunny days as we had grey days. Today can be counted as another sunshine day. It’s summer out here.

                                    

John Wynar bathing in the sun on the front deck!

At 10.30 am we had a “man-over-board-safety-drill” where we were all staring at the sea, trying to find the imaginary man over board (quite difficult task) and waiting for him to be rescued.

We are now heading towards Iceland along the last 17 stations and tonight, the first Apex float is going to be deployed. Also tonight, there shall be a Perseid meteor shower. Where is it better to see shooting stars than in absolute darkness?! And believe me, it is incredibly dark out here!

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Ribanna has pointed out, the Apex float will be deployed tonight about midnight as part of the Argos programme. Tomorrow Karen will tell us all about it. In the meantime, the following map will show our progress so far.

10th August

Saturday 10th August 2012

Another unseasonal day on the north Atlantic - sea state 2, wind force 4 but a bit grey. It feels quite warm and I have yet to don my normal field work clobber.

Not at my best at 4am, I had an unusual experience.  I went out to the hangar, which opens to the stern, to see if dawn was about to break. No such luck as the sky was leaden and the mist swirled around us. A CTD had just landed on deck but didn’t need servicing so no work for a while. Suddenly I noticed a bright light in the gloomy sky which was moving from left to right and occasionally up and down. I was about to alert those awake to the presence of a UFO when another bright light hove in from the left – the moon! The first light was a star and it was the ship that was moving, not the light. Silly me!

Today Emily Trill, a NOC student, shares her experience of the cruise so far.

My day began at 4am with the ‘Living Dead’ watch. Although this watch probably includes the most unsociable working hours, I’ve settled into a routine well and hopefully look less like a zombie than at the start of the cruise. I don’t even know what time of day it is half the time, so I get to enjoy the peaceful early hours and the morning skies without too much disruption to my days.

                                     

                                  John B and the CTD at silly o’clock this morning.

We re-joined the Extended Ellett Line transect during the night, but the stations are deeper and further apart, resulting in a lot of time between sampling and story time with John Beaton, Linda Robb and Devin O’Connaill. I’m actually on watch now, but it’ll be a while before we get to see John B posing with the CTD so seductively again, so I thought I’d be productive and write my blog and continue the quest for accommodation in Reykjavik. A word of advice for future Iceland travellers, don’t leave your accommodation booking to the last minute. Who would’ve thought that in high season the capital city would be fully booked? At the moment Ollie and I will be camping, without a tent or sleeping bags. We’ll just have to see how that one turns out!

Being back on the transect means taking and preparing samples for Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) and C¹³, which will later be analysed and used in Alex Griffiths dissertation project. This also meant that I narrowly avoided the isolation booth of the controlled temperature lab and analysing salinity samples, but who knows for how long!

This cruise experience has been invaluable, if nothing else it’s good to know that I enjoy the practical side of the theory I will have spent four years learning. I would recommend to any prospective oceanographers to get as involved as you can; not only will you learn a lot, gain priceless work experience, but you’ll also have an awesome time! We’re on station now, so I’m off to do my CTD duties. Only 34 left to go!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just about to go to bed when Willie invited a couple of us up to the winch control room to see what happens when a CTD is deployed and recovered. It was great to see it from another angle and all the thought that goes into it. It did mean a later than usual night.

                                     CTD at night

9th August

9th August 2012

Through the night and most of the day the George Bligh Bank transect was sampled. The data was downloaded from the tiny memory card taken from yesterday's recovered mooring and many more polystyrene cups were sent to the bottom to shrink.

The highlight of the day was the opening of the 2 mystery boxes marked Met Office - instructions inside. Inside were 4 Argo floats which are to be deployed as part of the world ocean climate monitoring programme and Karen Wilson (SAMS student) will report on the background to this and the actual deployment in her blog at the weekend.

The weather has been really amazing so far for this part of the Atlantic. It is predicted as fair until the middle of next week when this is the nasty forecast

Fortunately we shoud be near Iceland by then and will hopefully miss it.

Today Ollie Wilmott, masters student from NOC, will share his view of the cruise so far.

It all began with a prospective email about six or seven months ago. At the time I was looking for a potential research project within the fields of mesoscale dynamics and/or biogeochemistry, the areas of oceanography I have a keen interest in. Several emails later things began to move in the right direction and I soon found myself signing risk assessment forms and medical certificates in preparation for one of the most valuable pieces of work experience that I am likely to get in my time at university. I guess my take home point is this: be persistent. If you harass enough of the right people there’s a good chance you can take part in real scientific research out on the high seas, or in our case so far, flat seas. To be honest I’m not entirely convinced we’re in the North Atlantic. The D379 conspiracy…..

Today

We are nearing the end of our transect of the George Bligh Bank and will soon be heading south to re-join the extended Ellett Line. The last two days have been easy for me because I haven’t needed to collect water samples for SEM analyses. However karma wasn’t on my side and John Wyner introduced me to the salinometer. God damn, I knew there was a reason I was part of the ‘Expendables’ team! Emily and I have been assigned a less than glamorous job, hours of solitary confinement analysing seawater by the gallon. Charlotte assured me that it would only take an hour to work through a crate of seawater. Lies. More like two hours. If it hadn’t been for my extensive collection of Garry Glitter tunes I’m fairly certain I would have thrown myself overboard long ago and wouldn’t be here to write todays blog. Apart from that I have no news. Everybody seems to be working as hard as ever and we are ahead of schedule which I can only assume is a good thing. Cheers, Ollie.     

                                           The joys of oceanography!  

How cruel can we be to students? We'll see. The mist is closing around us so there is not much chance of spotting bioluminescence tonight nor admiring the sunset. Thank goodness for radar!

7th and 8th August

Tuesday 7th August

Sampling carried on throughout the night and around 9am an accoustic release instrument was attached to the CTD to test it was working properly at depth before deploying it later with the mooring about to be recovered and serviced. This mooring had been down for 16 months and had long since run out of battery power. The mooring was located and recovered without any problem and was dismantled on deck. Students took this opportunity to write their names on it!! I had to join them!!

Today, Alex Griffiths, one of the NOC students, is writing his blog.

It was an honour to hear that I would be an integral part of the A Team. The 12-4am watch makes you fully appreciate the mystery of the Oceans and the extensive dark abyss that surrounds us. The day started like any the other; several CTDs were deployed and various parameters were sampled. However, this shift was, relative to previous watches, very quiet, less hectic and more relaxing. To add some excitement to the monotony of this watch, Jason Dobson and I decided to play some “bangin tunes” in the Deck laboratory, leading the way with S Club 7.

By mid morning we had arrived at the Wyville-Thompson Ridge and at 11am the mooring that had been collecting data for over a year was recovered. I have spent three years studying physical oceanography and the methods used to measure currents. I have read literature that not only explains but illustrates the materials and methods through various diagrams and photos, yet I have never seen a mooring. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass.

                                     

ON DECK WORKING HARD- BIG BUOY OCEANOGRAPHY

The Extended Ellett Line cruise has been a real eye opener, giving me a true taste of the seawater in an Oceanographer’s world, beyond the lecture theatres and the ludicrous 5,000 word assignments. I am not saying that this has been an easy going trip, on the contrary it has been tiresome, but with top Chefs and quality food, I can understand now why all my professors are never at the NOCS, never reply to my emails and are always sailing the seven seas.   

 

Back to Linda

The A team that Alex mentions above named all the other teams too - the living dead (4-8), the expendables (8-12) and the slackers (day shift). Needless to say, the other teams have been suggesting what A stands for and none of it flattering.

Wednesday 8th August

The last CTD was done at 10pm last night and the 18 hour steam to George Bligh Bank began. Shortly after this, Charlotte Marcinko from NOC made an interesting observation which she recounts here.

Last night just after the last CTD came on deck at the Wyville-Thomson Ridge and we began our steam to the George Bligh Bank, at around 23:00 GMT, flashes of blue light could be seen at the sea surface.  This eerie blue light was caused by small single celled plankton known as dinoflagellates the light they emit is called bioluminescence.

Figure 1: Dinoflagellates are single celled plankton that live in the oceans in the euphotic zone.

Last night the bioluminescence of dinoflagellates living at the sea surface was being stimulated by the movement of the ship. Standing in the dark on the aft deck where the ships propellers were churning up the water, causing lots of turbulence, we could see the water glowing bright blue.  Unfortunately, our instrument to measure bioluminescence on this cruise has broken so we weren’t able to collect any data on how bright the bioluminescence was. Sometimes things break at sea and there is no way to fix them until we get back on land and order new parts.

Figure 2: Example of the bright blue bioluminescence emitted from dinoflagellates (Picture courtesey of Ammonite Films).

You can find more out about bioluminescence from dinoflagellates and other animals in the ocean from following these links:

 http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/

http://www.ted.com/talks/edith_widder_the_weird_and_wonderful_world_of_bioluminescence.html

As most of the day was spent steaming, there was time to do other things like planning a student poster advising new students about seagoing and how to get involved. I had a look at some of the many interesting photos people have taken and was rather impressed by this quirky one.

It is the ship's radar screen when we were sampling station A, closest to Rockall. The 5 clear dots upper left on the screen are Rockall (not sure which one) and the 4 fishing vessels working there. Here is a picture of the rock with one of the vessels.

 

6th August

Monday 6th August

After the excitement of photographing a tiny rock in the ocean, Rockall, we sampled one more station then set off for the Wyville-Thompson Ridge. The sea is still calm so we should arrive there and start sampling by 17:30 (in the middle of my watch and dinner again) and continue through the night. There not being much happening, it was time to visit the bridge and the magnificent 360 degree view. Liam, who is 2nd officer and also Medical Officer was in charge and described all the instrumentation for sailing the ship and also what happens up there when we are waiting for the CTD to arrive. Someone came looking for a plaster for his cut and it appears that Liam had only just filled the first aid kits. This set us to wondering what other uses there were for elastoplast or were there a lot of unreported cuts!!

Because we are ahead of ourselves, Colin has added in a few more stations to our itinerary. In particular, we are going to sample a transect across the George Bligh Bank. This is a seamount lying at the northern end of the Rockall Trough. In 2005 the Joint Nature Conservation Committee surveyed the biology of this area and SAMS was involved in assessing the benthos. A report can be found at http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/scripts/consultation_download_info.php?downloadID=179 . So far no-one has looked at what happens to Arctic water here but that's about to change.

Clare Johnston, who recently acheived her doctorate, is particularly interested in sampling for aluminium in these areas because the tiny amounts can be used as tracers of the movement of Arctic waters. Aluminium enters the oceans in  windblown dust particles or by glaciation transporting minerals from the land.

What a nice Captain we have. He announced that he would slow the ship down so we could eat our dinner in peace and start sampling at 6pm.

5th August

5th August 2012

The one good thing about being on the 4-8am watch is watching dawn break and seeing that we are back to sunshine. This morning as I gazed out to sea I could see something making very large splashes. It could only be a large whale but which sort I don't know. It played around for some time but didn't approach the ship. Zoltan, who was prowling about trying to fix the internet in the middle of the night, said he heard what sounded like a whale  spouting so perhaps it had been with us for some time.

Today's blog is written by SAMS undergraduate Paddy Lewtas. When he disembarks in Iceland, he flies on to Longyearbyen to do the third year of his degree at the University Centre in Svalbard.

“Now Mr Fogle, about your Rock……..”

This afternoon, we coasted gently past a rather well known, but oft-disputed piece of maritime heritage; a piece that has incongruously made its way into the news and media fairly regularly over the years, not to mention the odd cameo in fragments of popular culture. And it set me pondering.

In September 1955, Commander ‘Tubby’ Leonard hovered his nimble Westland Dragonfly helicopter over a rocky pyramid-shaped granite outcrop in the middle of the Atlantic. Here he deposited three Royal Marines and a naturalist. The drop required a precise hover close to the outcrop’s summit. There a brass plaque was cemented in, the Union flag raised and saluted, before the landing party were snatched up again and returned to the nearby HMS Vidal, in time for tea and medals.

Commander Leonard couldn’t have been aware of the associated events that would unfold during the following half century. Rocabarraigh, in Scots Gaelic, or as it’s more commonly known, Rockall, has been at the bottom (or surface!) of many disputed claims to the mining and fishing rights of the thousands of square miles of seabed surrounding it. Britain, Ireland, Iceland and Denmark (via the Faeroes) all have staked rival claims. But the 1955 landing is often referred to as the ‘last annexation of the British Empire’.

This appropriation of Rockall was seen as vital due to the risk of Soviet eyes potentially using the rock as a convenient spying place, to observe the flights of experimental cruise missiles from a test facility on South Uist.

Since then, there have been many other landings, or ‘occupations’. Many of which have involved plaques, flags, sentry boxes, declarations or a territorial mark of some form. In spite of all these various claimants, the legislative power and the decision of whose and what it is, now lies with the UN, and the vagaries of the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

Surprisingly, the UK’s 1997 ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) meant that Rockall also represents the only example in the world of a state voluntarily downgrading an insular feature to simply, ‘a rock’, therefore reducing the area of its claimed exclusive economic zone.

The territorial squabbling continues….

As a curious example then, it was slightly unexpected to see this afternoon not one, but four pelagic trawlers working the waters right next to Rockall; ironically bringing home the fact that the deep-sea fisheries still enjoy a relative free-for-all status. Two of the vessels were UK registered, Banff and Kirkwall, the origin of the other two was unclear.

Aside from questions about the health of the pelagic fisheries, whose water really is it? Whose are the fish? Whose are the minerals that may be on and in the seafloor? These are all questions that are relevant, contemporary and of our era, both my generation and the next.

Rockall to some, will always represent the last piece of the British Empire. But maybe the futility of all the political power struggles and territorial disputes is best epitomised by this:

Rockall, obviously belongs to Ben Fogle. He stuck a post-it note on it saying so, in May 2007. 

3rd and 4th August

Friday 3rd August 2012

The day started at 03:45 for my watch and we all managed to be quite pleasant to each other. There was a bit of panic when log sheets and bottles were not where you expected to find them but soon we settled into the routine. It was  a busy watch with something happening all the time so no time to get bored. At this point I must point out that being on watch is nothing to do with keeping an eye out for icebergs, etc. It is more to do with regular checks on equipment, freezers, fridges, temperature rooms, loggers and computers as well as dealing with samples as they are collected throughout the night.

From lunch time onwards we were sampling on the steep slope from the contintal shelf to the Rockall Trough. Many of these were physics stations which meant we had a rest from pouring water into bottles and more time to enjoy the sun. The only wildlife spotted today were lots of seabirds, including several great skuas, imagining Discovery is a trawler.They must have been very disappointed when there was no appearance of a net with rich pickings.

Zoltan Nemeth, the IT technician, did capture an interesting photo of a colonyof goose barnacles floating past.

Saturday 4th August

Two days at one time because internet connection is sporadic.

Having completed the 4-8am watch, I found out there was to be another safety drill at 10.30 so no chance to catch up on sleep until the afternoon. There was a pod of pilot whales just a little too far away for good photos until the alarm went off then they moved in quite close. Of course everyone was too busy carting their lifejackets to the boat deck to capture them close up. Tomorrow I'm told the Captain does an inspection of cabins at 10:30. Well he will just have to view me in all my glory because I'm going to bed after breakfast as I can't go 2 days on 4 hours sleep.

Today Devin O'Connell will share his experiences of the cruise. He is a SAMS undergraduate about to move into 4th year.

Today seems to mark the end of the spectacular sunshine, it’s very grey out there but we were visited by group of pilot whales so it’s not all bad. Currently we are making our way towards Rockall, slowly. The CTD casts are now taking quite some time to be completed; on my last watch we only did one. This is because of the depths we are sending it to, are over 2,000 metres. It’s actually very cool to imagine the CTD all the way down there being controlled from the lab while its 2km below us. Of course at this depth the pressure is immense which means I now have a new way to occupy myself while I’m not on watch, decorating Styrofoam cups and attaching them to the CTD. They shrink down to a fraction of the size and become much more rigid. I’m trying to think of other things I can send down.

That’s not to say that life onboard is boring, far from it. The watches can be sporadic depending on the depth, samples to be taken etc. Some watches are mental, others more relaxed. While I’m off watch I have been amusing myself with the Styrofoam cups, chatting to the crew and whale watching. There is a lot of wildlife, even out here we seem to be getting escorted by a flock of fulmars (at least that’s what I’ve been told they are, I’m terrible at bird ID’ing).

This trip has given me a good experience of life at sea. This is no cruise liner. You are never far from the fact that this is a working vessel. For instance if I walk out of my cabin and turn left I’m in the hold and it’s not far from there to the engine room. We have had safety drills and everyone on board needs to have the relevant documentation to work at sea. This all makes the journey more interesting for me as I couldn’t stand one of these “gin palaces” as Colin calls them. I’m here to do a job and that’s how I like it.  I’m about to enter the final year of my degree and am still torn between certain career paths. If I last my time out here and still enjoy it then that will give me a better understanding of where I should be headed. All I know so far is that I want to work close to the sea, but in what capacity I’m not sure.

I will leave you with today’s life lesson; Take all your problems and worries, put them in a cup and then crush the bastards at 2500 metres.