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 100th 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
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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.
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