By Camille Lique
I don’t think we’ve seen any blue sky for a few weeks. And as we are at a latitude where there is hardly any darkness at night, it just left us with the feeling that we’re leaving in a constant grey-ish environment.
For a bunch of reasons, yesterday was a bit special.
First we were traveling for 24 hours from the end of our north CTD section to the beginning of the section following the Reykjanes Ridge. Hence, most of us had a day off from work and could skip our night shifts and enjoy a full night of sleep. Quiet priceless to not hear the alarm in the middle of the night or early in the morning!
Second, as we were going to our closest point to Iceland (~ 60 km to the Coast), we have enjoyed a full day of blue sky and could make sure that the sun is still there behind the heavy clouds (did not last long – as I am writing now, the winds (~45 knots) and waves (~6meters) are too strong for us to work and we are stopped, waiting for better weather). Although we were still too far to see the coast of Iceland, we have crossed a few fishing boats, giving us the feeling to be back to some kind of civilization.
Last but not least, as we were reaching the shelfbreak and the continental shelf (where the depth gets to only ~100m), we made a short stop to fish. I must admit that I was quite skeptical at first, when we’ve seen the sailors preparing their super simple fishing lines. Yet, I was all wrong and the fishing session turned out to be quite lucky with more than a dozen big cods back on the boat. It should be enough for two meals for the ~45 people on board… Can’t wait for Sunday to taste it!
