Final week from the RV Armstrong

by Femke de Jong

Today we steam for Iceland. After four weeks of mooring operations and CTDs even those among us who are always looking for more data are ready to go home. Part of it is mindset, we were prepared to work ourselves to the ground for four weeks to get this done and now it is done. Had we set out for six weeks I’m sure we would have continued tiredly, but motivated for another two weeks.

During these four weeks we recovered 19 moorings and deployed 19 new moorings in those same positions, plus one lander. The mooring teams of NOC, RSMAS and NIOZ worked together on each of these moorings. So while the PIs of the respective institutes had a break while another PI was overseeing his or her moorings, these guys worked continuously. From my workstation, which faced the CTD console with its many screen, I could nicely keep track of the progress on deck. While I was out there doing my own moorings it was good to have some more experienced people around who don’t panic when a mooring comes up in a tangle (oh, how I would have like to start recovering the line that held the instruments/data first…).

the screens of the CTD console. Keeping and eye on all the important stuff, position, ETA, CTD and deckwork.

Inside, we worked together to run the CTD watches. The day watch was allocated to the PI currently doing moorings/instruments. The night or zombie watch was divided between the others. Theoretically this requires “just” shifting your waking/sleep pattern by eight hours or so. In practice, you either completely loose contact with what’s going on during the cruise, because you show up just for dinner as the others are winding down from their day. I tried a different approach, being around more of the day. A short nap after my watch/breakfast, skipping lunch, and another nap between dinner and the start of my watch at midnight. While this allowed me to keep track of the ever changing plans, it did effectively turn me into a zombie for the time being. The cruise leader’s attempt to teach me the rules of cribbage directly went in one ear and out the other, without my mind having any chance to process the information. I wonder what else I might have missed…

But while we still had three watches, each covering eight hours of CTDs, the chemist team had to deal with 24 hour measurements with two people. So maybe it’s not too surprising I haven’t seen them much since they finished their work and were allowed to recover. I’m sure they’ll come out of their cabin once we get closer to Reykjavik.

At least we get to go home in a few days. Most of the Armstrong’s crew are staying on for another cruise. They have been very helpful and accommodating in our busy schedule and we’ve explained them the difference between the colored jerseys in the Tour de France. There was one unfortunately incident, where one crew went on a killing spree (playing the assassin game), but to be honest that whole thing was instigated by the some of the British participants.

All of us came together in our loathing of “weather” on this, somewhat lively, ship. An incoming wave attacked one of the folks attaching microcats to the CTD frame, they nearly lost one of the cats when were holding on (not quite) for dear life. A ladder of an upper bunk bed came off in the middle of the night and woke up the owners of the bed as well as those in neighboring cabins. After all, there is a reason why we spend our summers in the subpolar gyre… we would never have managed doing all of the above in winter. That time of year is much better spend analyzing all the data we collected, maybe next to a cozy fireplace.

Stuart, Roos and James discussing the latest plots of our section.

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