By Laura de Steur
OSNAP 9: R/V Pelagia (EAST Leg 2)
Leg 2 will service 12 moorings: G: the Dutch moorings, D2: British moorings, C: German mooring, L: Dutch profiling mooring, and E1 and E3: RAFOS float deployments
After a bright sunny day of loading and getting ready on RV Pelagia in the port of Reykjavik, we are well underway to retrieve and redeploy 12 tall oceanic moorings in the Irminger Sea (marked with leg 2 in the red box). The successful team from leg 1 arrived in Reykjavik two days earlier than planned and they handed the ship over to us. The moorings we will be recovering have been collecting continuous measurements of temperature, salinity and currents in the Irminger Sea for a whole year. We expect to arrive to the first mooring site on the Reykjanes Ridge on Friday morning to start recovery and read the first data sets from the instruments. After that we head west to collect all 5 moorings on the Reykjanes Ridge and traverse back again whilst doing CTD measurements and float deployments on the ridge after which the moorings will be deployed again for another year.
The mooring data collected during this cruise contributes to both the OSNAP and NACLIM programs. We have an international team with 7 different nationalities. Some of us have to get used to being at sea while others appear to have no problem to focus on computer screens… the weather so far is great though we are expecting more wind and waves tomorrow.
Stay tuned for updates!
Loading of RV Pelagia in Reyjavik
