A tale of pancake ice, furious seas.. and a drifter - by Isa R.

"Below 40 degrees south there is no law and below 50 degrees south there is no God"
- anonymous sailor.

Until now, we have sailed in defiance of this idiom of the Southern Ocean, blessed by remarkably calm weather as we made our way to Antarctica. But now the ferocious brutality of the Southern Ocean has finally arrived; and I love it!!

The Screaming Sixties, strong westerly winds blowing south of 60 degrees S, have made a crashing entrance today. Initially standing-by because of winds up to 45 knots, we managed to deploy the CTD rosette in the water during a briefly calm window. We can hear the winds roaring outside now at 30 knots, while our CTD rosette fights against the swell of 2 m on its ascent back to the surface. Our highly skilled winch operators, marine techs, captain and mates and the students at the CTD console have been doing a remarkable job in keeping the position of the ship, deploying the rosette in this weather, driving it 5 km down to within 10 m of the sea floor, and now hauling it up to the surface.

Snow petrel on pancake ice.

In the past days, blessed by an almost flat ocean, we kept a very fast pace, and completed 24 stations. The start of our I06S line occurred in one of the most incredible places I've ever seen…

Slowly approaching our first station, the first lights of dawn revealed a stretch of grease ice, which turned into pancake ice. I felt like an intruder in that silent space of Antarctic life and was incredibly grateful to be able to witness it!

CTD rosette deployment during the first I06S station.

Giuliana, me and Loicka with the Troyeshchyna Gymnasium's drifter (ph. by Jackson)

Not only did we keep a remarkable pace with CTD operations, but we had an intense series of deployments as well. Today let's talk about the drifters. We have a total of 16 buoys planned for deployment on this cruise, and the first one (#300234066615940) was deployed at 66 deg S, 30 deg E. A drifter is an instrument that measures sea surface temperature (and sometimes other parameters such as barometric pressure, salinity, wave height, wave speed and direction) and records its location. The data are transmitted to a satellite, using an antenna on the surface float. At the bottom of it there is a drogue (a long cylindrical tail), which allows the buoy to be pulled by ocean currents beneath the surface, rather than just pushed down by winds from above. Data are commonly used to map surface currents, sea surface temperature… and, importantly, in forecasts.

Off to its journey! (ph. by Jackson)

#300234066615940 is special not only because it was the first of the cruise, but also because it was "adopted" by the Troyeshchyna Gymnasium (Nataliya Byzova) in Kyiv, Ukraine, as part of the Adopt-a-drifter program!! This is very exciting, as the teacher and the students can now track the life of their instrument, in its errands around the Southern Ocean!! Looking for more information? Check the program's website to know more: https://www.adp.noaa.gov