We have set sail!
It's great to be back on the JCR. Over the last two years I have met most of the crew during Rothera reliefs where they delivered our freshies and cargo, I also more recently saw them in Monte Video. Between that and knowing a few of the scientists from working with them at Rothera I have already fully settled in and am getting at great vibe about this cruise!!
I am one of the only scientists that is using the water pump system to do a few filtrations on the way up to Tromso. After Tromso we pick up the rest of the scientists and start our sampling regime up through the Barents Sea.
Communications are going to be very limited at most of the stations in the Arctic so sorry if I am not able to do many updates but here is a link to the communications officer that has secret ways to keep his website up to date, he posts almost every day!
http://www.gm0hcq.com/jcr_update.htm
One of the great scientists Dr Sian Henley who is not only a colleague but a friend from hours spent on boats at Rothera updates her twitter page here: you can see we have completed all of our very serious safety briefs.
https://twitter.com/drsianhenley/status/880742058675273728
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| Mum and Dad dropped me off at the National Oceanographic Center in Southampton where we were lucky enough to me the famous Boat McBoatFace |
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| Another tag out board!!!!! |
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| CTD rosette |
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| Lots of microscope time |
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| My work space |
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| Where all our chemicals for preservation are kept |
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| Plankton trawl |
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| The mighty ship |
These photos show the general layout of the ship. My workspace is the one with all of the filters which I will be using to filter water through filter paper for analysis back in the UK mostly for fatty acid, lipids, HPLC. I will also be pulling plankton nets and preserving the community for analysis back in SAMS at Oban. The massive CTD rosette attached to the winch will be used to get a profile of the water column to show us the temperature salinity and also where the peak of chlorophyll is in the water column and also collect our water from desired depths in the big grey niskin containers. Chlorophyll is a proxy for phytoplankton we use it do that we can try and get the bulk of the community when we do sample. I will also be using the microscope to identify Calanus copepod which are incredibly important to the lipid pump in the Arctic
..basically feed most of the fish stocks.
So now on to Tromso and then up the Barents Sea!