It is always bittersweet when an expedition comes to an end. From start to finish, this expedition was filled with the excitement of the unknown and the magical, from flying into the fog of St. Paul to frolicking on the Bering Sea ice. I am very excited about all of the work I accomplished and […]
Weather is often a big problem for flights out of Dutch Harbor this time of year so I was expecting to wake up to rain and wind in the morning but it was sunny and the wind seemed calm. This boded well for our departure. I had heard stories throughout the cruise about the Dutch […]
Once checked out of the ship, I headed to the airport to rent a truck to explore the area. I rented a F-250 pick-up that was held together with ratchet straps and some duct tape. As I was leaving the rental agency, one of the men working there, told me to make sure to put […]
Our trip to Dutch Harbor was all but comfortable. We had 45 knot winds with 8-10 foot swells. Because of our course and the necessity of arriving in Dutch at 0900, the ride was particularly uncomfortable as we were in the trough most of the night. Sleep was not really a possibility plus I was […]
I woke up to calm seas and a stunning morning despite the weather forecast. We are cruising at 15 knots between stations and have almost completed our entire survey which included over 200 sampling stations. There have been passing whales, birds and occasional ice floes with seals and sea lions resting in the open sea. […]
It is very early Monday morning here on the Healy and we are finishing up our survey of the 70m isobath and packing up to head to port. Yesterday was filled with finishing up experiments, packing, and getting ready to hit open water. A low pressure system that we have been watching to the south […]
”The Ice Edge”
Today was our last day in the ice as we approached the ice edge. The ice was broken up and seemed slushy with more substantial patches mixed in. On those patches, seals, sea lions and birds rested. The marine life in these waters is incredible. We have been looking for whales and albatross […]
In my opinion, the luckiest researchers on the ship are the ornithologists, Kathy Kuletz and Liz Labunski from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, who stay on the bridge from sunrise to sunset conducting bird surveys. They don’t miss a bird, seal, walrus or beautiful vista as they identify and log all of the birds […]
LTJG Stephen Elliot and MST1 Chuck Bartlett assist scientists deploy the multi-core, a sea floor sampling device.
The science conducted on the ship is dependent on the successful deployment of the marine sampling equipment from the multi-core to the sediment trap to the plankton nets to the CTD. While the operation and positioning of the boat […]
Over the pipes, an announcement to get the small boats ready for launch came over in the early afternoon. It was time to retrieve the sediment traps that had been deployed the previous afternoon. Floating and drifting in the Bering Sea for 24 hours while the ship went about its other business, the sediment trap’s […]