Dispatch 6: Plans Change     Print

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Hugo Sindelar

September 11, 2018

Location: 71° 21′ N 133° 47’ W

Weather: Overcast with the occasional snow flurry, seas slightly choppy, North wind at 23 knots

Sea Ice: Scattered in the evening

Be adaptable.  That is this mantra that we learn quickly on this cruise.  My previous dispatch ended with the start of 24-hour science.  Plans changed while I slept, and we ended up having to steam south last night as the ship had to make a stop near the village of Tuktoyaktuk.  Once the ship’s business was completed around lunch time, we turned around and headed back towards station CB-23a.  We will arrive on station sometime early tomorrow morning (and I mean 2:00 a.m. early, not 7:00 a.m. early).  In the meantime, some cruise members have taken the slow day to process backlogged samples, catch up on other work, or get some extra rest.

After we headed back North, science did start again with XCTD drops along the way.  XCTD stands for eXpendable Conductivity Temperature and Depth.  These small torpedo shaped probes measure some of the same parameters as the CTD rosette, but they don’t take water samples, nor do they have the complex additional instrumentation of the rosette.  This makes them easy to use while underway.  The ship only has to slow down to 10 knots during deployment and measurement.  Overall the process lasts only 5–10 minutes for depths as deep as 1000 meters! The only downside is that they are one-time use.  We will be making three XCTD drops on our way to CB-23a.  That is all for now, stay tuned for quite a bit more science as we get back on track!