Dispatch 12: Beautiful Day

Luc Rainville

August 7, 2007

We reached the western-most point of the cruise track, doing a series of CTD stations towards the Northwind Ridge. Most of the time we are surrounded by fog, but once in a while it opens up, the wind dies down, and it becomes magical.

At one station today we had another chance to put the zodiac in the water. We were stopped in a little lake - a few hundred meter wide patch of open water in the ice - and decided to go do another XCP, collect some ice, and do a few CTD casts in the upper ocean by hand. Just like a few days ago, Tim deployed an Expendable Current Profiler. It worked perfectly.

Jennifer Hutchings (University of Alaska, Fairbanks) came along and collected some ice samples. She studies Arctic ice, and loves it. Everyday you can find her on the bridge, or on the bow of the ship, staring at the ice with passion in her eyes.

I also did several more short CTD casts, sampling the upper ocean repeatedly to see how fast it changes, and what differences we can see if we sample very close to the ship, in the middle of the lake, right next to the ice edge, look at the impact of the ship's bubbler system, etc.


The Louis S. St-Laurent, at 75°39'N 156°18'W		It was the perfect day to be out on a small boat.

Jenny Hutchings, happily holding a big chunck of first year ice.		I am putting the small CTD in the water, right next to the Louis. (Photo by Jennifer Hutchings).

The bow is very impressive from the sea surface. Here Steve Manganini takes a break from setting up his sediment traps, to be deployed on mooring A tomorrow, to look at what what we're doing.		Winchman Peter King is patiently waiting our return from the top of the 22.7 tonne center line heavy lift crane (see the first picture).
		Most photos by Luc Rainville.

Last updated: October 7, 2019