Welcome to the party!

Isa Rosso

Me!!!

We are on our way towards the third CTD station, where the second SOCCOM float will be deployed! 

Few thoughts.. Today was laundry day: I just realized the second week has passed.. Funny, I think there’s a standard number of days after which you suddenly realize you have your own routine, schedule, plan for the day. In my case varies between 7 and 14.

As I anticipated in my previous post, I had my first birthday onboard. My new group of friends have organized my very first surprise party!! At midnight of the 16th, my roommate tells me that she wanted to go out to take some pictures. Despite my question mark painted on my face (I don’t know what the temperature was outside, but definitely not comfortable), I followed her.. And at the heli hangar, my group was there, singing me a Happy Birthday song that they wrote for me!! <3 my heart exploded!! And then the night started, with chocolate cake, dances, presents, songs.. and a bit of rhum ;-) It was fantastic, and I’ll never forget it!!

The ocean just turned into that gray shade, typical of these latitudes. These furious ocean and howling wind make me feel like at home. We just left the Roaring Forties, and approaching the Furious Fifties, towards 54S. The winds here are indeed no joke! We went outside after dinner, on the 4th deck.. The wind is so strong that you have to hold on to something (or someone) to keep your balance! All around.. there’s the white of the overcast sky, and the mist towards the horizon.. very gloomy. We are very close to the Kerguelen Islands at this point: I checked, but there’s no sign of them (see picture ;o) ).

In these past days, we had few scientific activities planned, the biggest being the recovery of the mooring which was deployed the last year. Unfortunately, after a 2-day search and wait, the mooring was not found. There’s still some hope on the way back, and I truly wish for the group who deployed it to find it! Lots of precious data are awaiting somewhere in the depths of the dark ocean to be rescued.. and their secrets to be told.

Sandy's in the STORM!

Isa Rosso

OH MY!!! These days have been really “rock & roll”!! And not only for my guitar skills that are improving.. ehee!! Small waves, big waves, this ship doesn’t care. It’s like being on a rollercoaster. I love it..! hehe Not so much a shared feeling by those poor souls who got seasick from the very first day.. and still cannot get over it. 

Especially today.

Sandy the float -- before the storm

The weather has put us in stand by, but finally around lunch time today we started the CTD casts (6 in total), to collect water samples, from 2000 m up to the surface, plus others from 200 m to the surface samples, for biological studies. The rosette (soon I’ll post a photo) is one tiny little guy, with only 12 niskin bottles (used to collect the water at different water depths). I got my samples, sealed the pH bottles and froze the nutrients. After the CTD casts, we had another couple of operations at the same station location, and after that we got to deploy the first SOCCOM float of the SOE10 expedition!!!! Woohoo!! This is always a great moment for me, I feel a lot of responsibility, I want everything to go smoothly and then I can’t wait to see the first data coming in!! 

“Sandy” is the name of the deployed Navis #0690 float, named by the class at Long Beach Island Grade School (NJ). They chose this name, as it has a significant importance for the students, due to the impact that this storm had on their school and community on Long Beach Island. Now.. we deployed Sandy at 40 kn wind!!! Just before that, we almost flew from one side of the helicopter deck to the other. Bottles fells, boxes, gears, my guitar (!!!) all got shifted (I should say thrown) to a different location. Quite dramatic! Sandy does really call for a big storm!! The deployment, which was exceptionally perfect considering the huge swell and the strong wind, was at 40 02.4209S, 57 37.2273E on December 15, 2017 at 16:39 UTC.

You can follow its life on the SOCCOM website. Just search for the float with number 0690, and easily plot its profiles, or download its data… once the first profile comes in ;-)

Dramatic deployment

Me. Taking pictures of birds. While doing silly faces. 

Tomorrow is my birthday, and like every year, I feel a little bit pensive. I celebrated my birthday on a plane (twice), in 3 different continents, but on a vessel in the Southern Ocean, with such a rough weather, it’s pretty unique! Hopefully some whales will come celebrate with me tomorrow ;-)

And to finish with some wildlife: the first petrels and beautiful albatross appeared, with their elegant way to cut through the wind (sometimes they fly so close to the ocean and just touch the waves with the tip of their feathers.. I could spend hours looking at their mesmerizing dance). Then, we had some dolphins playing in front of the bow. Uh!! And a sunfish came to check on the ctd while we were on station!! That was really cool!!

2017 Southern Ocean Expedition - Indian Ocean

Isa Rosso

I’m back in the Indian Ocean’s water, after 2 years, and at sea again just after 4 months. My most recent expedition was in the Pacific Ocean as part of the US-GOSHIP repeat hydrography (you’ll find the blog for that expedition at usgoship-p062017.blogspot.com).

It’s quite exciting for me, to be in these waters again. Our track will bring us to the western side of the Kerguelen Plateau, a massive topographic barrier to the eastward flowing Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and then down to Antarctica. I have a special love for this area, as it has been the focus of my PhD thesis (see my previous blog on floatsherder.blogspot.com). 

I left San Diego on November 30th. Leaving home, especially saying goodbye to my husband Diego, is never easy. But both my friends and he always give me courage and support me no matter what, which makes the departure a little bit less painful. Armed with my big luggage, my guitar and a backpack with my camera and computer, I started my journey to the far Mauritius. I had a veeeery long flight and reached Mauritius about 30 hours and 3 flights later. The island is gorgeous, and people are just incredibly kind, smiling and helpful, and I had a wonderful day and half to recover from the long flight and prepare the last things before departure.

ARV I at the port 

We were planned to leave on December 7th, but we had several issues, first a delay with the delivery of the floats and gear, and then some technical problems at the ship, the R/V Agulhas I. We finally left port on December 9th, 2017, at 12:00PM UTC. We had to go back to port for a medical evacuation just few hours later, but we are steaming now at full speed towards our first station, which is planned for December 14th, 3 days from now.

The vessel is the first South African icebreaker, now used for training and some scientific expeditions, such as this one. There are 20 cadets onboard, and other 40 people between officers and ship crew. From the science party there are 41 scientists from several Indian Institutes, plus me from Scripps. Science activities cover both physical and biogeochemical oceanography, and atmospheric science. The expedition will be documented by Rakesh Roa, an excellent Scientific Documentary filmographer and photographer, former Physicist with a strong background in Astronomy. Yesterday night he gave Zoelle (the doctor onboard) and me an amazing 2-hour “lesson” of the sky, with its constellations, and stars, and identified Andromeda Galaxy, Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (which are other 2 galaxies). I can’t wait to know more!!

First sunset on the ship

My main duties onboard are deploying 7 biogeochemical profiling floats and collect water samples which I’ll send back to the US to be analysed for nutrients, pH/Alkalinity, and HPLC/POC. The floats are from the Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project (SOCCOM, https://soccom.princeton.edu/), and have all been adopted and named by different classes from Middle and High Schools in the US, as part of the “Adopt-A-Float” program. Stay tuned to know more about these floats.. and see pictures!! 

Unfortunately, we don’t have much internet capability, and we are all sharing 2 computers for sending emails. Internet is also super slow, and it takes me about 20 minutes to log into the email webpage.. So, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to update the blog during the cruise, especially I’m not sure if I’ll be able to upload some photos. I’ll give it a try with this blog post and see how it goes :)

Beautiful fluffy clouds on the horizon

All for now.. Stay warm and enjoy these last days of 2017! :)