February 25, 2008

Dave has a phrase that solicits much eye rolling from the gang, but has
been nominated as a great motto for station B: Be patient; be flexible; be
happy. The large swell continued through the night and most of the
morning. We’ve tried to shuffle the sampling schedule to prevent loss of
ship time. We’ve successfully finished two otter trawls, a Tucker trawl,
and a CTD. Since our last post, we’ve tried two kasten cores and two
boxcores. Much like the attempt with the megacorer yesterday, our coring
attempts today have been a bust, literally. The first box core came up
with the bridle broken and the door flaps open (pic).




The second came up with the carpet seal on the spade loose. We think it may have impeded the
spade just enough for the mud to wash out on the way up. We’re happy to
report that both the megacorer and boxcorer are now repaired and the swell
is diminishing. All in all, we are only about ten hours behind schedule.
It could be worse. Knock on wood. Some of us are proving to be a
superstitious crew.

The trawls have kept folks busy sorting and dissecting animals. Here’s a
picture of Linda dissecting. We sample the gonads, gut contents and body
wall for isotopic and biomarker analyses as well as genetics. We are
optimistic we will have a core up this evening.




Position: 64 degrees 47.664 minutes South; 65 degrees 25.387 minutes West
Heading: 105.7 degrees
Speed over ground: 10.5 knots
Air temp. 2.2 degrees C; Water temp. 1.526 degrees C