By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 We docked at a little after 1400 yesterday. The end of a cruise is always sad but at the same time welcome. Cruises are exhausting, so much energy is expended taking advantage of every available opportunity and sample. Now we must re-enter the real world. There will be too many people, I already know that. Airports are particularly difficult. Driving a car is going to be different. And the excitement of... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 I didn’t quite expect the Bering Sea to be quite this nasty in December. Bad yes, but perhaps a few hours to sneak in a few samples before roaring in again with another storm. No such luck, the storms are just rolling in like freight trains. We had the worst yet last night, with winds of 50-60 knots. The “house” of the ship (the tall structure in the front where the... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 Another day, another storm. The Bering Sea is relentless! We managed to sneak in three stations yesterday afternoon and early this morning but then the weather deteriorated and our sampling operations were shut down again. This time we were out in the open, far from the safe shelter of the sea ice or even an island. The pitching and rolling began while many of us were still sleeping, turning a normally... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 We spent yesterday sheltered in the ice, at a place called “refuge”. We moved here two nights ago to enjoy the calm afforded by the sea ice as the latest Bering Sea storm raged over us. Today the weather has moderated and we sampled across a line of stations that extended towards the Yukon River Delta. The goal was to see the impact of the freshwater from the river on the... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 We’re racing a storm across the Bering Sea, going 15 knots between stations to try to get as many done as possible before the storm catches us from behind. Fifteen knots feels really fast, Healy shudders a little bit as she goes. The wake is white and green, and as the sea is building, the bow is increasingly sprayed with sheets of white spray. There is a sense of urgency to... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 The Bering Sea is gnashing its teeth and flailing around. Clearly it took offense at our attempts to wrest the secrets of plankton overwintering from its icy depths. We have been unable to work for a day and a half now because of bad weather. Two nights ago, we were working across a line of stations that lie to the south of Saint Lawrence Island. We knew that a low pressure... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 We are heading south towards Bering Strait and the Bering Sea beyond. As we go, we are moving through young ice, with smallish pancakes ahead of the ship. The ice lamps illuminate the pancakes. The ship rumbles as she plows through the loose pancakes, with a constant crunching. This ice is relatively thin. Gone is the screeching as the ship pushed through thick, hard ice. Gone is the backing and ramming... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 We are moving further south. As we go, the ice is filling the Chukchi Sea, filling that sea with us still in it. A few days ago, there was sea ice only in the northern part and along the coast. Now, as we go south, the ice extends almost all the way across the Sea and down through to the Bering Strait. It is remarkable, being here while the ice is... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 There is a sense of anticipation in the air. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we will be observing it, even though we are at sea in the Arctic. As luck would have it, we have a couple of long transits between stations to accomplish tonight and tomorrow so everyone will have a chance to relax a little and catch up on samples, record keeping, and data analysis, and watch football. We just... Read more

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By Carin Ashjian for The Arctic Winter Cruise 2011 We are in the thick of winter now. We have reached our furthest northern point, at 72 27.18 N, over the slope-basin in about 2000 m of water. As we moved north, the ice became thicker and more resilient. Sometimes moving is easy, sometimes we claw our way forward onto the ice, then shudder to a stop before backing down to get some space and make another run forward. We gain... Read more

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