May 17 2008
May 17 2008
The patches of blue sky and winter sunshine in Drake Passage.
After traveling to an unnamed seamount in the middle of Drake Passage, we’ve had yet another successful day full of science. We deployed Towcam again this afternoon, and collected some more fantastic photographs and water samples, then deployed the box dredge again, which came up trumps with a load of fossil corals (and a few dents!).
Drake Passage is one of the most notorious regions of the world’s oceans for bad weather and strong currents. In fact, weather was one of our major worries: would conditions be favorable for our sampling? However, we’ve been amazingly lucky so far with patches of blue sky, calm conditions and (relatively!) warm temperatures. Having said that, there’s still a bite to the wind chill and it can feel as cold as -20°C out on deck! We’re hoping the high pressure will stay with us a bit longer, so we can get even more great sampling done during the last week of our cruise.
KRH
The patches of blue sky and winter sunshine in Drake Passage.
Kathy Scanlon and John Swartz empty fossil corals from the box dredge.
The ships MTs Greg Buikema and Jenny White help Dann Blackwood prepare the TowCam for deployment.
Satellite weather map from yesterday.