#ShipLyfe

On the ship life is so different to home. So this little post is not really about anything in particular but about living on a ship.

The Bridge complete with fluffy captain chair

Physically the ship is a pretty cool place to live. You got pretty used to the constant humming of the engines (when we arrived back in Hobart and the engines were turned off, it felt eerily quiet) and floor vibrations. The Bridge (where the captain and mates drive the ship) was 5 floors up from the galley and mess. I have to say my legs got a pretty good workout running up and down the stairs all day. According to my Fitbit, my record is 136 flights of stairs in one day. Phew! 

A sea door

Sea doors cover every external door and are watertight. They were usually kept open except in rough conditions when they didn’t want us going outside. Every doorway has a small lip, in the event there is water inside the ship it will keep it contained. But, it means you need to be more alert going through doors for tripping and head banging hazards. The doorway from the stairwell into the D Deck was notorious for catching my foot – making me trip and look like an idiot who can’t use doors. There is a rule on ships: One hand for the ship, one hand for you. Meaning hold on or you’ll go flying. There are also handrails everywhere, including the shower. Which I was so thankful for! The shower didn’t have a glass screen, only a curtain which opened up into the small bathroom. The first week I clung to it in every shower. I didn’t wash my hair the first week because I was afraid of using two hands to shampoo. Luckily the swell got smaller; otherwise I might never have washed my hair…

My saviour: the shower handle 

Trip hazards for uncoordinated people like me 

Going to the gym is a bit challenging. Treadmills are way more exciting. It’s the strangest sensation. The swell makes it feel like you’re walking up and down small mountains that randomly try to throw you off sideways. When I ran, I felt like I was tempting fate and always kept a free hand just in case. Even when we were out of the swell, the ship still bumps around crazily while ice breaking. It’s also extremely hard to balance when doing squats.  

On the ship, not only are you always moving. But you are living in close confines with people you have never met and need to work and live with for 7 weeks straight. Luckily the amazing people I met on this trip were fucking fantastic!! We all seemed to get along and strangely I wasn’t sick of them by the end (hopefully none of them were sick of me).

The best bunch of people in the world Image by Mana Inoue

The captain Benoit is very superstitious. You absolutely cannot say the word ‘rabbit’ around him, or something catastrophic will happen. Maybe the world as we know it will simply end, I didn’t try it out, so who knows?  It reminds me of Susan and her ‘no-banana’ rule, or our ‘thank the whale gods’ celebration. I’m starting to notice seafaring types are all a bit superstitious…

Susan would have disapproved of the bananas but would thoroughly agree with the Tim Tams 

When i was down at Casey one day, i had an awesome chat with some of the guys stationed down there over the summer. Basically, we came up with a list of quite a few things that the AAD don’t put on the brochure about travelling to Antarctica. Like the amount of blood noses you get. Basically, you blow your nose so much (your nose runs so much in the cold) you start blowing blood. Or the dryness of your skin; my hands cracked, my neck and chest were red raw and feel like tissue paper, fingernails start to crack on their own (mine didn't - thank god). On the other hand, the lack of humidity was great for my puffy hair. There is also the spread of illness between people living in close quarters, everyone uses the same tongs to serve their food, the same handrails to walk down the stairs - There was a cold buzzing around the ship since we left Hobart. I never got it, but lots of people did.

An artsy photo of some icicles

I learnt a few nautical sailor things over the trip. The cadet Rhys taught me how to plot our position on a chart using a fancy double ruler. Even today, ships are supposed to navigate by charts, not by electronic GPS. I plotted our GPS coordinated on the chart using this symbol:

I also learned how to take a bearing. We had a knot tying day to learn lots of new knots. Unfortunately, I can only remember two: a monkey fist and alpine butterfly. I also learned two cool new nautical terms: 'Iceblink' and 'Seasky'. Iceblink is when you are sailing in open ocean and you can see the white light of the sea ice reflected in the sky. Seasky is the opposite, when you are sailing in sea ice and can see the blue of the open ocean reflected in the sky. Very cool.

Iceblink

Seasky

Killing time playing Hide and Seek - all hiding in the broom cupboard Image by Julie Janssens

And most days, when there was no science to do, we spent our time playing cards, board games, accusing each other of being werewolves, debating whether or not we were dead and haunting the ship, and just hanging out outside- looking at the most amazing place on earth.

Anchored in Newcomb Bay

Beyond the Sea Ice

A few days out from the ice edge is the start of the 'safari zone'. I saw my first whales: minkes, humpbacks and so many others that were too far off to ID. We were lucky enough to cruise right next to a couple of minkies bubble netting, which was awesome to see! You’ve seen it on documentaries and it’s just as cool in real life. A perfect circle of bubbles getting tighter and tighter and a huge whale rushes through the centre, munching up krill trapped by the bubble wall. We had humpbacks waving and fin slapping as they passed, a few diving under the ship. There were several days of just whales throughout the trip and they never got old.

Lazy Humpback afternoons

We had new birds. I really fell in love with the birds of the Southern Ocean, so you will hear a lot about them. The cape petrel is now my favourite bird.  They were always constant, always beautiful.

A Cape Petrel following the ship
Image by Amanda Dawson

The Giant Southern Petrel, big enough to be an albatross, has a fearsome looking beak, and strangely, a completely white morph that I was lucky enough to see a few times.

Giant Southern Petrel and the day moon
Image by Amanda Dawson

Black petrels, Southern fulmars, Wilson’s Storm Petrels, and Light Mantled Sooty Albatross make up the list of birds before the sea ice.

Southern Fulmar
Image by Amanda Dawson

 The birds would follow the ship, cruising around the back. Maybe there was increased wind behind the ship to ride, maybe we stirred up krill, or maybe they thought we were a trawler. Whatever the reason, birds would follow us for days, and I loved it.

Light Mantled Sooty Albatross  

I saw my first iceberg at 10am on the 14^th December. He was a beauty. It wasn’t the first iceberg of the trip but I had been sleeping late. After that, all day long: icebergs. Big ones small ones, flat ones, pointy sharp ones. And the whales! There were humpbacks and minkes intermixed. Whales and icebergs: it’s the dream. We saw our first penguins adrift on icebergs. They were just little black spots. No idea if they were Adelie’s or not.

My first Iceberg!!

“I can’t tear myself away from the bridge for that long because I can’t stand missing them. So beautiful and massive. Kind of awe inspiring"

Perfect glassed out ocean reflecting an iceberg

 Before the ice edge we stopped to pick up a whale mooring. It’s a hydrophone that records whale calls. Basically we pulled the ship up above it and sent a signal down to the mooring to detach. Then the buoy floated to the surface and we collect it using a grapple gun.

Whale Mooring

Collected

We hit the sea ice edge at 9pm. Sea ice is amazing! Penguins became a standard feature in the scenery. That first day in the sea ice I saw Adelie’s and a juvenile emperor penguin. Rhys, the cadet, took us all down into the bow of the ship (the focsle – as it is known to seafaring types like me arrr) to watch us crash through the ice. Two big fat blubbery crabeater seals were chilling on the sea ice nearby. Humpbacks cruised in around the ice. Snow petrels and Antarctic petrels followed us as soon as we made it to the sea ice edge, midnight sun, and the sound of ice being cracked and broken by the ship. That night was magical.

Some fellow expeditioners down on the focsle enjoying the sea ice 

Sea ice on a cloudy day

Breaking our way through an enormous ice floe

Snow Petrel
Image by Amanda Dawson

Antarctic Petrels

Krill fishing happened along the outer side of the sea ice edge. For some reason, that first night, we broke into the sea ice, cruised south for several hours then turned and left the sea ice for krill fishing. Antarctic krill (my krill) live outside the sea ice in the deeper water. Ice krill (inferior to Antarctic krill in every way) live in the shallower coastal water, regardless of whether or not there is ice. Krill fishing is pretty cool. As we cruise around, the krill team (not me sadly) monitor the depth sounder. A big school shows up and someone will ring the bridge to chuck a uey. We then scoot over the swarm and drop a trawl net to the right depth, as we pass through, the net opens and catches krill. Most times when we caught krill I got samples for myself, I'm hoping to look at microplastics in wild krill, and for Susan to look for POPs and to look at isotope values. Over the whole trip I collected 10 samples of krill. The krill team collected thousands of krill, including pregnant ladies (gravid), juveniles, adults, Ice krill, and Thysanoessa macrura (another lesser krill).  They also caught various zooplankton, like salps –lots of salps, fish larvae, copepods, an adorable translucent baby squid about the size of my thumb, and a pretty nifty siphonophore.

Krill fishing

Euphausia superba Antarctic Krill

After the first night of krill fishing we turned back into the sea ice. Seals became pretty common. There was a big fat crabeater seal sitting on the ice flow straight in front of the ship. He wouldn’t move, he was so territorial over his ice flow that he was nearly run over. He barely moved over enough as we passed, he was growling at the ship the whole way (you could hear it). I bet he went home and bitched to his wife about tourist drivers crowding up the ocean. I’m pretty sure we ruined his day. The further south, the thicker the ice became. It’s awesome. One of my favourite pastimes throughout the entire voyage was standing down on the focsle by myself, watching us crack through the sea ice. I loved the cracking, crunching sound of the ice being obliterated by the ship. But every now and then, the ship rocked as the ice held its ground and shunted the ship over.

Cranky old Crabeater
Image by Amanda Dawson

Ice breaking, though awesome to watch, was a shit to try and sleep through. The whole night you could hear the grinding of ice against the hull. Frequently ice would go through the prop and the whole ship would shudder. It was like trying to sleep on a vortex mixer.
After one night of icebreaking we arrived at the polynya (a polynya is an ice free area) and Newcomb bay - gateway to Casey Station.

Whales and sea ice

Juvenile Emperor Penguin (lacks the yellow around the neck) and poop smear

Adelie on an ice floe
Image by Amanda Dawson

An Antarctic Adventure

So I thought i'd write a little blog about my trip to Antarctica. I've never blogged before so be kind. I was lucky enough be selected by my lovely PHD supervisor to go to Antarctica and collect samples for our research group: the Southern Ocean Persistent Organic Pollutants Program (SOPOPP). I kept a diary during the trip and intermittently I have thrown in direct quotes of how i felt at the time. Hopefully it will be interesting and maybe a little informative, but mostly I wanted everyone to share in the amazing things i have done and seen over the past 7 weeks. So here we go...

The lead up to the trip was overwhelming and, for the most part, to intense to be excited. The amount of medical hoops I needed to jump through was exhausting. Approval to board only came through at 3pm Friday and I needed to be at the Australian Antarctic Division (The Division as it is known to the cool kids) on Monday for kitting. But it was all worth it in the end.

Boarding the Aurora Australis, my icebreaking home for the next 7 weeks, with my fellow expeditioners was a flurry of excitement. By the time we left port, my heart was in overdrive with nerves. We cruised down the Derwent for a couple of hours and headed south.

Enjoying the last bit of warm weather and Australia

We were expecting rough seas and the Southern Ocean did not disappoint. The swell was 6 meters by the next day, which for Southern Ocean standards isn't too bad, but for a girl who only been on liveaboards in Moreton Bay it was rolly AF. So to ward off the seasickness we had phenergan and avomine, which worked like a charm. The trip became informally known as 'Bergs and Nergs'. The Southern Ocean seems to be a great joker, 'lets continuously tip those sleeping people upside down, so that the blood rushes to their head while trying to sleep, and makes them slightly paranoid about sliding backwards and hitting their head on the wall'. Needless to say the first few nights I did not manage my fatigue very well. One morning I was so tired when I got up, that I got in the shower and halfway through realised I still had my knickers on! Not a great start to the day.

Our trusty stead taking on the Southern Ocean, taken through the Bridge window

"I still can't believe I'm in the southern ocean on a ship going to Antarctica ahhhhh!!!!"

I took my first seawater samples on day 2. Basically the whole reason I was on this trip was to collect seawater samples to look for perfluorinated compounds, which are POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants). Teflon is one of the most famous examples of a perfluorinated compound. I needed to take a sample every time we crossed a latitude going south, with the first sample happening at 44°S. Sampling is really easy. It goes like this:

Step1 turn on seawater tap

Step 2 let tap run while you go get a bottle

Step 3 label bottle and write out GPS coordinates

Step 4 fill bottle

Step 5 go back to bed.

Anytime day or night we crossed a degree I needed a sample. Luckily, I had a little help. Firstly, from the onboard data intranet, which allowed me to check our location from bed on my phone in the middle of the night - very helpful. Secondly, from my volunteers: Kate, Madi, and later Ella. Who helped me get a solid sleep without needing to get up every 5 hrs. Thankyou!!!!

In the first week, we also had had our first muster, which basically means everyone gets in their Antarctic gear and grabs their survival bag and heads out on the heli deck for a role call. It was funny becasue we all knew it would happen, everyone got dressed early, it takes a bit of time to put on thermals, trackies, socks, boots, jumper and the fisherman overalls. Luckily we never needed to muster for real, I don’t think I would make it. It took me like 10 mins to dress myself. 

Muster time Image by Matt Corkill

Quite the hobo Image by Matt Corkill

The southern ocean did bring plenty of amazing wildlife. First was the Wandering albatross, who circled the ship with a juvenile for a few hours. We had more birds in the next few days. Big flocks of shearwaters, a few birds I didn't identify. But most of the spectacular wildlife encounters happened after my first day of snow, 6 days into the trip. The day i danced around on the deck in not nearly enough clothing, in a mini little blizzard of snow, laughing and smiling to myself, trying to catch it in my fingers.

"Honestly being outside in the cold watching the waves makes me so fucking happy; I can’t contain it most of the time. We will reach 60°S tonight at 11:15pm. This is it. The official start to Antarctica. Icebergs become more likely; Krill swarms could be anywhere, my fingers freeze every time I take a sample…."   

Wandering albatross, but im no albatross expert, if you tell me this is a Southern Royal albatross I'll believe you
Image by Amanda Dawson

A true polar expeditioner: wind swept hair, cosy socks and a snazzy beanie. I expect the style to be on all the runways soon  

Our position as of 12/12/16

Overall the first 6 days past in a flurry of excitement, after which the notable experiences came thick and fast.
Last of all a shameless plug for our SOPOPP research, which if you are interested can be found here . There is lots of stuff about our current projects, including mine, on microplastics in the Southern Ocean biota.