Week 7 — 10-16 January 200810 January 2008Gritta Veit-Köhler, Senckenberg
8 January 2008, 5 p.m. We are sitting in our cabin, working at our computers. An announcement comes through the speakers, as it does many times a day. Usually people are called to the phone over the speakers, nothing special. But this time I recognise Bram’s voice immediately. Bram is one of our Dutch top predator specialists. His calling is to investigate birds, seals and whales. And normally Bram can be found in his outdoor cabin on the upper deck unless he is counting animals from the helicopter. So, now Bram is at the microphone and speaks the following short and snappy words:
"Hi, this is Bram. There are Orcas in front of the ship. Killer Whales ahead!"
I don’t think we have ever gotten out of our cabin this fast. Warm clothing? Extra scarf? Never mind! Just get out, grab the always conveniently placed camera and rush up to the bridge. A crowd of people also armed with cameras has already assembled there. Apparently the whales are on the starbord side.
I put my new 400-mm lens on my camera. My birthday and Christmas present. The light is good, andI can distinguish several females, a calf and a male. The male is easily recognised by its large back fin. The other whales belonging to this group, which according to Bram consisted of about 30 individuals, have taken the route along the port side, and they have already disappeared as fast as they came.
Killer whales, Orcinus orca in the language of scientists, are the largest dolphins, readily identifiable by their distinct black-and-white pattern. The males can reach lengths to 9 metres and weigh up to 5 tonnes, females can grow up to 7 or 8 metres. The species is cosmopolitan. In the Antarctic they prefer the edge of the packice. There the animals, who can swim at top speeds of 50 km/h, hunt for fish, squid, penguins, seabirds, seals and dolphins. Scientists are still arguing whether or not the two Antarctic populations with their different looks belong to two different species. In any case, the normally gleaming white parts of their bodies are tainted yellowish in the Antarctic. This is the work of tiny unicellular algae which live on the skin of these animals.
11 January 2008Nils Brenke, SenckenbergJust a normal day...
Hi, it’s me again, Nils. I wish I could report about something special or exciting. But I can’t. From my point of view, nothing remarkable happened today here on board of Polarstern. We benthologists (investigators of the seafloor) do not have a station right now, which means we are not deploying any gear into the water.
There is very little practical hands-on work to do. So I got up this morning, had breakfast and then went to my lab. My small room is not only my laboratory, but also my office. I do everything there. We investigate the communities on the seafloor with corers and nets, and I provide complementing images with my video camera. And beside the exciting practical work there is also some sitting at the desk in a scientist’s everyday life. Analysing results from the sampling activities, entering data into tables, analysis of images and a written synthesis of the results. Normal homework that nobody really likes, but that has to be done.
And so in the morning I sit at my computer and write text and fill tables. After lunch I go for a little walk on deck (trying to stay out of the way of people working there). To feel the breeze on my face and look at waves, ice and seabirds. Well, after all these weeks waves and ice are just what we see every day. You know, the Antarctic.
Back to the desk again. More paperwork until dinner. Our evening seminar, with presentations on several expeditions and their results, is an enjoyable change of scenery. The seminar is over between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Usually I return to the office one more time to see if there is anything else that needs to be done. And more often than not there is.
Some time later that night I turn off my computer, happy because I took care of important things, and unhappy because I did not get everything done. Then I like a cup of tea with colleagues that are still up, and then I go to bed. End of day...
Even on the Polarstern, in the middle of the ocean off Antarctica, there are just regular days.
12 January 2008Rebeca Zapata Guardiola, University of Seville
Definitely no plans for today. But life on board is sometimes surprising and unexpected things happen. And today is one of these days. Just during breakfast time I received wonderful news... "at 9 o'clock there will be an AGT"...and only in a few hundred meters of depth...this means...Cnidarians!! I was really delighted and hopeful...maybe this time I will find the missing genus, the object of my PhD studies.
‘Antarctica's gorgonians. Evolution and biodiversity. Distribution and reproduction patterns.’ This is the title of my research, focused on the family Primnoidae and mainly on the genus Thouarella, the best represented in the Southern Ocean. Around half of the species have been described from Antarctic waters, and most of them were found below 800 m depth. The typical Thouarella looks like a bottlebrush but we can also find fan-shaped forms, with simple or ramified branches where polyps rest single, in pairs or in whorls. This last character together with the presence of a thorn in their marginal scales lets us identify them and differenciate between the subgenera Parathouarella, Euthouarella and Epithouarella.
So when I found ‘my darlings’ in our samples I couldn't believe it! At 600 m depth they were waiting for me, and after a month working on board I could finally see the beauty of these animals alive, completely different from what they look like in the university collection, the forms, colours, all seems to be magical here. Excitement and the happiness are around me and make me work until 3 o'clock in the morning, sharing a special work moment with my colleagues, because today everybody in benthos team is happy, everybody has samples, a lot of sea stars and crinoids has been found, never mind the big amount of sponges that this time have appeared, it's incredible!!
Although we worked close to 5 hours outside, under hard weather conditions, (fortunately now I can feel my fingers again!!) making a preliminary sorting, the atmosphere created has been wonderful. People helped us in many ways, bringing some hot tea, sweets, pieces of a delicious cake…we appreciate it very much. Good people, good moments.
Actually this work station wasn't on our schedule program but a lot of things on this cruise hadn't been planned. Thankfully Angelika Brandt, the leader of the SYSTCO team, had applied for a permit to sample near Atka Bay — just in case! Due to the actual situation we are more concentrating on offering our help to make possible the building of Neumayer III, and all scientific work on board had been suspended…so thank you Uli very much for giving us the opportunity to continue the exploration of the wonderful life under the sea.
13 January 2008Svenja Kruse, Alfred Wegener Institute Another Sunday on Polarstern...
To be precise, this is my 12th Sunday on Polarstern. As I paticipated in the transit from Bremerhaven to Cape Town, I have been on Board as long as the crew. Of course, my longing for my family, friend and home is growing, but Polarstern is an easy place to call home for a while. Even after all these weeks no feeling of everyday life has creptin. Each day is different from the previous, some are more exciting than others, but it is never boring.
On today's program was, like on every Sunday, the weightwatcher's club — one of the few regularly occurring events on board besides the meals. After that I went for the regular cooling container check-up. As we stopped station work a few days ago, I am glad to be able to keep some animals alive for experiments. I am one of the scientists here on board who work with zooplankton, i.e., with organisms of a few millimetres to centimetres in length living suspended in the water column. My special interests are amphipods and arrow worms (chaetognaths) from depths to 3,000 m. Arrow worms are not really worms, their name probably refers to their shape, but it may also indicate that their flight reaction is as fast as an arrow. Their position in the phylogenetic tree is still not resolved.
During this expedition I mainly investigate distribution and species composition of chaetognaths, but I also try to learn by experiments what they feed on. The aim is to find out about their life cycles and to get a better understanding of their position in the food web. This is a very interesting question because arrow worms, like many amphipods, are carnivorous, i.e., they feed on other zooplankters. Aside from abundance measurements, identifications and experiments, animals are also analysed with regard to their gut contents. They are frozen on board.
Samples are taken with the multinet which consists of five nets with a 100-µm mesh. It is employed for vertical catches and can take samples at five different water depths. To catch amphipods which typically can avoid the multinet, a multi-RMT (Rectangular Midwater Trawl) is employed as well. It consists of two frames of different sizes (1 m² and 8 m², respectively) and three nets each (0.33 mm mesh and 4.5 mm mesh, respectively). Contrary to the multinet, the multi-RMT is towed, samples a far larger volume of water and brings back a variety of bizarre zooplankton. Unfortunately, these large nets could only be employed once at greater water depths. We can only hope that we will fulfill our mission as an icebreaker for the Naja Arctica soon so we can resume station work. Until then, I continue to work with my animals and experiments, analyse data and enjoy the time in my current home, the Polarstern.
14 January 2008Gritta Veit-Köhler, Senckenberg
The Polarstern has been breaking a canal into the sea-ice for some days now to open a way for the Naja Arctica to the shelf ice edge near the Neumayer station. It is on the sea-ice in front of Neumayer where the colonies of Emperor penguins are. That we know, and every now and then whole groups of adult penguins pass by on the ice.
Well, we have seen grown-up penguins before, but I would have loved to see the young ones, especially since they are so close! We can not get to the colony, but the penguin chicks ae nice enough to come and visit us. And so I am standing on deck until 2 a.m., watching a group of young emperors on their first trip to the water. This sight is really the nicest I have ever had of any penguins.
As the Polarstern is running back and forth in its own channel while breaking the ice, we pass the chicks again and again. A group of 20 youngsters is on their way. They come across a smooth area of ice and then rest for an hour protected from the wind in a pressure ridge before they start again for the water around 12:30 a.m. I am thinking, I want to be a part of this. Most of their down feathers are already replaced by regular feathers, at least on their bellies, which they use to slide around.
By 1:30 a.m. they make it to a pool of open water. I am thinking, if I know anything about penguins, they will take their time before they dare take their first dive — after all,it is their very first time! I allow for some more time, freezing and waiting. When, by 2 a.m., they unmistakably decide to take another nap at the edge of the water, I give up and go to bed.
Emperor penguins, Aptenodytes forsteri, are the largest of the penguins. They attain sizes up to 1.30 metres and weigh up to 41 kilograms. They can dive at least 250 m deep, and they can stay under water for 20 minutes. Each beat of their wings carries them about 2 to 5 metres forward. They lay their eggs in May, in the middle of the austral winter, and the chicks hatch in July and August. They need 5 months to become fledglings. They are abandoned by their parents before their first moult is completed, and they then start their journey across they breaking ice to the open water.
Emperor penguins are very easily distinguished from the similar King penguins. While the Kings carry their jackets with closed upper buttons, the Emperor wears his open. King penguins are not found here at about 70°S. They are living in sub-Antarctic latitudes, and their colonies are no further south than 60°S. The emperor, on the other hand, lives between 66 and 78°S. The chicks of the King penguin are chocolate coloured, whereas the chicks of the Emperor penguin are silvery-grey with a distinctive white face bordered by black crown and neck-sides.
15 January 2008Brigitte Ebbe, Senckenberg
It is early in the morning, the aroma of my second cup of after-breakfast coffee is pleasantly wafting through the room. Next door in the mess room the clatter of dishes is telling stories of busy work, and when drawers are opened, the familiar sound of the closing mechanism can be heard that keeps them from springing open in heavy seas. Heavy seas — that is something we have not had in a long time. My photographs from the transit through the roaring forties, which sure did live up to their name back then, look like they are from a different life. Outside ice and calm, deep blue water are shimmering in the clear sunshine of the Polar summer.
So what is going on, anyway? Many stories are offered. ‘We are going around in circles.’ ‘What, is this just ot do something — anything?’ ‘No, we are widening the channel.’ ‘Oh no, we are standing again.’ The discussion, not much clouded by knowledge and experience, goes back and forth among us waiting scientists. A sense of community is a buffer for many feelings, disappointed expectations, impatience. For every one who has a day of given up hope for at least a few days of scientific work, there is somebody looking into the future with unbroken optimism or at least eyes kept open for the beauty of the Antarctic. Even though, one must say, the scenery has not changed all that much lately.
At the end of this day Hartmut, the meteorologist, will say after a look at the large area of crushed ice ‘All will end well’. Coming from an experienced Polarstern traveller, this sentence has some consolation to it.
Addressing the long-term future of the whole project, which we all started with much courage to try something new, will have to wait until the time is right. For now we are pulling results together and present them to each other. This is not always as easy as it sounds. Last night the benthologists were hard pressed now and again to understand the diagrams of the colleagues from the water column, and in a few days it will be the other way round. But our conviction to bridge these gaps has grown even stronger during the time shared on board ship, and the experience of collaboration being possible will change our way to look at science for the rest of our careers.
16 January 2008Torben Riehl, University of Hamburg
For about two weeks the Polarstern had been fighting against a forbidding fortress of ice, and day after day there seemed to be very little progress. The scientists on board of this research icebreaker were less than happy. Some stations had already been given up when we were called to the Atka Bay for the second time. On Monday afternoon, it still looked like our goal was still very far in the distance.
In the middle of the night from Monday to Tuesday, around 2 a.m. the birthday parties of two scientists and a member of the helikopter crew were about to wind down. Suddenly, out of the blue, the happy news reached the 'Zillertal', the ship's bar, that the Polarstern had reached the shelf ice edge. I could hardly believe it! After a bit of hesitating, I put on my Polar overall and went on deck. And to be sure, we had done it. A pier large enough to accommodate, as our Captain Uwe Pahl put it, 'the Queen Mary', had been created. A large weight fell off my heart, as it did off the hearts of many on board that Sunday. Not only the multimillion Euro project 'Neumayer III' has been saved, but also our scientific programmes, at least in part.
I had only a few hours sleep until the expedition leader Uli Bathmann called me and asked me to the heli deck. When I got there, the helicopter was already in the air. On board were our Captain and the Captain of the Naja Arctica. They were on their way to check whether the shelf ice edge was suitable for unloading parts of the new research station off the Danish freighter.
For the second time I had the privilege to help Uli with the photographic documentation of the situation from the helicopter. During the first time two weeks ago the objective was to survey and record the unusually heavy ice coverage before we started this whole project. This time, we wanted to document the success of this laborious and meticulously planned operation. dokumentieren. The Polarstern has rammed a channel, 3.6 km long and 100 m wide, into Atka Bay, leaving enough manoeuvering space for the Naja Arctica. Around midday we said good-bye. I was a little bit nostalgic — who knows if I will ever see this place again. But the general feeling is one of getting on our way. The last part of the journey begins, and we are going to make the utmost of the stations still ahead.
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