Umitaka Maru — CEAMARC voyageThe water freezes!8 February 2008 — the one one!Written by Patrice Pruvost aboard the Umitaka Maru
The cold has settled in now. Last night it was -10 °C. This morning, the temperature fell 4 °C from the night before. We are all cold.
A warmly wrapped-up student during her shift on the rear deck.
Fortunately the wind hasn't come up this morning! Still, the deck is constantly being hosed off with sea water to avoid ice forming, which means we have to work with our feet in water! With such temperatures, we have to de-ice the equipment before using it. Ice crystals form on the nets as they come out of the water!
The sea temperature is around 0 °C. A slight lowering of the temperature would mean ice pellets forming on the water's surface. Sea water freezes below -1.9 °C. The freezing point of sea water is lower than that of fresh water because of the salt concentration. On the other hand, the water in our sorting basins is really beginning to freeze. So the larvae are frozen as soon as we take them out of the water. The advantage of the biting cold is that we have no problem preserving the samples to be treated as happens on our missions in tropical regions!
Our sampling plan continues to move ahead well. We have just crossed the Adélie bank. We are starting work in the Adélie Depression where depths can reach 1,000 meters. We begin directly with the station furthest south (station 29) then we will move progressively north.
I hope that communications will stay open even at these far southern latitudes. Since we left, we have been using satellite communications to send data. But the further south we move, the lower the satellite, located over the Equator, sinks on the horizon and becomes difficult to reach. Until now, fortunately, we have always managed to maintain communications. We send and receive e-mail to our families. By the same token, we have always succeeded in sending our daily blog that is posted on the ‘mers australes’ site, whether from the Aurora Australis, the Astrolabe or the Umitaka Maru. So we have been able to have you share our daily life on the ship, thanks to the CEAMARC's program footing the high cost of communications.
Now we need to thank Stéphanie Targui and Eva Venancio for their efforts at the National Museum of Natural History in posting the texts and images on the site. We heartily thank Nadia Améziane who, since the first mission began, has patiently read and edited all the texts from the different correspondents every day, excusing our weaknesses as the result of fatigue linked to the shift work. Nor can we forget the members of the Cousteau Society who patiently translate all our texts into English. The mission continues until February 13, when we will begin our return to Hobart.
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