Today is our fourth day aboard Polarstern, and we are underway to our first station. The ship looks very different already. Containers have been emptied, instruments installed, some scientists are occupied with their tricky electronics, but so far we have mastered every problem. It is hard to believe how much we have already done, how many nice and interesting people we have met and how much scientific exchange has already taken place. I feel like I have been on board much longer than four days.
Some time in the morning I asked myself what day of the week it was. The answer was easy once I saw the menu of the day in the mess room, which announced several stews. That was a clear sign for Saturday, because stew or soup is the traditional Saturday meal on ships. On Fridays fish is served, and on Thursdays it is seaman’s Sunday, meaning that the food is even better than on other days. Today’s pea soup was excellent, and the bread to go with the soup is hard to top with anything – a round of applause for our baker Thomas!
Besides the setting up of the labs, the day was devoted to many planning meetings. Several groups got together to do a dry run of their first station. Theoretically everything is under control now, the practical part will follow on 5 December.
Tonight our meteorologist has predicted Beaufort 9. That means that in the labs everything has to be checked one more time and tied down if that has not been done already. It is a good thing that the station location is still more than two days away because in wind like that deployment of almost all gear is impossible. After the weather forecast, Volker presented an excellent overview of our research from the viewpoint of a physical oceanographer. He showed us how primary production, physical processes in the water column an biological processes on the seabed are linked together. We are very curious to find out whether our data will document coupling processes between these different systems as well. Everybody is anxiously awaiting the first station!
Angelika Brandt, University of Hamburg
Photos: T. Riehl, Universität Hamburg and ANT XXIV/2