biologists’ catch (left), the boss (right)

balloon launch at -20°C (left), our troubadour (right)

October 26. Day twenty five.

It’s done. Now after the trawling operation near Severnaya Zemlya, Volodya A and I officially are a team of cable pullers. After pulling back and forth all these kilometers of nilspin cable…

Again helped Volodya A with launching the balloons. Last time it was not so easy because of the wind. We made it only after the 4th attempt then. Now it was absolutely different – it was -20°C! The problem was that at some point you have to be without gloves, in order to attach the balloon properly to the unwinder and then seal it with electric tape (which becomes very fragile when it is cold). So I spent a few minutes without gloves… I’ll tell you, my left hand almost completely froze. I had to wait for ten minutes in their lab for my hand to recover.

Misha was a birthday boy yesterday, 28 years. Irina and Tanya baked a cake. Dima came with his guitar and sang a few songs. Anya, too sang a couple of nice songs from Murmansk.

We completed a couple of stations last night… There were some minor problems with the batteries on the rosette… As usual when it is that cold.

~Liza Bodrova

The Kapitan Dranitsyn finished all work in the Laptev and East Siberian seas and is now sailing towards Svalbard. They are currently at Cape Arktichesky (Severnaya Zemlya).

During the first part of the cruise they successfully deployed two very sophisticated moorings (one in the Laptev Sea and another one in the East Siberian Sea) and recovered four previously deployed moorings. Because of heavy ice they left one mooring in the water (but confirmed that it is still at its place). Unfortunately, two moorings off the Novosibirskiye Islands were not found (just disappeared). Kapitan Dranitsyn carried out traditional NABOS sections and found warmer water than was observed in the last years. One of findings of great importance is related to one of the moorings deployed near Severnaya Zemlya which showed the penetration of Atlantic Water with temperatures up to 2°C to ~90m depth level. Multidisciplinary observations (including turbulence, biochemistry) carried out by our partners require further analysis.

Work off Svalbard will include deployment and recovery of two moorings complemented by the oceanographic survey. The cruise will return to Kirkenes, Norway on October 30th.

October 21. Day twenty.

Surprisingly, one of the three moorings near Severnaya Zemlya had been recovered. Surprisingly, because the ice conditions were very heavy and all the open water was closing momentarily because of the compaction. People were giving 10% chance for success. But those 10% were enough. It worked!

Our night shift was again just sitting around in the hangar as usual during mooring operations.

06:36. Location: 810 00N 105017.83E. We are clearing out a polynya for our next mooring operation. It is cloudy and foggy. Irina went yesterday to biologists to help with sorting out the catch. Lots of jelly fish, plankton and all kind of other living creatures. Irina said Max eats jelly fish. I must go there with my camera.

I just came back from the bridge! It is here! Another mooring! It is yellow. Our technicians are doing better and better. It’s one more year of data!

Svalbard around noon

Today’s mooring operation is a bit unusual. This mooring (belonging to AWI) was in the water for three years although was designed for two. We could not get here last year on the Buinitsky because of the ice. Two years ago they opened the releases but the mooring did not pop up. The suspicion is that the rusted releases do not let the mooring go. Therefore the technique would be trawling with nielspin (with weights on it) tied to the boat. The depth here is 180m. Exciting!

The CHE team and the biologists are hanging around in the lounge drinking tea at night…

We did not have enough time to dip the rosette but Misha fulfilled his dream to say ‘transducer in the water’ because Peter asked him to help with the triangulation.

We are in some kind of an iceberg valley… They are all over the place… There are also a lot of ice ridges of all shapes and colors and a lot of thick ice in general. Very impressive! The sun is not coming out of the horizon… They say it’s the polar night…

The trawling did not result in anything looking like a mooring… But we hooked up a nice ice flow and even a small iceberg. Needed some time to get rid of them. Successfully, thank God. Irina Repina said they felt one bite during the trawling. May be it was the mooring… Who knows… Obviously, one bite wasn’t enough. But now it’s over. I have 4.5 hours left to sleep before the bbq party.

~Liza Bodrova

October 19. Day eighteen.

I like that we’ve all become good buddies here. Everyone is very friendly… Will wake you up for lunch (or dinner), will save some goodies for you if you missed some food time.

We have a new joke: if there were no raisins in the muesli (cold cereal) in the morning, you can expect kompot (boiled fruit drink) for dinner. Indeed that was what happened today. Very funny.

October 20. Day nineteen.

We are finishing a big transition to Severnaya Zemlya – 400 miles. There are icebergs outside. Severnaya Zemlya could also be seen – we are very close.

My night shift was … well.. there was no night shift. We are sailing to the new position. We spent a lot of time outside.

The ice is changing all the time – very thin, with polynyas, the very thick, up to 2 meters and probably even thicker.

Vadim (2nd chief mate) during his usual announcement at 11:30 said that because of the global warming the temperature outside is around 0°C and now is a very good time to buy property on the Severnaya Zemlya.

After getting used to being on the icebreaker you tend to forget about its power. Every now and then I notice pictures of the Dranitsyn on the walls inside and then again realize how huge and strong it is.

We will be on our next spot sometime between 2 and 4am. If it is dark – it is the rosette and the nets, otherwise – the mooring.

~Liza Bodrova

October 17. Day sixteen.

We have just crossed ‘the equator’ – we are more than half way through with the expedition plan. I have not done a single station for 5 days – we are not doing any rosettes during our shift. We have done a few stations during the daytime (i.e. when it is dark and night according to local time). When there is light (which is at night according to ship’s time) we do moorings. I kind of miss my rosette with its bathometers. I am recalling the old Buinitsky days when we would do up to six rosettes a day.

I myself and many others got lost recently with all the changes in the schedule. Vladimir A came yesterday for the next blog portion but I said that there is nothing to write about… He said, yeah, write about it. He also updated me on the moorings situation and the schedule. We are going now to M1, which we already heard but did not retrieve. We will also finish the unfinished half of the section which was in the Russian EEZ. After the section and the mooring we are going to Severnaya Zemlya where we will do moorings and a transect too.

Participated in launching balloons with our met folks. It wasn’t very easy, actually. I was holding the balloon while Vladimir A was blowing it with helium. During the launch the wind was very gusty and the line connecting sonde and the balloon broke so we had to blow another one. Balloon #2: the sonde hit the deck, the line broke again. Balloon #3: the sonde that hit the deck (see balloon #2 above) refused to work up there in the sky. Balloon #4: success, finally!

Tanya Alexeeva and Andrey from the crew saw a green flare gun shot. Requests from the bridge did not result in any valuable information. Who was it? The islands are too far away…

Current forecast for arrival to the mooring point is 2am. But the ice is not collaborating: too thick. We’ll see what happens.

I just realized: I still have not swum in the East Siberian… What a pity! But luckily I have the East Siberian water in bottles!

~Liza Bodrova

The Kapitan Dranitsyn finished the oceanographic cross-section north of the Novosibirskiye Islands (along the 142°E meridian) and moved to the East Siberian Sea. The sea ice is lighter there so they were able to move faster than in the Laptev Sea. Their plan is to make a cross-section along ~169°E meridian, recovering two moorings and deploying three moorings.

October 8. Day seven.

At 3am we arrived at the M1 site. After triangulation we started cleaning up the ice above the mooring site. This continued for a while, because of the difficult ice conditions. Igor D and Vladimir I were running back and forth between the helideck and the bridge. Vladimir A said this mooring is a very special one for Igor D – this is the very first NABOS mooring. Unfortunately, the release did not work out and the mooring did not pop up. They decided to do the triangulation again to make sure it is still there and leave it for now. The idea is to try to recover it on the way back from the East Siberian Sea.

We are in the ice all the time. The boat is shaking. It is noisy all the time. We play tennis every day.

~Liza Bodrova

by Liza Bodrova

October 2. Day one
Location at 16:00 69.7N, 30.1E

Got up only for lunch like most of us. About food – we have four meals: breakfast from 8 to 9, lunch from noon to 1pm, tea (!) from 15:30 to 16:30 and supper from 19:30 to 20:30. All the preparations for departure took some time and we left only about 7:30pm when it was already dark.

We have a very international team: the Russians, Canadians, Americans, English, one Slovenian, one New Zealander, one “German” represented by Igor Dmitrenko and one Polish guy.

October 3, Day two.
Location at 12:00 77.3N, 40.9E

We had our first meeting with a lot of talking about security measures. One guy from the crew showed how to use life jackets. That poor guy was sweating by the end of presentation. The boat excursion was very interesting. We found the gym with the tennis table and pool currently filled with the Barents water. The bridge looked very impressive with a lot of blinking lights and measuring devices.

The pool is a lot of fun especially when the boat is rolling. It is the real saltwater. Will experience salinity of Arctic water ourselves. Played tennis. At 6pm we had another meeting where Vladimir Ivanov talked about NABOS in general. Igor Dmitrenko showed a presentation about how things shouldn’t be done – about safety. Vladimir Alexeev did the harassment presentation.

October 4. Day three.
Location at 12:00 77.4N, 58.0E

Life boat drill before lunch. We had to gather altogether in life jackets near a designated lifeboat. Our boat was the biggest one – for 72 people! Vladimir Alexeev asked if we could send some of my notes to IARC. As Igor Dmitrenko noted – your diary is “officially legal” now.

Sergey Kirillov and our “chemical brother” Singhue did a presentation about this year’s NABOS hydrology program.

October 5. Day four.
Location at 12:00 78.2N, 86.3E

We are in the Kara Sea! It is good that every day the officer on duty tells us about where we are and the weather, at 11:30. At least I can easily make it to lunch. I guess I must go to the pool. It’s the Kara there now. No significant roll so far. They say we will make it to the ice soon.

We slightly changed the course. We are now going to the Vilkitsky straight, not to the cape Arktichesky. Therefore the preparations for the M1 mooring began.

Played ping-pong before the tea hour. Many people were interested – we played two by two. The idea of a ping-pong tournament is in the air. Not everyone is playing, probably getting the equipment ready.

A scientific meeting again at 18:00. Listened to Irina Repina, Vladimir Alexeev and Tatyana Alexeeva. Tatyana’s talk about remote sensing of sea ice vs the ground truth brought up a lot of discussion. And suddenly – first ice in the middle of the meeting. The boat started shaking when hitting ice floes. Our ice people rushed to the bridge to start their observations. Many of us went to see how the icebreaker breaks the ice. Very impressive! Sounds differ depending on the type of ice – when it is pancake ice it sounds like fizzy water, when the ice is thick – like we are digging gravel on a gravel pit.

October 6. Day five.
Location at 12:00 77.8N, 111.8E

The usual morning announcement: we are in the Laptev Sea. We are again moving at cosmic speed – 15 knots. At night when we were in ice it was only 10. It is getting cold – it is 6 below freezing (Celsius) now. The water outside looks like soup – it is pancake ice again. The ‘pancakes’ look like plates of fat in cold soup from the fridge, before warming it up.

The rumor says we have our first station early tomorrow. We do not know yet if we will do the rosette first or we will start with the mooring. We’ll see. Tested the rosette with Misha Makhotin. I have a feeling our technicians sleep in the hangar finishing the mooring preparations.

Liza Bodrova is a young researcher aboard the NABOS cruise.

The seventh NABOS cruise started with the Russian Icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn sailing toward the Laptev Sea this week. The ship along with an international team of scientists led by the International Arctic Research Center are currently nearing Vilkitsky Strait, the passage that connects the Kara and Laptev Seas. Tomorrow they plan to start scientific observations and will recover the M1 mooring.