Southern Ocean Voyage

This is a transcribed voice recording because I was too seasick!

“What a wild day to begin this 36-day adventure to the Southern Ocean! Firstly, I can’t quite believe that it’s actually happening. Secondly, today we waved goodbye to Hobart and to land for the next 5 weeks, and we moved under the bridge, out of calm waters into ‘the Rocky Horror Show’ with waves pelting CSIRO research vessel (RV) Investigator from all angles. Lots of rocking from side to side too!

While things started okay, especially after spending some time out on deck in the fresh air, when I went up to the bridge for a briefing, I began to feel green. After making it through that briefing I ran down about 6 flights of stairs to my room where I promptly paid my toilet a visit.

So, SEA = 1, AMELIA = 0

Currently lying in bed, listening to the crashing of the waves and trying to get my bod used to the rocking as we move towards our first stop to remove a big argo float that’s been collecting data for some time. It’s going to be a pretty tricky operation – it’s about 2m long, and in the middle of the ocean we’re going to need to track it down. It’ll be quite amazing!

Food has been excellent, though I think dry crackers are going to be my best mate for the next little while. Hoping for calmer seas tomorrow.”

        - A

Survived my first rough night at sea. There was some pretty big rocking going on in the cabin – the chair came out from under the desk, the hand sanitiser fell off the shelf and you could hear clothes creakily swinging in the wardrobe. But, in a weird way there was something quite calming about it I guess, kind of like being rocked to sleep as a baby.

My sea sickness has definitely improved with the help of some medication. I’ve seen a bunch of pretty green looking people today so it’s nice to know we are (literally) all in the same boat. My work setup looked a bit different today. I’m working from my bunk, which gives me the opportunity to lay down any time I need to, so I’ll roll with it and keep being productive from there.

Tomorrow morning we’re off to retrieve the Argo float which has never been done here before, so that’s pretty exciting! I’ll give you an update after that! Also having a shower on a rocking boat is like being pushed around in a mosh pit. One minute you’ve got water spraying everywhere, and the next you’re crashing into the wall. Luckily, the bathrooms are well designed and have plenty of handles to grab on to. It’s all like a bit of a circus act at the moment!

        - A

Pretty special day at the office today. Got up early and spent the morning watching the retrieval of an Argo float that’s been diving round the ocean since 2020. It had never been done on this ship before and the CSIRO team had created a new ‘capture device’ that looked a bit like a trampoline.

After a couple of attempts they managed to bag the float – which is about 2m long – kind of like trying to find a needle in the middle of a haystack. Quite the feat!

Once trapped, the team brought the float back on deck and many were surprised at its cleanliness, especially after being in the ocean for a really long time. Apparently that’s because it goes down so deep and there’s so much pressure that everything gets cleaned off when it dives down to 1000m – 2000m in the ocean.

Also spotted two albatross, so definitely on a high.

        - A

Seasickness is horrific! I’ve spent most of today in bed, listening to the crashing of the waves outside the porthole. We’re heading into the ‘purple zone’…

Basically what that means is that swells are predicted to be 9m or more – so things are getting pretty rocky! Anyway, trying to stay hydrated, with hydrolyte being my go-to gal. And, I made the massive achievement of not only getting upstairs for dinner, but eating a whole small potato and two pieces of carrot. WINNER!

        - A

A welcome surprise to wake to calmer seas this morning. Out on deck, four brightly coloured souls could be seen spotting little birds flitting in and out of the waves. Warm smiles took in the sunshine and spirits were high.

Preparing to deploy the tall mooring and autonomous instruments over the coming days. We'll also be starting back to back CTD deployments. CTDs are dropped down into the deep ocean, measuring the current as well as factors like temperature, salinity, and oxygen. They also take water samples. Such amazing instruments will provide rich data that will help uncover the secrets of this turbulent part of the Southern Ocean.

        - A

The forecast has not been looking so crash hot. We were hoping to deploy the tall mooring which is several kilometres long and has multiple different instruments along it, but the seas are too rough to do that, so it'll probably happen later in the week.

The weather is also too rough to deploy a bunch of other autonomous instruments like our gliders and so we've had to put that on hold as well. Instead, we've got CTDs running round the clock, and we were also able to deploy five drifters. Drifters are, as the name suggests, little instruments that drift with the current and they can be out there for their entire lifetime, transmitting a signal every six hours. Over time, these signals help showcase how things move around the currents, and so it'll be really interesting to see the 'map' of how they move over the next few months and years.

We watched the deployment of the drifters from the top deck just outside the bridge. While it was very cold, windy and rocky, it was an amazing vantage point for watching the round, blue instruments being tossed over the side of the ship by the crew.

        - A

Rough weather hit us again today, and strangely almost everyone I talked to seemed to wake up after a pretty horrific night of sleep. I don't know whether it was the CTD being deployed overnight or whether there was some funky movement going on in the waves, but either way I think everyone is going to have golden slumbers tonight.

We're deploying back to back CTDs, going between multiple shallower ones, and a full depth one – completing that cycle over and over again. We'll hopefully get about 130 over the next few weeks which is a mammoth effort by the team!

There have been a few small hiccups along the way, but in a sense that's actually provided moments of relief and chill time while instruments are being fixed. We've got an amazing capacity to switch from one activity to another so there is always something on the go. And, CTDs are the most viable in wild weather which is why we're doing so many of them at the moment. Fingers crossed the weather will improve over the next day or so and we'll be able to get the tall mooring out. Bring it on!

        - A