Trip Blog of FRV Scotia (Oct. 1st - 20th, 2009)

posted by Bee Berx, John D. and Bert Wouters

2009-10-03

Hi everyone, just a quick intro to our cruise.  We are on board the FRV Scotia and left Aberdeen on October 1^st.  Some of the work being undertaken over the next 19 days feeds into THOR WP3.  The scientific crew on board are mainly from Marine Scotland, but we also have visitors from some of the other project partners: Bert from KNMI, and later next week John from SAMS will be coming on board too; hopefully then the real THOR work will kick off and we’ll be servicing some current meter moorings in the Faroe Shetland Channel and making hydrographic measurements in the region.  Despite some less than comfortable sea conditions so far, work’s been going well.  At the moment, we are still collecting data for another project within Marine Scotland, on the east side of Shetland.  At lunch time we saw two trawlers hauling in their nets in the heavy swell – it made me happy to be on a bigger vessel! 

As the days go by, some of the other scientists and crew will probably contribute too, hopefully giving people a good look at life on board Scotia (and maybe even tempting some to come along – we may have more spaces on our trip next spring!). 

Bye for now,

Bee (Marine Scottland)

2009-10-03

Hello from F.R.V. Scotia making her way northwards to the east of the Shetland Islands. Today is bright very cold and blowing with a rough and lumpy sea state. It can make life on board slightly uncomfortable, but does not stop us from working round the clock.

The Scotia is a remarkably quiet, good sea boat and is very kind to those who live and work on her, which allows work to continue safely in conditions which would defeat less specialist vessels.

We are currently carrying out a Hydro graphic survey in this area using a C.T.D. carousel system fitted with a Seabird 911 system. This allows us to take samples of water down through the water column at specific points which we can then analyse on board for nutrients, and salinity. We also get instantaneous measurements of fluorescence, salinity and temperature.

The expensive and delicate CTD is system picked up from the hanger deck by a specialised crane system and deployed and recovered over the starboard side, in such a way that it cant swing about and damage either the instrumentation , the ship or indeed the personnel carrying out the work.

The ship is held in place on the position by a dynamic positioning system which ensures that the instrumentation deployed on cored cable remains as vertical as possible in the poor weather and sea conditions.

Yesterday we completed a series of sample stations to the east of Orkney using the CTD system and collecting depth stratified plankton samples using an Ocean sampler.

The Ocean sampler, weighing in at just short of three quarters of a ton, carries a Seabird 911 system and is capable of taking seven discrete plankton samples in separate nets of 68u mesh. This means it catches phytoplankton and micro zooplankton, as well as taking water samples at the same depth as the plankton came from.

John Dunn

2009-10-05

Just a quick message: we have finished the hydrographic survey to the East of Shetland and are now servicing some moorings for the other project before we are probably heading into the Faroe Shetland Channel.  Also, after a few days of big swell and not very nice weather the sun is finally out and the sea has calmed down.  Finally had time to send this to the THOR project office for posting online. 

More news soon,

Bee

2009-10-05

It's my fifth day on the FRV Scotia now. It took me about a day to get accustomed to the rocking of the boat, but I think I can say I have found my sea legs by now. Last Saturday conditions were pretty rough, but I'm still standing.

The main reason why I applied to join this trip was to get an idea where all the temperature and salinity data that I have been crunching during the last few years really come from. On your computer these data are just a bunch of number that you take for granted, but being here sheds quite a new light on it. Work is being done around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Every member of the science crew works two times 4 hours, which in my case means that I am on watch from 12 to 4 in the afternoon, and also at night. This might sound a lot, but most of the time is spend sailing between the measurement points, so there is plenty of time to do some work or read a scientific article (which I am not just writing to please my boss, the tower of interesting-articles-which-I-urgently-should-read-if-I-only-had-the-time on my desk will be considerably smaller when I get back to the office.). So far we spent most of the time taking profiles with the CTDs. Tomorrow we'll be (hopefully) recovering and deploying a number of moorings.

I expected to spend my nights in a small, scarcely lit cabin, but the accommodations can easily compete with an average hotel room. Besides a comfortable bed, there is a satellite television, stereo installation, a desk and a small dining table. Each cabin has its own bathroom, which includes a toilet and a shower.

Meals are served three times a day. Again, I am positively surprised by the quality of the food. We get a 3 course menu every day, and everything is prepared with fresh vegetables. There's also an abundance of fruit and cookies, freely available any time of the day. Although I am the only vegetarian on board, the cooks prepare a special meal every time (thank you, guys!). Because they have only one spare casserole, which isn't really intended to cook for one person, the servings are HUGE. I'm afraid I'll put on some extra kilos during this trip...

Bert (KNMI)

2009-10-10

Hi again,
We're about to leave Ullapool (in the NW of Scotland) after a one night stopover to replenish supplies and have a beer (or two).  Some of the scientists also
went for some exercise: two brought their mountain bikes and explored one of the nearby hills, others had brought swimming things and went for a swim at the
local pool.

Before coming to Ullapool we had already done some work in the Faroe Shetland Channel for THOR.  We deployed one ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler; in
May it had come adrift 2 weeks before we tried to retrieve it - luckily it was picked up in one of the Norwegian Oil Fields), and picked up and re-deployed our
second ADCP.  These two have been part of a monitoring program for measuring the flux of Atlantic Water into the Nordic Seas for 15 years now.  Under THOR, we
are deploying a few more instruments in the Channel.  Our Faroese project partners already deployed an extra one on their side of the channel, and in this
second part of our trip we will hopefully be placing another two.  Before John Dunn left us here in Ullapool, he wrote a little about the mooring work East of
Shetland (see below).  The ADCP moorings are a little different in set-up: they also have a weight at the bottom and an acoustic release, which then attaches to
a big orange float in which the ADCP sits, looking up through the water column.

We have now swapped John's (John Beaton from SAMS is replacing John Dunn) and we're about ready to set sail again.  I'm afraid I forgot my camera, but our
Chief Scientist George and Bert have been taking some pictures, so we will post some soon.

Bee

 

Along with Matt Geldart and George Slesser(chief scientist on board) I spent yesterday recovering two moorings which had been deployed on a previous cruise
of Scotia in the spring of this year. Each mooring consisted of  from the bottom , a very large clump of weight to hold it to the bottom, this is joined to an
acoustic release which is encase in it's own bright yellow flotation ,then an 8mm wire comes to two sets of deep water flotation, between these is an Anderaa
acoustic current meter. Continuing up the wire there is a Seabird Seacat CTD clamped on to the wire, much more wire and then another set of flotation with
yet another Anderaa current meter between it and finally a large steel ball which keeps the whole mooring upright in the water column. There is also a small
pick up rope and very small trawl float fastened to the top of the steel ball to allow for easy pick up once the mooring has reached the surface

When we reach a mooring site there is nothing on the surface to indicate that there is anything moored there at all, so we have first to speak to the acoustic
release first to find out if it is still there.

Having established that it is still there and its position relative to the ship, we send a secure firing code to it and this activates a motor which allows the
claw on the release to drop a ring which is fastened to the weight and the flotation does the rest and up it comes to the surface. The Scotia then moves in
smartly to pick up the rope on the top of the large steel float , this is usually done on the starboard side deck just outside the hanger deck. There is a
rope there which goes all the way round to the stern ramp of the ship and is attached to one side of the upper net drum. Once the mooring has drifted towards
the stern the rope is wound on to the net drum carefully so that instrumentation being pulled up the fishing ramp is not damaged. Stopper ropes allow the safe
removal and dismantling of the instrumentation  from the wire.

After the instruments have all been washed and cleaned of all the little stowaways and weed they have collected  over the months, they are downloaded and
their data backed up for safety. While they are being checked and having batteries replaced, a whole new mooring is being prepared on deck.

Corrosion is a huge problem on moorings and we have tried as far as possible to use either plastics, or high grade metals such as titanium , or stainless steel
to minimise this.

The area where these two moorings are located, can be fished by trawlers, which makes them vulnerable to damage and it is also very exposed, something we are
acutely aware of today with poor weather, big swell and high winds.

However the haul of high quality data which was retrieved from these two moorings yesterday makes it all worthwhile.

John Dunn

2009-10-15

We are now in the third and last week of our cruise. Last weekend we spent a day in Ullapool. Most of us took the opportunity to get some exercise. Bee and I went swimming, others went for a walk, some climbed the hills on their mountainbikes. All of us ended up in the local pub.

Below are some pictures to give you an idea of the work we are doing. We have deployed all moorings successfully, although there were some hick-ups with one of the acoustic releases, which didn't do what it was supposed to do (i.e., release when we send a signal, see the earlier post of John D.). Fortunately our engineers managed to solve this problem. At the moment we are traveling forth and back between the Faroe and Shetland Islands, getting more profiles and water samples.

Bert

Captions for the pictures

John D., Matt and Keith swinging a mooring into the ocean.

The FRV Scotia in the harbor of Ullapool.

Neil and Bert collecting water samples.

Bee at work. This is where we spend most of our time when we are on watch.

The CTD and water samples returning to the ship. 

2009-10-15

The weather has been kind to us in the last week, and we have managed to complete all the surveys we had set out to do and deploy all the moorings (except for one, where a replacement part wasn't delivered in time).  All water samples for calibrating the instrumentation have been taken, and now all that is left is to continue doing some surveys with the CTD: this is a package of instruments which is lowered from the side of the ship and measures various properties of the water (indirectly this can tell us about the salinity, temperature, chlorophyll, oxygen content and turbidity of the sea).  With all the water samples having been collected, there is increasingly less to do to keep people busy when working, and most of us starting to struggle with the increasing levels of boredom.  The count-down to getting home is on, and now there are only 4 nights left!

Bee

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Contact:
Bee Berx, PhD
Physical Oceanographer
Bio-Physical Processes Group
Marine Scotland – Science
Scottish Government | Marine Laboratory, PO Box 101 | 375, Victoria Road | Aberdeen AB11 9DB
Email: b.berx@marlab.ac.uk
www.scotland.gov.uk/marinescotland
www.researcherid.com/rid/A-5875-2009