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Yesterdays reconnaissance flight was a success, showing us a series of
leads through the massive floes of heavily covered pack ice. Whilst
Petra with assistance from our FTO (Field Training Officer), Christian,
deployed two more of her buoys in ice floes to the north and west, we
sailed south, managing to park just before sunset in what is now
officially Ice Station 6.
This morning Klaus, our intrepid, multi tasking, but by no means
expendable, Chief Scientist and our FTO (reasonably expendable!)
ventured out onto the ice and marked out the work sites and hazards.
Overall the ice station looks reasonably solid with around half a metre
of snow on top of around 1.8m of ice.
we have completed an overflight to perform aerial photography of the
station and the weather is now closing in. We hope to launch IRB's
(inflatable rubber boats) in less than an hour, the wind is in our
favour, as the trend is downwards from the 20 plus knots earlier today.
The boats will allow Steve the opportunity to measure albedo, the amount
of light reflected by the ice, in this case the thin, new ice forming in
newly frozen leads between ice floes. Steve will also collect young ice
samples and ice flowers that form on new ice surfaces for other projects
on SIPEX II.
Cheers
Andy, Brett
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.