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Yesterday, we departed Davis which wasn't as easy as it sounds. We first had to make a U turn in the fast ice. After an hours' worth of bumping and grinding, we finally had the ship facing the right way and then slowly sailed down the canal that we had so painstakingly excavated on our way in.
As we emerged from the fast ice, we found largely open water and it wasn't long before we were in a significant swell with quite a roll developing on the ship. When we awoke this morning, we were back in calm waters about 120 nautical miles north of Davis at the site of the legendary lost whale mooring. This device has been sitting in 1800m of water since 2012/13 and all subsequent recovery attempts have failed due to the ice conditions. This year it was different. We sent down the appropriate commands to the acoustic releases that attach the mooring to the sea floor and eventually it popped up 1100m from the vessel and was spotted by Trent. The device was safely recovered and was pulled up onto the deck looking somewhat like a bedraggled Dalek.
It needs a good clean after sitting on the ocean floor for 4 years and has been confined to the CTD room where it's odour will be less noticeable. We hope it should contain at least a years' worth of high fidelity recordings of whales from this area.
Lloyd and David
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.