ROUGH SEAS

Current Position: N 70°30' , W 127°12'

Overall the Beaufort has been calm, some days eerily so, but the last few days have been much more eventful. We were a day away from finishing our sampling stations when I experienced the sea equivalent of a snow day! The previous days work on deck was complicated by barrels of salt water splashing over us, but when it is your 15^th box core in fewer days it is exactly what you want: excitement! After a day and night of roll we started sampling stations again, and we are now fished with three days to spare. A couple of our last stations were areas suspected to have oil or gas leaks. We saw no direct evidence (no bubbles or strange smells when the cores came to the surface, which is a good thing too as the crew will smoke anywhere on deck at anytime) but there were definite signs when looking at the box core sediment. There were red blotches on the surface of the mud (maybe bacterial mats) and we found no organisms living in the box of sediment... not one! That is very unusual, while the summer water column up here is practically a desert, as far as nutrients go, the sea floor can be teeming with life.

The water column scientist, whether they admit it or not, are obviously jealous of our abundant benthos! The one thing they have up on us: surface water sampling which must be done from a zodiac in order to get finer scale measurements. A couple days ago I was lucky enough to help them out with their last station. As we were being lowered down, off the side of the Amundsen, one of the crew said “If you haven't tasted the Arctic Ocean yet, you will now!” And I did.

Today are sole objective, now that sampling stations are finished, is SX90 sonar transects for marine mammal detection. We are north east of the Mackenzie River Delta and as they have discovered, but are not exactly sure why yet, this is a great area for sighting Bowhead whales and Belugas. Apparently dozens of Bowheads were spotted all in a few hours...while I was sleeping in. Really kicking myself today! Although I have been lucky enough to spot one or two off the boat in the last week. Not giving much away, the Bowhead barely scratches the surface, hiding in massive head underwater. I was impressed with its speed being such a large mammal; it seemed as fast as a dolphin.

With only 3 more nights left in the Arctic, my chances of spotting the northern lights are shrinking. This is the perfect time of year for seeing the northern lights, the sun is setting around 11pm, and they are no doubt dancing about almost every night over my position, just out of view beyond the clouds. Even though we have experienced many clear days, most nights the ship has either been encased in fog and or covered by a blanket of thick cloud. I am hoping my last night, staying on dry land in Kuglugtuk, will be the night I spot them. The ship is on its way to Kugluktuk now, and I am hoping we run into some ice on the way there! We have only hit one patch of sea ice, and it is not very likely that we will encounter another. This year is a record year (but not one to be proud of): so far the lowest extent and volume of sea ice ever recorded in the Arctic .