We survived surströmming

Tin can with surströmming

Local time: 2016-08-28 10:28
Position: 86° 26.18’N 134° 51.40’W
Heading: 235°
Speed: 6 knots
Water depth: 2440 m
Wind speed: 14.1 m/s
Air temperature: -0.1°C
Feels like (wind chill): -7.32°C
Sea temperature: -1.5°C

On Friday night, the whole ship was invited to surströmming evening after dinner. Many people, me included, had never had surströmming before, but many had heard about the infamous northern Swedish dish. Surströmming is fermented herring, and according to the rumours, it is very, very smelly. The fact that the feast was to take place not in the mess where we usually eat, but in the large storage room beneath the helideck, also gave a hint to it involving a strong odour. However, I was told, the taste is better than its smell. Anxiously, I signed up. You have to try everything once, right?

Radiotryne

Local time: 2016-08-28 15:03
Position: 86° 21.76’N 134° 26.40’W
Heading: 246°
Speed: 5.3 knots
Water depth: 2140 m
Wind speed: 19.8 m/s
Air temperature: -0.1°C
Feels like (wind chill): -8.59°C
Sea temperature: -1.5°C

(English below)

Dette har jeg glemt å nevne, men forrige uke ble jeg intervjuet på radio. Hallo P3 har en spalte som heter Utenriksstudentene, hvor jeg er med som doktorgradsstipendiat og forteller litt om hva det innebærer å ta doktorgrad.

Photo of the day: Windy!

Local time: 2016-24-08 19:28
Position: 88° 23.40’N 124° 20.22’W
Heading: 198°
Speed: 2.5 knots
Water depth: 3935 m
Wind speed: 11.3 m/s
Air temperature: -2.3°C
Feels like (wind chill): -9.74°C
Sea temperature: -1.3°C

The last couple of days we have had a lot of wind, up to 21 m/s! We also had some snow. This morning the wind had settled down a bit, but it was still enough to make Trine’s hair stand straight up as we were headed to the lab.

In the photo: Trine Andreasen, student from University of Aarhus.

 

Why we are here: A brief introduction

The Louis S. St. Laurent following in the wake of Oden on Arctic Ocean 2016.

I wanted to do a brief post about the main reason behind the expedition Arctic Ocean 2016. My fellow shipmate Grace Shephard (geologist and post doc from the University of Oslo) have already written an excellent in-depth post about this.

The main purpose of the expedition Arctic Ocean 2016 is to collect data for supporting Canada’s claim for an extended continental shelf. So what does that mean? According to the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), every country with a coastline has an economic zone of 200 nautical miles (nm) extending from their coast. This means that the country’s border goes 200 nm, about 360 km, out in the sea from the coast. However, the UN says, you can extend your border further out in the sea if your seabed extends out beyond these 200 nm. This can be for example a subsea mountain ridge or the continental shelf that is continuing outwards. Many countries have claimed extra territory like this, like for example Norway on the Norwegian continental shelf.

90° North: We have reached the North Pole!

90 deg North!

Local time: 14:23 2016-08-22
Position: 89° 59.02’N 070° 24.63’W
Heading: 310°
Speed: 4.8 knots
Water depth: 4225 m
Wind speed: 8.5 m/s
Air temperature: -5.15°C
Feels like (wind chill): -12.76°C
Sea temperature: -1.5°C

We have reached the North Pole! Yesterday, 21 August 2016 at 11:03:35, we finally reached it after lurking around in the area for several days.

Photo of the day: Shades of blue

Oden breaks the sea ice, and it’s colours appear. I have never seen so many fantastic shades of blue before in my life. How can the ice be so blue?

Participants posting from Arctic Ocean 2016

Arctic Ocean 2016 participant and PhD candidate at NTNU/AMOS/SAMCoT Hans-Martin Heyn at work on the bridge of icebreaker Oden.

There are several participants posting content and photos from the expedition. I have linked to some through my page. Below is an updated list of people to follow and hashtags for seeing content from the expedition.

Photo of the day: Ice station

Photo from day 6, Saturday 13 August. Katarina Gårdfeldt and her team on an ice station. They were originally upstream of the vessels, they were passed by the vessels after some hours on the ice. I wrote about ice stations and their work in my post from earlier today.

 

Feet on the ice!

From the left; myself, La Daana Kanhai (Galway Mayo Institute of Technology), Åsa Lindgren (Swedish Polar Research Secretariat) and Katarina Gårdfeldt (Chalmers University of Technology)

Local time: 15:30 2016-08-15
Position: 89° 10.15’N 034° 36.77’W
Heading: 334°
Speed: 4.9 knots
Water depth: 4117 m
Wind speed: 9.6 m/s
Air temperature: -4.8°C
Feels like (wind chill): -12.35°C
Sea temperature: 0°C

Greetings from north of the 89th parallel! I can’t believe we are almost at the North Pole! But we are probably not stopping there for a few days, the last I head is that we are doing some more work for a couple of days before we stop. Actually, we may pass directly through the North Pole with the seismic lines before that, without stopping. So then I can say I have been to the North Pole twice, right?

Life on board

Local time: 22:57
Position: 88° 26.15’N 006° 17.38’W
Heading: 340°
Speed: 10.6 knots
Water depth: 4341 m
Wind speed: 3.3 m/s
Air temperature: -2.7°C
Feels like (wind chill): -6.51°C
Sea temperature: -1.4°C

We’ve been on the ship for almost a week now. I can’t believe it, time is moving so fast! Everyone is settling in, getting to know each other and the ship quite well. It’s a really friendly environment, and quite young also! I’m not sure about the average age of the participants and crew, but my guess is around 35.