Stormy seas

Well – it had to happen in Drake Passage. After a few weeks of relatively quiet weather, we have finally hit stormy seas. With winds up to 40 knots and 6 to 7 metres of swell, science operations have been suspended. During a brief lull in the weather last night, the ship’s crew and technicians pulled out all the stops to get a CTD cast done in the middle of Drake Passage.

There have been some blog requests for a map of our progress, and I am happy to oblige, dear readers! Whilst the plot looks like a little bit of a spider’s web (including two trips to Stanley), you can see that we have effectively sampled both the North Scotia Ridge between the Falklands and South Georgia and the SR1 repeat line. Unfortunately, weather has meant that our tracer sampling of Drake Passage (where we are currently) has been coarser than we would have wanted but early results from the section are still encouraging.

Map showing the cruise track, starting in the north from Montevideo. The red dots indicate CTD stations and the yellow crosses are float positions.