Inside the labs

Usually on research cruises, scientists from different areas come together and join their forces. Each field requires labs with different tools and specific demands to work in. Talking about labs creates a picture of people in white coats and safety goggles handling dangerous fluids. However, only one of our labs is a real chemical lab. […]

70 out of 30

With the amount of scientist limited due to corona restrictions the work that can be done is also limited. Also, we had just 16 working days in the Labrador Sea despite being 5 weeks on board. These circumstances led to the prediction of just conducting 30 to maybe 40 CTDs during this cruise. At least […]

Mooring works (2/2)

Recovering the 2 years old mooring is of course just one part of servicing the mooring. After getting back all the instruments, we need to conduct a calibration with each instrument. Therefor they get attached to a CTD to check whether they are still measuring accurately or show some drift. This calibration cast are mostly […]

Mooring works (1/2)

We left St Johns some days ago after a short stop of just a couple of hours. Heading towards the Labrador Sea preparing for the work to come. During the last days our focus was on the mooring array at 53°N consisting of 7 mooring. First, what is a mooring? In very simple words it’s […]

Warum immer in meiner Wache?/ Such things happen

********************ENGLISH VERSION BELOW************************ Warum immer in meiner Wache? Als studentische Hilfskraft bekommt man an Bord einiges an Verantwortung. Auf der einen Seite freut man sich, weil man auf diese Weise viel mehr lernt und weil man stolz ist, auf das Vertrauen, das einem entgegen gebracht wird. Auf der anderen Seite bekommt man immer wieder erzählt, […]

It’s all about the weather

It’s 1:00 pm, the sky is clear, the sea is calm. It is time for you to conduct an underway CTD (uCTD). Take the probe and the protocol bring it astern, where the winch is. Load the slack on the tail end of the probe, to make it fall perfectly vertical. After 100 seconds you […]

First measurements

We made our way through the English Channel and were rewarded with a wavy ocean making some of us suffer from seasickness. Not exactly a great reward but something one should always consider when going on a research cruise. By now all of us have overcome the seasickness and are doing well again. At this […]

An expedition in the time of COVID-19

Everything has been quite different in the last few months to what we have known before. Research cruises are no exception to that. Starting with the fact that we have to start and end our journey in a German harbor even though the field we are interested in is the Labrador Sea, going on with […]