18th June - running for Shelter

Wednesday, June 17th 2009: Rockall Trough

By Andy Mogg, PhD student in biogeochemisrty at SAMS.


Fell out of bed today to see that my cabin porthole was underwater. The sea’s been building for the last few days but is the first time we’ve been properly blown off.

As I write this we’re are running for the shelter of the outer Hebrides.

On this first leg of the cruise I’m analysing concentrations of DMS (a dissolved gas implicated in climate regulation)…
(will interrupt myself to say that the ship just turned and everyone went flying across the room, star trek style. I may continue now).
… and DMSO, the oxidation product of DMS. I’m also collecting samples to be worked up back at the lab.
On board analysis has been a running battle with the aging pair of gas chromatographs (GCs) I’ve brought with me, a battle I thought I’d won yesterday morning, only to have one of the GCs completely die. On the plus side, dinner was delicious surf and turf so all in all the day was not a total loss. Analysis will now take a bit longer, but everything’s still doable.

This is my first cruise and it’s an amazing experience.  From bathing in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland before we left, to the first few days of calm weather and sunshine, the first scientific results, the first big seas and then the first complete breakdown of pretty much every piece of equipment I’ve been using (in sequence no less!), it’s all been great and a fantastic learning experience. There’s a good crowd on board, and I enjoy seeing both how the ship is run and the different scientific disciplines in action.

Can’t wait for the next leg of the cruise when hopefully my GC will be resurrected (replacement parts en route), and I can get some intensive experiments done and masses of data collected!



Photos
1- View from the office
2- Back deck of Discovery