RRS James Cook leaves Falmouth on her 50 day voyage to Chile
After several months of preparation and 3 days of mobilisation activity in Falmouth the RRS James Cook left Falmouth Docks in bright sunshine and calm seas at 12:08 on the 13th October for the 19th AMT cruise; the first on the James Cook and the first to have a destination of Punta Arenas, Chile. My initial plans were to begin this blog on day 1, but somehow had managed to block the frenetic way of life that typifies a research cruise from my memory, and it is only now, 5 days after sailing that I have found the time to write this.
The scientific party on-board is made up 10 PML staff members and associated students, 6 of our collaborators from the National Oceanology Centre in Southampton (NOC,S) and visitors from a number of institutes and countries including America, France and the Phillipines.
Up until the time of writing we have occupied 12 sampling stations which has involved 18 CTD casts, 11 plankton net hauls and 10 deployments of the PML optics rig with all onboard playing a full and active role, it is always amazing how quickly working relationships form under these conditions and how people soon settle in to getting up at 04:00 on a daily basis.
One set-back we have suffered is the failure of the NOC,S SHRIMP rig – a camera system which is deployed to depths in excess of 4000 metres. In order to remedy this we will be calling into the Azores tomorrow to effect a repair which will hopefully result in a number of successful deployments along the transect.
Weather conditions have been very favourable until now although we are currently experiencing a very overcast day with a force 6 westerly wind which is delaying our progress slightly, though this is forecast to decrease over the next 24 hours which bodes well for the coming days.
With a break of a few hours when alongside in Ponta Delgada tomorrow all should be refreshed ready for an early start on the morning of the 21st when we will resume scientific activities.