AMT Blog

When I was asked to come on AMT, back at the end of June, I thought I must surely be the last scientific crew member assigned to the ship because for such a long trip that really wasn’t much notice. Yet as it turns out I had a whole two months extra notice compared to my next guest blogger Denise Cummings, who didn’t find out until 3 weeks before we left!

So yesterday finally marked our departure from Avonmouth and AMT21 was officially underway, much to the delight of both Andy Rees the AMT program manager and Glen Tarran the principle scientific officer on board!

AMT20 will set sail from the UK on 12 October 2010 and is due to arrive in Chile on 25 November 2010. The cruise will focus on microbial diversity and activity, physical oceanography, optics, analytical flow cytometry and primary production and coloured dissolved organic matter.

The principal scientist will be Dr Andy Rees from Plymouth Marine Laboratory.

Diary writing has never been a strength of mine and my intention to write regularly to this blog was always under threat. And so true to form I am sitting down to write this, my second entry in just over three weeks – about 10 days later than I had hoped for.

Cruise track showing sampling stations

Since the last time I wrote when we were approaching the Azores, we have transected the northern gyre of the Atlantic where surface seawater temperatures where in parts greater than 28°C, we have crossed the area of equatorial upwelling, which was coincident with heavy cloud cover and much to the delight of Marie Cheize (from the University of Brest )at times torrential rain. Marie is collecting aerosol samples and when possible rainwater for isolation of bacteria and determination of dissolved iron.

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.