Ever looked up ocean in the guide? “Ocean,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the Ekman layer, but that’s just peanuts to the ocean, listen…” Ever wondered how big? Check out this nice comparison from xkcd:
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image: xkcd.com[/caption]
Ever wondered what it’s like to be a CTD? Temperate conditions one hour, near zero, dangling on a wire at the bottom of the ocean the next. Did you know that more people have been on the moon than below 2000m? Did you also know that the ocean on average is 4.3 kilometers deep?! CTDs are the unmanned explorers, the sputnik’s of the oceanographer’s world.
So, unfortunately, we can’t show you what the CTDs see but we can show you how they are prepared for their voyage, how their samples are collected…
[insert gopro time lapse of CTD]
Note: the rolling deep!
Also, guess who found his sea-legs! Chris Turney from CCRC had me way worried. He said it was going to be the great weight loss program of 2013! But I’ve been great. I don’t know if I want to call it this early though, the waves are coming….!
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In other exciting news, I’ve discovered the secret of navigating the rabbit warren that is the lower decks of the ship. Imagine the following situation. You are trying to find the mess and you find yourself in a storage cupboard. It’s interesting how one reflects on one’s mental faculties at this moment. The key though, is to emerge triumphant, with a broom, muttering about a reckless deck hand that knocked over a bag of …
In category: Southern_Surveyor