Written Monday, 24 December I look out of the window and I see snow and ice. We will have a white Christmas in the literal sense, except that the days are bright rather than dark and grey like they are at home. The benthologists have a break today, as the “large station” was sampled the day before yesterday and yesterday. Today the planktologists are working, employing a whole array of gear in the water column to collect krill, arrow worms, copepods, salps and other animals for their investigations. Several types of nets are put into the water, such as the multinet, which brings samples from different d...

Written Sunday, 23 December The Antarctic summer shows its most beautiful side, the sun is shining out of a deep blue sky, and the water is glittering like a thousand diamonds. I walk up to the uppermost deck and enjoy the warmth of the sun for a little while until the cold wind chases me indoors. We are enjoying a quiet ride of a steady 8 to 10 knots, so for the scientists this is a comfortable day. The quiet after the hectic of yesterday’s benthos station is much appreciated; many people have worked until the small hours of the morning or followed the successful maiden voyage of the underwater video camera from the winch control room. ...

Written Saturday, 22 December A quick cup of coffee, then I am off to work, one flight of stairs down and along a long hallway. The night shift is looking forward to a well deserved time off, I myself sit down in front of the control screens and keep an eye on the sensors in the deep. Every single data point has to be surveyed and protocoled in detail to be suitable for later analysis. The sondes and water samples come back on deck after their journey through 1,000 m of water. Many steps must be taken now quickly and accurately. The details of the processing depend on the fate of the water from the deep dow...

Written Friday, 21 December What is a Triceratops doing in the ice? It is the logo on one of the containers aboard Polarstern, coming along with seven scientists from the Senckenberg Institute on an expedition! The equipment which the Senckenbergians brought with them on board the Polarstern did indeed fill a whole container: lab equipment, chemicals and sample jars were purchased by Annika Henche and packed into aluminum boxes together with microscopes. The large equipment of the DZMB – epibenthic sledge and multicorer – were tested and made ready for action. The container was shipped from Wilhelmshave...

Written Thursday, 20 December 2.3 knots... 2.0..1.9...1.2... 0.0. A glance at the screen in the red saloon during tea reveals it quite unambiguously: we are still stuck in the thick pack ice near Neumayer Station. The courageous Polarstern moves forward and backward and forward again, listing slowly to one side, shaking as if under a heavy burden — again a few meters gained. It is a lovely day, the ice gleaming white under a pastel blue sky, like lightly dropped dollops of meringue — but the nice picture is deceptive. The imposing pieces that Polarstern forces out of the closed ice cover hardly move, a...

Written Wednesday, 19 December Hi, it’s me again, Nils. Here on Board of Polarstern I am responsible for the deep-sea camera, and when I am not busy taking pictures of the ocean floor, I film what is happening around me. And of course the most impressing thing one can film here on the ice is wild penguins. The small, funny Adelies and the nearly 1 m tall, very dignified Emperor penguins are en route to their brooding places. Of course I have to film th...

Written Tuesday, 18 December Most of the scientists on board are specialized in the study of marine life and every opportunity to see or sample what lives on the bottom of this ocean is taken very seriously in consideration. Luckily enough during the delicate task of providing fuel to the station, a few hours had to be spent in the vicinity of the ice shelf; this time was indeed needed for the people from Neumayer to reach our position. This was the perfect opportunity to use one of our sampling gear called “the Rauschert Dredge” (named after Dr. Martin Rauschert who designed this device) and see what creatures we could catch on the sea floor, 500 meters below the icy surface of the water. ...

Written Monday, 17 December The well-known saying “weather happens all the time and everywhere” is valid also on board Polarstern. While the scientists had a break during the last few days which were devoted to the supply of Neumayer station, it was business as usual for me as the shipboard meteorologist. The weather station on board is always running normally, regardless whether the task is transit, science work on station or supply. Our responsibilities include weather observations and radio sonde surveys (with weather balloons) as well as forecast and advice. Especially in a region like the Antarcti...

Written Sunday, 16 December With full power Polarstern rammed herself into the relatively homogeneous sea ice of Atka Bay and then delivered equipment for the Neumayer station onto the ice. Sleigh trains pulled by piston bullies carried the freight containers over 10 km of sea ice to the shelf ice edge. Only fuel can not be delivered this way. The full tank containers on sleds would be too heavy and could be lost. All participants on board had an opportunity to visit the station via helicopter shuttle flights. I stayed on board, let my colleagues deliver packages and instead took care of the “old overwint...

Saturday, 15 December “Overwhelming!” — yes, that is the best way do describe it. Today was by far the most overwhelming day of our journey, as we went to Neumayer station. I knew that the first helicopter shuttle flights were scheduled for 9 o’clock and that probably everybody wanted to take off at the same time. There are only 4 seats on a helicopter, so I planned to fly around 11 o’clock, thinking that the first rush would be over and surely nobody wanted to go right before lunch, right? However, by 10 o’clock there was nothing that could have held me on the ship, I just wanted to go. During breakfast I had read the brochures on “Neumayer” and the “Library in the Ice”, then filled my water bottle, made a sandwich for lunch, put sun screen on, inserted ...