Written Thursday, 6 December Today is St. Nicholas Day and my birthday. Saint Nicholas has been busy during the night, and yesterday he actually came all the way from Holland and brought us beautiful stationary with expedition stamps, and on top of all that he had even written a poem! Last night I could not wait for the morning after all, so I curiously looked at all the little presents my loved ones had smuggled into my sea chest (it was shortly after Midnight and therefore already the 6th :-). I got some really nice surprises and enjoyed them very much, and when I got on deck this morning to see what my fe...

Written Wednesday, 5 December The time has finally come, we reached the first station. Yippiiieeeh... after a week of setting up the laboratories, trying to find one’s way on and below deck, fighting and winning against sea sickness and, above all, suspenseful waiting, we were quite surprised when we went on the work deck after breakfast. Like gnomes the crew has put our gear from the C deck onto the work deck with the help of cranes in the very early hours of the day. ...

Written Tuesday, 4 December The sixth day on Polarstern followed a stormy night with 9 to 10 Beaufort winds. Even though we are still underway to our first station, scientific work is carried out nonetheless. Last Saturday we started with our continuous chlorophyll measurements to get an overview of phytoplankton productivity in different water masses. Every four hours, be it day or night, water samples are taken through the well hole of the ship and then filtered. The well hole is, as the name suggests, a hole in the ship which can be used to take samples of surface water. There is no danger of the ship sin...

Written Monday, 3 December What a perfect day! I am on board of Polarstern for the first time, heading for the Antarctic.That is magnificent and exciting — a real adventure. We have high sea state, it is cloudy and windy. But that does not matter. I have got a nice little lab in the belly of the ship that is just right for what I am doing. During this cruise I am responsible for the deep-sea camera. With this camera we will take video footage of the ocean floor in depths to 5000 meters. The images will give us a first impression of the sediment characteristics and the abundance of animals in the deep sea....

Written Sunday, 2 December Today is Sunday, and it is the first Sunday in Advent 2007, recognizable by the kitchen serving us duck and red cabbage together with dumplings. Additionally, most of the scientists started decorating their working places with Christmas stuff, creating a holiday atmosphere even far away from home and the normal routine. There is a fairy light making for a Christmas atmosphere in the sorting lab and an Advent calendar (you get to open a door to look at little pictures hidden behind each day until Christmas Eve) around the next corner. While the lonely “Continuous Plankton Recorder...

Written Saturday, 1 December Today is our fourth day aboard Polarstern, and we are underway to our first station. The ship looks very different already. Containers have been emptied, instruments installed, some scientists are occupied with their tricky electronics, but so far we have mastered every problem. It is hard to believe how much we have already done, how many nice and interesting people we have met and how much scientific exchange has already taken place. I feel like I have been on board much longer than four days. Some time in the morning I asked myself what day of the week it was. The answer was ea...

Written Friday, 30 November The epibenthic sledge (EBS) called “Meta“ is a prototype designed by Nils Brenke. It consists of two frames of steel with a total weight of 484 kg , and it is 3.45 m long, 1.13 m high and 1.2 m wide. It is designed to sample benthic macro-fauna from shallow waters to depths of more than 6000m. Meta was used many times in the Southern Ocean since the expedition ANDEEP I in 2002 and therefore shows many scars. None of the steel parts are straight any more. Unfortunately the container including Meta had been put on the front deck. While all boxes and smaller instruments could be unloaded and carried to the right places relatively fast (see yesterday’s entry), this was not an option for the sledge. It took half a day for three peo...

Written Thursday, 29 November After the first night at sea, which ended with a still strangely bright morning, we start a very busy day. We scientists get an introduction into the daily operations of the ship into which we will have to integrate ourselves in the next 70 days, and after that a siren calls us for a first safety drill. Today this means only that we move to the assembly point on the heli deck, dressed warmly, wearing a hat and proper shoes and the life vest. The antarctic already in my heart, I walk through the door to the outside — and I am very surprised to find the air still very warm! We are still at 37° South, and a long way away from our study area. In the afternoon we busy ourselves getting the boxes, which we had packed such a long tim...

Written Wednesday, 28 November There she was in the harbor, the R/V Polarstern, with several low-slung buildings, a security fence and a visit through customs the only thing between me and my floating home to be for the next ten weeks. You could just make out the familiar AWI logo on her smokestack over the rooftops, but with the rest of her hidden I couldn’t get a sense of her size. I’d been to sea before, but never aboard Polarstern, only in the Arctic and not for more than four weeks. A group of about a dozen scientists, technicians and students had gathered outside of the customs house in Cape Town in the heat of the midday sun, and the charity workers who were handing out food to the refuges seeking asylum in South Africa kept offering us sandwiches. I was anxious t...

Not again..... Lets see, how does this check list go again? Screaming two-year old? Check. Does said child repeatedly kick the back of your seat? Check. Do the flight attendants attempt to dislocate your shoulder every time they walk down the aisle? Check. Is seating area the size of a postage stamp? Check Is there lots of turbulence? Check. Some delays? Check. Ah! But what about lost luggage? Check. 14 hour flight? Check. I must, therefore, be going to the ice. Oh oh, some more! Morning call at 1:45 am for check in at the airport at 2:30am? Check. 8 hour flight on a cramped, slow military turboprop Hercules? Check. Really really bad food on the military flight...