Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 08:02:57 +0000 (GMT)
From: Jason Goodman <sci5@knorr.whoi.edu>
To: seadiary@MIT.EDU
Subject: February 12
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970213072222.16524D@mike.knorr.whoi.edu>
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57 01'N, 53 46'W
Temp: -7 C, Winds: 4 m/s
Seas: 1.5 meters... smooth sailing.

  We're nearly finished with this intensive survey area: most of the XBTs 
and a good chunk of the floats are over the side now.  The weather has 
gotten _much_ better, and while I was asleep this morning the crew 
de-iced the whole ship.  A shame, since I'd hoped to get pictures.  It's 
sure to ice up again in short order, though.
  The clouds broke up for the first time today; there were patches of blue
sky, and a lovely sunset which we watched while launching a RAFOS float. 
(Sunset is at 4 pm at this latitude: it'll get noticeably earlier as we go
north from here.) I watched stars and the moon through partial cloud for a
little bit, too.  The bridge had a searchlight pointing aft to follow a
weather balloon launch: the black sea turned transparent sapphire blue
where the searchlight beam hit it.  Watching the searchlight track the 
balloon into the distance was neat, too.  It clouded over again within 
hours, though, and resumed snowing as soon as my watch started.
  There's all kinds of data spewing into this ship.  One of my favorite
read-outs is a wave-height radar.  It measures the distance from the
instrument on the bow straight down to the sea surface with radar, and
uses an accelerometer to find out how the ship is moving.  Do a couple of
integrals and a subtraction, and you can cancel out the ship's motion and
get the wave height.  During yesterday's storm, the waves were generally 7
meters, with occasional 9-meter waves.
  Once we finish this last part of the "asterisk" pattern, we'll continue 
our previous track northwest, to about 61 N 57 W.  Then it's off to 
Greenland (or as close to it as we can get, given the sea ice surrounding 
it.)