Received: from SOUTH-STATION-ANNEX.MIT.EDU by po9.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA26118; Mon, 17 Feb 97 08:48:33 EST Received: from striker.whoi.edu by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA03514; Mon, 17 Feb 97 08:48:31 EST Received: (from knorr@localhost) by striker.whoi.edu (8.6.12/ksf/shore/1.0) id IAA14431 for seadiary@mit.edu; Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:48:34 -0500 Received: by knorr.whoi.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01490; Mon, 17 Feb 97 08:48:39 GMT Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:48:39 +0000 (GMT) From: Jason Goodman To: seadiary@MIT.EDU Subject: Greenland?? Where? Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Feb 17, 1997 61 24' N, 50 34' W Temp: -11 C, Winds: 20 m/s Seas: moderate Our first station today was 15 miles off the coast of Greenland (or rather, an island next to Greenland: the coast is so fjordy it's hard to tell.) Unfortunately, it was snowing and nasty and the visibility was less than a mile, so I wasn't able to see land. Surprisingly, there was no ice along the Greenland coast: it tends to concentrate along the Labrador coast. This is as far north as we're going; we'll be working our way southwest for the next week or so. The weather tonight during work was about the worst I've seen it. Temperature about 12 F, thick, driving snow with winds over 40 knots. We retrieve the CTD with 15-foot long poles with detachable hooks on the ends tied to ropes. The wind was so bad I couldn't hold the pole perpendicular to the wind. It bowed about two feet when I tried. We've got these pneumatic winches called "air tuggers": water in the compressed air froze in the valves, crippling the tuggers. An engineer took a blowtorch to the valves and melted the water out... it flowed down into the hose the valves were hooked to, and froze solid in there. It's jury-rigged now, with pneumatic tubing all over the deck, crusted in ice and getting in the way of the aforementioned ropes and poles. By the time the repairs were done, everything was frozen stiff: the winch cable, ropes tie-down straps, the water slushing on deck, the hangar door, and my fingers and face. The sea surface does amazing things in high winds. The wind makes ripples on the surface, and scoops out the hollows and makes the peaks sharper until the wind rips the peaks to shreds and sprays them away. This all happens in about two seconds, and goes on continuously. Jason