It's been busy, busy. Our position each of these mornings has been 87o 29.6N, 06o 31.83W; then 87o 29.73N, 08o 19.11W; this morning 87o 29.74N, 09o 15.57W; and right now 87o 34.6N, 09o 23.17W... we have drifting westward for the last 3 days!
Winds have calmed down to no wind; this is good for us as the boats operate best under light winds and for the meteorologists who are flying a giant red balloon to sample cloud air. No wind is not good for the atmospheric chemists who depend on some wind of a fixed direction to always be sampling upwind, thus avoiding getting any pollution from the ship in their samples. This lack of wind forced turning the ship around so as to have the bow facing into the wind. This is the 2nd time the ship is loosened from the ice, the engines turned on, the ship turned around and re-tied to the ice: on one side we can use the gangway but on the other we get on and off the ship using a ladder on the side of Oden. Back to the red balloon: it is attached to a very strong line that is spooled into a small winch that allows raising and lowering the balloon. Meteorological and aerosol sensors are hanging from the ballon that can then be taken up to 1 km up in the air and sample clouds. Tonight we hung a very clean piece of rope from the balloon to collect some cloud water; it should freeze as the balloon is released up and up; then the rope will go into a clean bag. Now we have to figure out how to actually sample this water; maybe we'll centrifuge the rope!
The rope did not work as it was too thick, with too many places for the water to hide in. A flat string would be better. So Monica has donated the shoe laces from her running shoes for this; we have washed them with 10% HCl and then with distilled water. They are now the cleanest shoe laces you've ever seen.
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