Welcome to our cruise blog! Lovely to see you (back) here.
After setting sail yesterday morning, 5 November, we are already heading through rough North Sea weather. I mean, who would have expected something else than stormy and choppy waters at this time of the year in that location? Although, it is still relatively calm compared to what weather we expect to come within the next couple of days… A little spoiler here: Our original plans are blown with the wind for the time being – and are replaced with weathering the storm by hiding in the wind shelter behind the Faroe Islands.
Therefore, at this stage we do not have a lot of scientific stuff to talk about (yet). What we do talk about though is the UN Ocean Decade – a massive ambitious initiative designed over a ten-year timeframe and dedicated to our ocean. The aim is to wrap up all the different social, economic, industrial, political, and scientific interests concerning their – partly very divergent – demands on the ocean and bring all those parties together on one table. The overarching goal is a resilient and healthy ocean by 2030 – and until then join forces to find ways and figure out how to reach this. This can be practical approaches e.g. ‘invent tools to stop plastic discharge from estuaries into the oceans’ or more general foci on communication strategies about how to bring people together to talk. We are very proud that our IceDivA2 cruise is part of the UN Ocean Decade programme in the frame of a satellite event – a two-hour time slot showcasing our on board activities for a clean ocean. Just as a heads up: We will be hosting a live stream which enables everyone interested to come aboard and unite from all over the world. So – save the date and join us live on the 18 November between 5 – 7 pm CET! More information and a link to the livestream will follow in a later blog entry.
In the meantime, we prepare – both for the upcoming weather and the livestream – all the gear, labs, and instruments we brought with us. Amongst these is benthic gear such as the epibenthic sledge, multi – and box corers, and also water column sampling instruments such as plankton nets and water sampling devices. To dive down into the world of the ocean floor, we use ship-borne multibeam echo sounding as well as our deep-sea towed camera system which provides us with beautiful footage. Let’s see what the future brings! Stay tuned to keep up with our journey into the North Atlantic!
