Intro

Reason for the blog!:

Well, as most of you will know I am off to the Southern Ocean for 2 months with BAS. It is a research cruise on the JCR (James Clark Ross) going from Port Stanley (Falkland Islands). I am also spending 3 weeks travelling around S. America on the way back.


The trip:

The flight is from RAF Brize Norton (Oxfordshire) on Sunday (17th Feb), I get a space in a coach/minibus which a lot of us will be on which will take us there. The flight leaves at 11pm and refuels at Ascension Island for an hour or so before arriving at the FIs on Mon (18th) at 2pm (their time I think)
The ship leaves Port Stanley on the 19th Feb. It will cross Drake's Passage, go down the Antarctic Peninsula, through the Bellingshausen Sea and Amundsen Sea, and if it is free of ice, we will go into Pine Island Bay (very important for climate change research), then north, back east and into Rothera for 2-3 days where we offload some stuff for the winterers (we are the last people to call in there before the winter starts) and take on board everyone who is not wintering (so it will be a busy ship!). We then sail back to the Falklands, and are due to dock on the 10th April!


Science (basics!) - only stuff I have heard about, I am sure there is plenty more!:

Ther are 3 science groups going down:
GRADES-QWAD which I am in: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/current_programmes/grades/qwad/index.php
CACHE-PEP_G: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/current_programmes/cache.php
BIOFLAME-BIOPEARL: http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/bas_research/current_programmes/bioflame.php

The main aims (I think!) are to core the ocean floor at various places (geologists) and do trawls to pick up various creatures off the ocean floor (biologists).
Instruments http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/engineering/html/support_pages/bathymetry/ea600.htm:
swath - 'pings' the bottom to get a bathymetric map
ADCP (me!) - can 'image' the speed and direction of ocean currents through the water column
CTD (half me!) - this stands for Conductivity, Temperature, Depth. It has a load of sensors on it which measure everything from salinity to dissolved oxygen concentration, and pressure to fluorescence! It also has many bottles attached to it. It is slowly lowered to the sea floor, taking measurements as it goes, then brought slowly up, 'firing' bottles (taking samples of the water) and continuing to measure. Other measurements are then done on the samples.
Corers - there are many kinds (piston, gravity etc..), don't know which one we have (I'll let you know!), but they take very deep cores of the sea floor sediment.

I am sure there is more, especially biology related stuff, but that'll do for now...

South America:
If the ship docks on time, i.e. before April 12th as there is only 1 flight out of the FIs every week (Sat 1600), then I will travel around Chile mainly, hopefully do Easter Island (depending on cost and trips available), maybe a little of Argentina and almost certainly some wine tasting (got to do that while in Chile!). Then I fly from Santiago to Lima (20th April), where I join a trip for 2 weeks organised by Intrepid Travel called Majestic Peru https://www.intrepidtravel.com/trips/GKP which looks amazing. I get to visit so many places I have always wanted to see like Machu Picchu, the Nazca Lines and Lake Titicaca (and many more) The link gives you the whole itinery, looks so exciting! If the trip is fully booked then I will be travelling in a group of 12 (+ tour guide) but at present only a max of 3 other people have booked on it!
Obviously if the ship docks any time between 12th April and 19th April then I just do Peru then fly back. I am coming back 4th/5th May via Madrid.