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Dispatch 16: Mooring B Deployed and a Polar Bear Sighting!

Jennifer Kosty (Yale University)

October 4, 2025
17:00 local, 77.59◦N, 149.58◦W

Conditions:

  • Cloudy
  • 90% sea ice cover
  • -8◦C
  • Sunrise: 4-Oct-2025 10:57
  • Sunset: 4-Oct-2025 20:34
  • Day length: 9 hours, 37 minutes

And that’s a wrap on the mooring operations for the 2025 BGOS/JOIS expedition! This morning, we redeployed Mooring B. The deployment process went smoothly, thanks to the help of our amazing deck crew. However, we had some unexpected excitement about half-way through the deployment when a polar bear was spotted approaching the Louis! Everyone came out to the fore deck to snap pictures and watch our new polar bear friend wander around the ice floes. Meanwhile, the deployment process continued with roughly 3800 m of wire and numerous instruments being lowered into the ocean. The polar bear ended up remaining nearby for the duration of Mooring B’s deployment, which we finished around 3 pm. Afterwards, we were happy to escape from the cold to celebrate our third and final mooring deployment. Huge thanks to the crew for helping make this year’s mooring work such a success!

With no time to waste, the day watch immediately began a quick 500 m CTD rosette cast to collect samples for DNA analysis. We then started steaming towards CB-11, where the night watch will complete another 3800 m CTD rosette cast early tomorrow morning. Transiting between stations is getting slightly more challenging due to the thicker ice in this region. However, this thick ice is promising as we begin to search for ice floes that are large enough for our upcoming ice work!

 

Figure 1: The most recent sea ice concentration map for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas (Source: https://data.seaice.uni-bremen.de/databrowser/).
Figure 1: The most recent sea ice concentration map for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas (Source: https://data.seaice.uni-bremen.de/databrowser/).
Figure 2: Map showing our current location along the planned 2025 cruise track.
Figure 2: Map showing our current location along the planned 2025 cruise track.
Photo 1: A polar bear wandering near the Louis during Mooring B’s deployment. Photo by Paul Macoun.
Photo 1: A polar bear wandering near the Louis during Mooring B’s deployment. Photo by Paul Macoun.
Photo 2: A polar bear sighting! Photo by Paul Macoun.
Photo 2: A polar bear sighting! Photo by Paul Macoun.
Photo 3: (left to right) Jeff O’Brien, Jim Ryder, and boatswain Rico Amamio preparing to deploy Mooring B’s base, which includes a set of acoustic releases, a bottom pressure recorder, and an anchor.
Photo 3: (left to right) Jeff O’Brien, Jim Ryder, and boatswain Rico Amamio preparing to deploy Mooring B’s base, which includes a set of acoustic releases, a bottom pressure recorder, and an anchor.
Photo 4: (left to right) Jeff O’Brien, Tim McDonough, deckhand Devon Fitzpatrick, and Cory Beatty attaching a McClane Moored Profiler (MMP) to Mooring B’s wire. Daryl Tobin is operating the crane.
Photo 4: (left to right) Jeff O’Brien, Tim McDonough, deckhand Devon Fitzpatrick, and Cory Beatty attaching a McClane Moored Profiler (MMP) to Mooring B’s wire. Daryl Tobin is operating the crane.
Photo 5: Members of the science team and ship’s crew enjoying Friday night’s happy hour.
Photo 5: Members of the science team and ship’s crew enjoying Friday night’s happy hour.