Dispatch 7: Recovery of ITP 136
Ashley Arroyo (Yale University)
September 5, 2024
18:30 UTC 76.25°N 134.09°W
Conditions:
- Foggy
- 5% sea ice cover
- –0.8 °C
- Winds 11.9 knots southerly
- Sunrise: 04-Sep-2024 06:37:39 -06
- Sunset: 04-Sep-2024 23:15:46 -06
- Day length: 16h 38mn 7s
Early this morning, the team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the deck crew worked together to recover a buoy - ITP 136, which was deployed in an ice floe in September 2022 at 79° 10.6 N, 140° 14.4 W. The WHOI team was able to locate the ITP using hourly location data from the GPS system on the buoy. When the yellow surface float was spotted nearby, Jerome Sibley (one of the deckhands) was lowered down in the man basket (see Photo 2), where he was able to hook the buoy. Once the ITP was hooked, the WHOI team and deck crew pulled it onboard, where they realized that the buoy was missing some of its parts, including its profiler and most of its wire – it appeared that these parts had been sheared off, which likely happened as the ITP drifted into shallow waters on the eastern continental shelf. The surface package and float were still intact. The surface package will be sent back to WHOI to be refurbished and deployed in the Arctic Ocean again in the future!
We are now steaming northwest to CB-15 at a speed of ~11 knots. Our transit was interrupted in an exciting manner, as a polar bear was spotted by people on the bridge during our CTD cast at station PP-7. As soon as we pulled the rosette on deck and finished sampling, the ship crept forward with hopes of letting everyone get a good look at the polar bear. We were able to observe the polar bear walking around and hopping across ice floes for several minutes before we waved goodbye and steamed onward towards CB-15. Once we arrive on station, we will complete a CTD/bongo cast complete with water sampling, and then begin to look for ice floes suitable for the upcoming ice station!
