Angelo Secchi

Janne measuring the Secchi depth to be 8 meters today outside Öland, Sweden.

Angelo Secchi was an Italian astronomer that invented the Secchi disk in 1865. It is one of the most common tools in oceanography to this day. Simply lower it down and measure the lowest depth where you can still see it; a great measure of water transparency.

Work on board: incubations

Toby and Alicia starting yet another incubation in the freezing cold room

We are south of Öland at the moment, reaching our southernmost point tomorrow morning. 

Work on board: filtration

Riina is taking care of our filtration, and she is very effective :-) We do this  to determine how much plankton there is in the water (whatever is caught on the filter). 

Hanko

We are in the harbor in Hanko filling up our tanks with fuel and fresh water. 12 persons leave back to Helsinki and 5 newcomers are coming on board. Here is the original group:

What it takes to be a CRUISE LEADER?

Cruise leader is probably most demanding role during the scientific cruise.

He is that ONE person that has to know (or guess) everything (at least that’s how it looks like), and keep both small details, and large picture, together. He’s that person people will turn to with questions like "Where are the latex gloves?" "Where are bottles and pipettes?" "Why is there no internet?" “Where can I find some screws, aluminum foil?” “What happens if…” “Why does the vacuum pump not work?” etc. 

More importantly, he is that one person everyone will look up to, when something goes wrong or does not work. Although research cruises are carefully planned in advance, nearly never will everything go after the plan, and then the quick thinking and flexibility determines the success of the cruise. It also takes some experience to be able to re-adjust your plans, since the time is limited, and there are no do-overs during the cruise.

I took the liberty to secretly observe our cruise leader “in action”, but despite of how these pictures look like, Kristian has been unbelievably calm and relaxed and non-stressed, actually in all cruises that I have participated.

Our objective

The spring is the time when everything turns green on land and the same thing happens at sea. Microscopic algae starts to grow in the water and forms a spring bloom, which typically is the annual peak in biological activity. In this cruise we are studying the flux of the carbon (taken up as CO2 during photosynthesis) in the ecosystem. 

We will also study the effects of a large inflow event of salt water from the North Sea on the plankton community. This salt water pulse came into the Baltic Sea a year ago and flows slowly northwards along the sea floor.

Into the White

Our first day started in the fog, but ended with a nice sunset.

Day 1 - Into the White