There is not only the weather variable when we work with geophysics off the Svalbard Archipelago…Fog, winds, waves and whales were our jokers in this expedition.
Text: Frances Cooke.
To recover the ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs) from the ocean floor we need to have good visibility and no waves. The waves are in turn depend on win (to some extent). When we finally got a window with slow winds and no waves, we got the fog to set in for long hours. When all the rest was suitable for recovery we got the whales to dance and captivate us.
It has been a great learning experience with lots of training on how to observe, hear and sense our surrounding when we are out in the wild open ocean.
The pictures below give a taste of captivating moments we had during our work with the OBSs this time. Now we are heading slowly home. I look forward to my boys and to share with them some nice stories about the Sea.
A party of Finnhval (Finwhales) and Knølhval (horn whale) started, we stopped all the acoustics, contemplated and left (Photo: Vera Schlindwein)
Just the fog, the calm sea, the nothing… (Photo: Frances Cooke)
Read more about the SEAMSTRESS project here.
