Squishing cups at 800m!

Well, we got one day out of the ROV at least before the weather turned lumpy again and we had to put the work on hold again. It’s unclear what we’re going to do for the last week of the cruise, since the weather forecast and the sea state are both changing so rapidly it’s difficult to know what the best decision will be to get the most out of our last few remaining days.

Between writing my cruise report and working on my thesis, I’ve got plenty to be getting on with, so having a bit of time to really focus on writing and analysis is great for catching up on some things. Of course, being disconnected from constant Facebook access means that we have to come up with slightly more creative ways to get distracted from working, and with deep-sea work going on, that generally means decorating polystyrene cups and sending them down to the seabed to be squished by the pressure. Interestingly, the ones we're sending to 800m are about the same size as the ones we sent to 4800m last year, which makes me wonder what the minimum depth is for maximum squashed-ness... My science-sense is tingling and I can sense an experiment coming on! Anyway, here’s a few I made earlier:

Teeny weeny squished cups

In wildlife news, there hasn’t been much change really. The gannets, fulmars, kittiwakes, gulls and skuas are still following us around, but the gannets still haven’t been diving for us and it’s been too rough for successful whale spotting.

Fulmars run over the surface of  the sea before they take off, leaving little footprints in the water!

I did see my first ever Arctic skua yesterday though as it swooped by the ship! At least, I think it’s an arctic skua.... It’s a pretty terrible photo, but I’m going to share it anyway.

The first Arctic skua I've ever seen (I think!()