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The marine science technicians (led by LTJG Jessica Noel & Chief Don Snider) spend hours on deck rigging up their gear to take a core sample. Most of the cores we’ve taken this week are called “jumbo piston cores” and, as the name implies, the equipment used for this operation is big & heavy. Essentially the JPC is a fifty-foot length of connected pipes (about 8” in diameter) with a very heavy weight on the top. This device is put over the side, swung into a vertical position, and carefully lowered using a powerful winch. When the JPC gets within a few feet of the bottom a trigger releases the weight and it falls freely, driving the core pipe beneath it deep into the sediment. The whole rig, with the pipe now full of sediment, is slowly hauled back to the surface and swung onto the fantail. Then scientists break the pipe into sections and place the sections in chilled storage so that they are preserved for study back at their labs. The point of all this work: the sediment within the core can be associated with certain periods of climactic history by its depth beneath the sea floor, and this research can yield important information about the earth’s past and future. This week also marked our first Ice Liberty. We found a suitably big and solid piece of ice, settled alongside and put over the brow to allow everyone “ashore” for the first time in 4 weeks. For two hours the crew and science party got to stretch their legs on a floe that had several beautiful “melt ponds” – lakes of melted snow on top of the ice. Everyone had a couple of beers or soft drinks and we took pictures of each other looking intrepid. All of this was done under the watchful eyes of our armed Bear Watch (BM2 John Lobherr, AMT1 Dan Kelly, and AET2 Louis Bishop.) Many ice liberty pictures will be posted on this site, at the unofficial Coast Guard website known as Fred’s Place (www.fredsplace.org) and, by July 1, at the website of our embarked photographer, Petty Officer NyxoLomo (Nick) Cangemi (www.NyxCangemi.com). Late on Saturday afternoon the aviators woke from their restful slumber (that’s the sort of joke that aviators routinely endure when they’re deployed on a ship) and took over the galley to make pizza for the crew. After completing a 314-item pre-cook checklist (aviator joke) and warming the oven for an extended period (aviator joke) they were able to work for nearly 20 minutes before a warning light on the oven required them to immediately stop cooking (aviator joke) and write a lengthy report emphasizing their superb handling of the potentially disastrous incident (final aviator joke - promise.) Actually, the flyers did a great job and turned out a batch of superb pizzas. Our “avdet” (aviation detachment) led by LT Andrea Sacchetti actually works very hard to keep our two helicopters running and to provide both the crew and the scientists with great aviation support. In just the past week they’ve allowed us to fly a shipmate ashore following a family emergency, they prepared for a possible medical evacuation for an embarked scientist (which, thankfully, wasn’t needed), they scouted out paths through the ice, and they carried scientists to research sites miles from the ship. We couldn’t do what we do without them. A number of officers, chiefs and crewmembers have recently made significant professional achievements: On Saturday evening Chief Corpsman Denise Andersen called out the bingo numbers; this week’s big winners were: The 20” TV – our “blackout prize” – still has not been won. Many in the crew are beginning to doubt whether this prize actually exists. On Sunday & Monday we’ll be flying our helicopters into Barrow to put the current science party ashore & a new science party, along with tons of equipment and a big batch of mail for the crew. We’re also welcoming several new crewmembers onboard HEALY:
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The Coast Guard Cutter Healy, homeported in Seattle, Washington.
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