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In the South Atlantic sailing to the Falklands (Malvinas)

31/3/2015

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So, we have departed the safe harbour of Punta Arenas and are now in the middle of the South Atlantic, heading out over to the Falklands (Malvinas).

This is the first day that I’ve been brave enough to pull out my computer, one of the fastest ways to get sea sick is trying to write a blog at sea (or read, or watch TV) before your stomach is ready. 

We’ve had a few interesting scientific adventures along the way. We were doing some trawls, which were working quite well. We’ve been experimenting with different lengths of line to try and get slightly different depths. When we tried the longest line possible we would have got some excellent samples however we left it for too long through a kelp patch and ended up with a 100% kelp sample, which wasn’t so helpful.

Yesterday we ran a transect with a shorter line due to the waves and wind. This worked very successfully and whilst it is yet to be analysed (looking at small things on a moving ship another great way to get ill) there were a few krill which is exciting to see. The net is currently out and we’ll be
doing a second transect today while the weather is good and it’s safe to go up on deck. Fingers crossed that we get some good samples.

So far we haven’t been fishing. There have been too many albatross around and the last thing any of us want to do is catch an albatross! However we’re hopeful that we will be able to catch some fish around the Falklands. We also haven’t been doing visual transects, due to the height of the seas and
distance to shore, the captain isn’t comfortable with anyone being on deck who doesn’t have to be, man overboard being one of the worst case scenarios.
Safety before science!

In other news we have been sailing! With sails and the wind. Not consistently, sadly, but it's been great!  Apparently the wind apparently hasn’t been reading the weather forecast and wasn’t aware that it was supposed to be providing perfect sailing breezes. Instead we’ve been getting short periods of perfect (sailing) weather followed by very low winds which involved a lot of switching of sails and on and off with the engine. But it’s been a lesson in very practical physics, learning which sails need the wind at which angle and with what strength. It’s always a trade-off between the straightest
route and the best winds, it’s all too easy to go very quickly in the wrong direction!

For me, this has been one of the highlights. Learning how the boat moves differently when it is under sail and learning how to balance all the different demands of direction, wind and sails. Not to mention learning that you really can’t always trust the GPS!

More to come later! Fingers crossed for some fish in the Falklands.

-  Amelia (Scientist on board the Ocean Tramp - Quixote Expeditions)

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Dolphins, penguins, cormorants and camels!

31/3/2015

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After departure from Punta Arenas we motor sailed late into the night and anchored beneath a tall cliff at San Gregorio where there is a very large terminal for oil and gas storage. This morning we had a pre-dawn departure in order to go east with the tides through the narrow channel where the Chilean ferry crosses over to Argentina. Everyone was soon awake to enjoy a hot cup of coffee or tea and witness a stunner of a sunrise!  

When we got to the narrows our welcome new passenger, Michel, called out the first of what would become many visits from Commerson’s dolphins. These extremely fast dolphins in the genus Cephalorynchus, have a very distinctive black and white colour pattern that reminds one of police cars racing to the scene of a crime. But in this instance they were racing for the “sweet spot” below the bow that provides them with some undisclosed feeling of enjoyment. They frolic gleefully, and unbounded joy emanates from these creatures as they vie with one another for the supreme position. At times, there were as many as ten directly below the five or so cameras madly clicking away. One Peale’s dolphin joined the melee but it was soon over powered by the numbers of Commerson’s.

As has been the case for much of our travels, we were in the company of Magellanic Penguins and the omnipresent Imperial Cormorants, but to add to the mix, along the shore Bob spotted the first group of long necked camels called Guanacos. Once we recognised their silhouettes, we saw quite a few grazing the rim of the cliff and a few right down near the waters edge.

We passed the two ferries carrying their cargos of sheep trucks and automobiles, and came to the final stretch of Fernando Magellan’s Strait before hitting the full Atlantic at Point Dungeness and Cabo Virgenes. A few aboard were surprised to see so many oil platforms in front of us as we entered a somewhat calm Atlantic Ocean. Few platforms were pumping at this time but one would surmise that they will begin again when the price of a barrel gets a bit higher.

The mainsail and jib were spread but the direction of the wind and the light airs caused us to go back to the trusty engine for the long night ahead.

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Science aboard the Ocean Tramp

26/3/2015

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We’ve had an excellent day on board Ocean Tramp today, with some nice scientific results starting to come through, not to mention excellent views and whales! It’s taken a little while to get everything up and working, and to try out some different options, but we’re now getting some results. We ran two samples with the net today, around midday then late afternoon. The first was a trail for a half hour and we collected quite a range of small wriggly creatures and one very small piece of plastic! Which is both exciting and disappointing to find that plastics have found their way into this otherwise beautiful and pristine environment. By coincidence this transect ended with some whales, a mother and calf, which was exciting for all on board.

We ran the second transect for an hour, with some weights to try getting some deeper samples, which was fairly successful, but still needs experimenting with! We picked up quite a bit of big stuff, mostly bits of kelp. Both the samples have been run through filters and will be analysed when we have some quiet weather. It’s exciting being able to do this experiment as well as the water sampling, because this is easy to do as we’re on the move. It’s also a great way of getting large samples over longer periods of time.

We’ll be steaming through the night to get to Port Williams and I’ll be on watch at the most delightful time of 4am to 6am, so we might run some evening transects too to see what we can see!

One of the more mechanically minded crew have also fixed some of our fishing gear so fingers crossed we should be able to start fishing soon.

All up, a great day for science and a great day for sailing.


-          Amelia (Aussie Scientist)


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Arriving to Punta Arenas (26 March)

26/3/2015

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We steamed all night to get to Punta Arenas this morning, arriving just
as the sun was starting to light up the city. This was our first real
experience of working on watches through the night and it was, well,
exhausting, but also exhilarating to see the secret world of the water at
night. 


We were on short, two hour, two person watches, and thankfully
were met with fairly calm waters and little sea traffic the whole night. It
would have been a much more stressful story if we’d been sailing through a
maze of container ships all evening! For many of the crew it was their first
night sailing, learning to trust (or not trust) radar, GPS, the second GPS,
the depth sounder and the ship identification system, which is a steep
learning curve. For me the scariest thing is little wooden fishing boats,
who don’t have a full set of lights (often just one guy with a torch) and
who don’t turn up on the radar because they’re too small. But luckily we
didn’t come across so many of these until the dawn fishing run, so it was
very smooth sailing all around.

The crew was pretty thrilled to wake up in town and it didn’t take long
before we were jumping off to see what there is to see in Punta Arenas. For
many of us it was a battle between WiFi and tax free shopping, right up
until lunch time, where the prospect of a menu and someone else doing the
dishes was by far the most exciting thing since sliced bread!

We gained a new crew member today as well, a French fellow who will be
joining us until Malvinas. It wasn’t until we had a new person with us that
many of us realised the level of the camaraderie that has developed amongst
the crew, the comfort and good sense of humour! No doubt he’ll fit right in
shortly!

And now we’re readying ourselves for some wild days at sea, our excitement
for the wilderness is growing!



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Into the Beagle Channel -wild life and wind!

20/3/2015

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Our day began with a climb to the office of the Chilean Armada on a hill above the harbor to check into Chile. It was beautiful waking up in the calm waters surrounded by the quiet of the sleepy town, particularly after the hustle and bustle of Ushuaia. An hour after successfully entering Chile and surveying the whole town (one bakery, one post office and some military installations), we were untied, and headed back into the Beagle Channel.

Our first sign that there was “weather” out there were some small waves breaking on the beach near our mooring. It wasn’t until we got out into the channel that we realized how protected we had been overnight. There were whitecaps a plenty and a few of our dedicated landlubbers were starting to look a little green. Whilst the view was spectacular, a few of us decided to retire for a few hours, possibly catching up on some sleep stolen by the Pisco Sours.

As the day went on we motored through most forms of weather available during the Autumn in southern Chile. We had some lovely clear blue skies, calmer seas, very shortly followed by waves, wind and rain. The rain fell with great enthusiasm, adding to the feeling of being in a washing machine when we looked out the portholes. For a few of the crew on board the waves brought their first experiences with the serious thumping which can occur with the bigger waves - the feeling of floating followed by being thumped into the floor was too much for some stomachs sadly.

For those who were willing to brave the elements and the motion of the Ocean there were some pretty awesome treats to be spotted. Fantastic bird life, albatross dancing with the waves, delighting in the very weather that made us so uncomfortable. We also saw some whale blows (I’m not sure what species*, but there were a few little tale flips and lots of breaching going on, so it was a little pod out for some fun) and then, as we heading into anchor some seals having an awesome seal party. They were all about showing off, jumping, flipping and tempting us to come join them. It’s a privilege to see wild creatures out and about, living their lives for the joy of it, not just to create a spectacle for us. Despite the generous size of the Ocean Tramp we are still aware of how small we are in this vast wilderness, an old wild landscape. It is thrilling to be able to make our way to such places in the world, and see nature in full.

We were also greeted with some spectacular scenery along the way, from the lower rounder mountains in the morning, to the soaring peaks we are surrounded by now. As we came into our little calm inlet we were greeted with fantastic sky scraping mountains, some dusted in snow, whilst the ones further in are well and truly snow covered. It was even possible to see the deep glimmer of the blue ice under the snow layer in the crevasses. 

Now we are at anchor. There are a few other yachts around, and some abandoned buildings on the shore where one of the yacht parties is having a bon fire. Most notably, we are surrounded by birds – as the sun went down they were living the high life, discussing the gossip of the day and filling this inlet with their chatter. In contrast to the sounds of a city, this is fantastically peaceful.

It’s about 3 degrees C outside, and we’re sheltered from the wind. So it should be a great night to catch up on some sleep, share some salty sea dog stories and enjoy the majesty of our surrounds. Our international crew, with Argentinian, American, French and Australian members, have an entertaining and diverse collection of experiences and knowledge to share. Whilst the language is most certainly English at the dinner table, everyone’s Spanish (and French) is rapidly improving, which is a great bonus of the trip. No doubt some of our dedicated photographers will be up bright and early to catch the sunrise. It should be an awe-inspiring backdrop with the fresh clean air. 

* ed. Note: The whales were humpbacks.



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Eight hours cruising the Beagle channel

20/3/2015

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PictureGlorious landscape on a rain free day!
After a good night’s sleep anchored in the glassy waters of a caleta (cove) in the Pia Fjord, we awoke early to light rain.  Sleep had come easily to all of us after a day of watching calving glaciers, communing with bow-riding dolphins, and climbing the steep hill rising from the end of the cove, affording a panoramic view thereof. 

After hauling in the port and starboard lines supplementing the anchor that were required to fix the boat securely, we weighed anchor and headed out the Pia Fjord, and back to the Beagle Channel. The passage into the channel included a spot where the shallow moraine forbids the passage of deeper-draft vessels. Being able to navigate these shallows in a smaller craft allowed us to have the forest-lined, dolphin-filled cove all to ourselves for the previous 18 hours.

The rain continued. 


Each of us spent brief interludes on deck observing the passing landscape, but the near-constant drizzle sent us back to the warm salon. Out came the cribbage board, the laptops, and the rainy day reading which ruled the day. Occasionally, Fede descended to the galley to chide us about sitting around inside on a day the forecast had predicted sunny skies. The rain continued.

The wind came up, and we anchored two hours earlier than planned in a protected cove named Caleton Silva. We read, played more cards, worked on our laptops, listened to music, told stories, and dined on pizza prepared by the skipper. In short, we spent a typical vacation rainy day. The one difference from any other vacation is that we were tracking the route of Charles Darwin in the Beagle. Darwin spent more time here in the uttermost end of the earth than he did exploring the Galapagos – we suspect he secretly did so in response to the glorious landscapes as much as to collect evidence for the evolution of the earth’s biological diversity.


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First few days at sea!

18/3/2015

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After the wind hostage situation we were finally able to get permission to leave Ushuaia. On the way we got stamped out of Argentina and organised the documents that would allow us to get back into the country from the Falklands, like I said earlier, some of the old wounds still run deep.

Due to administrative reasons we have to do a bit of back and forth-ing to get into Chile. It's not simply a matter of heading over the Beagle Channel, waving around some passports and getting into the country. We had to head about 5 hours away from our destination (thankfully with the wind at our backs) to a very little town which could compete with Ushuaia's claim of being at the end of the world. 

Because of the windy delays we arrived in the dark. Despite my keen desire to help I decided to stay inside. There were more than enough hands on deck and my Spanish is still too bad to understand if someone says "no no not there you landlubber, move that rope there! Duck!" But it's near the top of the list of phrases to learn.

Entertainingly, although we arrived late we were greeted by a distinctively Australian accent on the radio who helped to guide us into our sleeping place. It was quite surreal to hear such a strong accent surrounded by mountains and snow. It turned out their boat was from Hobart, and was a solid chunk smaller than ours. I feel it takes some guts to navigate the Pacific in such a vessel, not to mention Cape Horn. Being out here I am once again reminded of how impressive and brave/nuts the original explorers were. They did everything we're doing with less waterproof clothes, with significantly less solid navigational equipment (let alone radar) and without any chance of catching some mobile phone signal to message home. Tough, but undoubtedly exciting.

We've had a bit of rough weather so far, mostly due to high winds, though we had a little bit of rain as well. One of the crew, demonstrating dedication to his art, stood out on the bow with waves crashing over, using his GoPro (held out on a stick). It's a pretty impressive video (though not one that one should watch whilst at sea, the motion of the ocean plus a video of the motion of the ocean is a perfect recipe for the motion of the stomach). You can even see him disappear under one of the waves, a holding of breath moment for everyone aboard for sure! (it's ok mum, I promise not to do this! That's why I brought all the zip ties!)

We've also seen a whole bunch of wildlife out and about, and being wild. 

There's albatross, seals and whales. This morning we are waking up in a beautiful little cove, my fellow adventurers are still asleep, but the critters around and about aren't. They're up and at'em, catching their version of the early worm. There were whales off in the distance, I could see their blow and their backs breaking the water, and then seals closer in having a little seal party, and moving about quite a bit so I'm assuming they had been successful in catching some fish. There's also sea bird colonies along the beaches, alongside a few abandoned buildings. They are noisy birds, it's a lot like the sounds of waking up in a shearwater bird colony. If you've never woken up surrounded by sea birds, it's a worthwhile experience to seek out. They do not make a subtle celebration of the coming of the morning sun.

So far, the science has been on the backburner. I've been mostly adjusting to being at sea, and being in a much smaller vessel than I've experienced before. I've also been trying to work out what is feasible, what isn't feasible, and how things are going to work. A bit of a snag is that I want to look at fish stomachs. However when the crew has been fishing before all they've caught is Albatross. Which I really really REALLY don't want to catch. That would be unpleasant for all parties concerned. So we need to come up with a fishing plan which catches fish.

Water sampling seems to be working ok, however I'm yet to actually spot a piece of plastic over the side. Which is quite interesting in it's own right, however we need to make that a scientific observation not just a "hey, there ain't no plastics here fellas", because there probably is - that's the downside of all the oceans being interconnected.

Everyone has done at least one watch now, learning how to use the auto pilot and to follow a course on the digital charts. The wind has made it a tricky skill to learn, and there's more than one or two significant deviations, squiggle style from our path, but we're all getting better. It's going to be exciting navigating over night when we are in open water and sailing 24/7. I'm hoping my trust in the instruments will be sufficient by then! However after being on the RV Falkor and knowing that some smaller wooden boats don't turn up on radar, and not everyone sails with their lights on, well.. I'm a bit edgy to say the least!

And now the boat is waking up, the sun is giving a beautiful golden light to the mountains and gradually melting away the clouds over the snow peaks. It's back to business!


Amelia.

Comments are very welcome!


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Not quite underway.. but almost

16/3/2015

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After a few days in Ushuaia and now one night on the boat I'm pretty much over the exciting jetlag arising from a trip around the world and getting ready for the science and the sailing. We're on the boat, which is pretty awesome, the crew is very international and enthusiastic. The view from the boat, as below, is pretty gorgeous. And everyone is pretty stoked to be sailing soon. 
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We had our very own parade to send us off, for unknown reasons they were having a parade to celebrate the Penguins of Madagascar movie. Which is a big thing in Patagonia.. as it turns out. He's a pretty curious looking lion.  
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And of course, because we're looking at microplastics, here's a collection of macoplastics to get us started. For if anyone is out there wondering how plastics end up in the ocean. 
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We're getting prepared for the citizen science that's going to be happening on the voyage as well. The Quixote crew are keen to contribute to some of the bigger data collection projects happening in the world. On this trip we're going to be collecting 10 samples for Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (http://www.adventurescience.org/microplastics.html). As you can see on the map below, there aren't so many samples that have been taken in this area, so we're going to try and fill in some of the blanks as we're going. 
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And right now we're waiting out some bad weather. So in the mean time, here's some photos from Ushuaia, as you can see.. they take the whole Falklands/Malvinas thing pretty seriously, don't mention the "F" word. 
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And the local National Park, with the end of the last road south in South America. Not to mention with some pretty good views. 
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Yesterday, when the weather on dock was delightful. 
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And this is our crew prepping our boat for leaving. The weather was awesome yesterday, but at the moment we're held captive in the port by winds. The port closes in bad weather, no one can get in or out, and currently it's blowing 38 knot winds out there.. so it's pretty rocky and we're just waiting and using the last bits of internet before the wilds!
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Once we get underway I'll be updating the blog via email, but won't be able to send any photos which will be a shame. But hopefully we'll hit some internet at some point along the way and it'll be possible to share some of the (hopefully) spectacular views. 
In the mean time, I'm going to go test some of my equipment whilst we wait, and fingers crossed we can exit Argentina soon!
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Science from the ground up

6/3/2015

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There is a new science adventure in the air. Thanks to the inspiration and opportunity provided by Quixote I will be heading to Argentina in the next week to be a solo scientist on one of their yachts. We'll be sailing around the bottom of Argentina, through some Fjords (yes, Argentina has Fjiords!) and then out to the Falkland Islands, and back. It's going to take a bit over 3 weeks. You can see the details here. The purpose of my project is to look for microplastics in the water, and potentially in some fish, but we'll see about the fish. 
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South Chile/Argentina and the Falklands (though we don't call them that in Argentina.. )
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Serous Fjord action going on there! (thanks Google)
So, the idea of this project is that I'm coming along as a early career scientist to do some science, in some pretty remote and otherwise inaccessible parts of the world. I've been offered a berth for the duration of the voyage, the other people on the trip are from all over the world and they're here for their holidays. 
I on the other hand will be sciencing it up! And involving the other passengers wherever possible. Which should be great fun. Everything I've done in the past has involved multimillion dollar boats and thousands of dollars worth of equipment, not to mention a strong support network of experienced scientists ready and willing to help. On this trip it's almost entirely the opposite, small ship, lone scientist and whatever equipment I can rustle up and fit into my luggage. Which has involved a lot of random inventiveness, and quite a few trips to the local hardware store, and supermarket, and fishing shop, and car repair shop, and electronics shop, and supermarket again, and hardware store again. There's some sales people out there petrified of young scientists wandering around town now. 
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Option a for collecting water from the surface and 5m down
At the moment I have worked with some colleagues (and long suffering relatives) to develop 3 different experiments, with different likelihoods of success depending on the weather. It's a boat, so things are going to go wrong, some things won't work, some things will go missing, and just plain bad weather could render a whole lot of ideas impossible. Hence the level of redundancies, there's back up's on back ups and piles of zip-lock bags just in-case I hit a jackpot of specimens. Because when it comes to home-made science there's nothing like a zip-lock bag and a coffee filter to get things going. 
We can collect water from different depths to about 20m and filter it for microplastics, and we've got two different ways of collecting water. 
I've also now got the ability, thanks to the awesome kit below, to investigate the stomachs of any fish who may come onboard, and see if any of them have been munching on that tastiest of food, plastics. 
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And then I've put together all the general kit for testing water parameters like pH, temperature, salinity etc. So fingers crossed it'll all work! A large portion of my bag is spare batteries for everything, because apparently it can be quite hard to source batteries in the south atlantic. Funny about that!
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Stay tuned! Whilst I don't know what sort of internet access I'll have whilst onboard, I am hoping to collect some awesome photos, maybe the occasional video and who knows what else. 
(in the mean time I'm going to head off and try to get all of this to fit!)
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