The Oceania.
We spent our last 2 days on board the research vessel Oceania out of Gdansk, Poland. The idea was to move back and forth on the sea just outside of Hornsund Fjord, observing where the little auks were out feasting on copepods. Do they tend to congregate in the coldest water with the largest, most nutritious copepods, as observed in past years? Our observations, combined with the work of several helpful crew members, who took plankton tows and measured water temperatures at every stop, should help to answer just that.
Kamila and Anna retrieve the plankton net from the ocean.
We did our work in four hour shifts. The four hours on the job were spent looking through binoculars and recording the sea life. After our teammates came to relieve us, we spent the next four hours making our way through the tight passageways belowdecks amongst men and women studying diverse aspects of polar science. We snacked, slept, drank tea, and tried not to get seasick as the waves tilted us 30 degrees back and forth.
The bird team (USA) and plankton team (Poland) on the Oceania.