Departure Day!

Mid-afternoon on July 15th, the scientific crew for Leg 2 of the 2021 Amundsen Science cruise emerged from pre-boarding quarantine with the first of three negative COVID-19 tests in hand to board the ship for the beginning of the month-long mission up the coast of Labrador and across the Arctic Circle into Baffin Bay. With the gear all stored away safely in the ship's labs, and the scientists and crew from all over Canada packed into their cabins, the CCGS Amundsen steamed out of St John's, Newfoundland at 9am EST.

The first few days of the trip were spent transiting towards our first mooring and running trials on all of the equipment that will be used throughout the next few months to collect data on everything from sediment cores as deep as 1300m up to phytoplankton living at the surface. We tested our remotely operated vehicle (ROV) - a brand new addition to the Amundsen Science arsenal - putting it through its paces to hopefully iron out any difficulties before we arrive at our first mooring stop. Other important players to be tested were the CTD-Rosette; a large apparatus that can be lowered to any depth to take water samples, conductivity, temperature, and depth readings, as well as data on the currents; and the box core, a large stainless steel container that is lowered to the ocean floor to take samples of the sediment layers.

With the trials and some initial sampling finished - and the science team finally getting over some early-trip seasickness as we found our sea legs - the ship started the 10-hour overnight transit to our first major stop; Makkovik station!

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Written by: Sophie Wolvin