Into the Depths

On July 28th, as the CCGS Amundsen traveled farther and farther away from land into Davis Strait, the team was faced with the first hints that the Labrador sea isn't always the calm and clear waters that had been seen so far. The winds had picked up before the ship started its transit into deeper waters, and left behind rolling seas with swells rising up to 3m. At nearly two weeks onboard the ship, seasickness wasn't so much of a concern anymore - but when the ship is navigating waves, anything not securely tied down can be a risk. The labs and personal quarters are always kept clean and equipment is stowed or secured in place, but there was a flurry of activity as everyone made doubly and triply sure of everything.

Photo by: Kathryn Murray

Waves can also limit the number of operations the ship can undertake at any site - so planning went late into the night and began again first thing in the morning as the ship made its way to station; the coast guard, ROV team, and scientists trying to plot and predict the conditions to see what could and could not be done. After arriving on site, the ship faced straight into the waves and sat tight, waiting out the worst of it, with the forecast predicting that work might be able to begin again later on in the day.

Around midday, with the waves subsiding to 1-2m, the vertical sampling - nets, sediment cores, current readings, and water collection - all were able to be successfully deployed. With the original plan of two days of remotely operated vehicle dives at Davis Strait looking less and less doable, the team instead got the ROV off the deck at 6:30am - and stayed down for over ten hours, making the site both the deepest and longest ROV dive of the leg.

Photo by: Kathryn Murray

At over 1300m deep in some places, sampling at such a depth meant that it took nearly two hours for the ROV to reach the sea floor, and extended the time on many of the other operations that require lowering anything down to the bottom - but even with the wind and the waves, the site would not be missed. Abundant bamboo corals of the genus Acanella had been found in the area as bycatch in fishing nets - which is what brought the Amundsen to the site this year, to explore the Acanella ecosystem just outside of the fishing zones. Although Acanella are widespread in the cold North Atlantic waters, fisheries data pointed to this site as a key for their study. Collecting samples, recording valuable video transects, and marking some corals for a two-year study with pinpoint coordinates, bright yellow camping stakes, and sonar-reflective flags, the Amundsen will come back to the Davis Strait to find the exact same 10cm-long Acanella in 2023.

Anemones and urchins by Dave Cote

Though not able to spend as long in the area as originally planned, the amount the Amundsen team was able to accomplish under the conditions was more than had been projected when the weather first began to look bleak, and the Davis Strait site was still a success. But with the wind picking up to the south and the waves beginning to rise again, the ship set out on a course to the next station almost before the ROV sampling boxes had finished being unloaded, heading north to the protected waters of Southwind Fjord, in southwestern Baffin Bay.