Cruising around Svalbard's waters...oh my god a copepod!

Hello people, it’s been awhile! Vanessa here by the way.

While all of you are done with your studies and enjoying the coming summer, we are buried knee-deep in work. Student life.

Anyway, it is actually not too bad as the sun is shining and we finally have time to tell you about our AB-202 marine biology cruise. One word: copepods. So many copepods...

We set sail on the 7^th May with the R/V Helmer Hanssen and returned on the 14th May. 

Two to three people shared a cabin and food was available 24/7 (hell yeah!). It was a pretty intense week filled with work, little sleep and lots of caffeine. 

Day 1 included the division of our class into groups which rotated every day to do one of these tasks:

→     Zooplankton sampling, identification and egg incubation

→     Primary producers (micro- & macroalgae -> went snorkelling!)

→     Benthos (Van Veen grab, benthic trawl, trinagular dredge)

→     Fish (benthic and pelagic trawl, dissection and stomach content analysis)

→     Sea bird observation (extra)

→     Ice algae and meiofauna (extra) -> got me excited!

It was really fantastic to have that much hands-on field and laboratory work, even though we went to bed around 1 to 3am every day (morning) and got up at around 07:00am. Sometimes we even had bird watch, which made your night not as long as you might have wanted it to be. Still it was a lot of fun. We sailed around the west coast of Spitsbergen, into Hinlopen Strait aaaaand the pack ice (80°N!). Felix will tell you all about the wildlife we saw…

We stayed in the pack ice overnight to conduct some ice-based fieldwork. This made me more than happy, because I am writing my bachelor thesis on life in ice. And because it is fun to use the ice drill and corer ^^.

Apart from work, we visited Ny-Ålesund, ate lots and laughed lots. All in all I would say it was a pretty good cruise. It showed me that even if you specialize, you need to have a sufficient amount of knowledge out of your field to bring it all together. One thing , at the time of the cruise Phaeocystis pouchetii (a coccolithophore) was blooming nearly everywhere, which made our drinking and shower water, and us smell ever so slightly…nom.

Ready to science in sexy orange rain gear!

Science!

Sciencing!

Ice-based fieldwork

Northern most ice henge

Happy AB-202 course (on the ice- Vanessa (blue hat), on the gangway- Felix (red & orange hat) , Sam (yellow neon hat) and Connor (red jacket))

Copepod (in the ice)!

Cute little polychaete larvae 

These guys make me happy :).

Even though we were working hard every day, we still had some amazing time outside the lab. On the second day, we stopped in Ny Ålesund and went for a walk in the northernmost village of the world, at almost 79°N. 

Because this settlement (unlike Barentsburg and Longyearbyen) was not bombed by the Germans in WWII, you can now find Svalbard's oldest inhabitable buildings there. With disbelief, we realized that even though the Germans lost the war, they still somehow managed to conquer Ny Ålesund — there were AWI signs everywhere (AWI=the German polar research institute). Even more surprisingly, I met some fellow Austrians on their way back from fieldwork, displaying their national pride with an Austrian flag on the back of their scooter.

An unlikely encounter: me (Felix) with the scooter of the Austrian Polar Research Institute

An atmospheric scientist with his
experimental balloon

Kings Bay Kullkomapni built Ny Ålesund as a coal-mining town in 1916 in a beautiful landscape (we all agreed that UNIS should move there). After 21 men lost their lives in the tragic mining incident of 1962, the mines where shut down but some buildings and artifacts still remind of the the coal mining history. Now, more than sixteen research stations of eleven different countries make it a hub of polar research during the summer, with up to 250 scientists whirling around. I am sure none of us would mind working in this amazing environment for a summer field season.

Sam and Alexandra in front of the awe inspiring landscape of Northwest Spitsbergen

A relic of olden times – the railway which once transported coal from the mines to the harbour

 While anchored up to an ice float at almost 82°N, grey clouds replaced the sun and blue sky. What we found on the ice, or rather what found us, was even more aesthetic than Svalbard's landscape: polar bears. We were lucky enough to see a big male polar bear, as well as a mother with her yearling. When the mother and its yearling came up to the boat, passing only thirty meters in front of the bow, it was like BBC Frozen Planet come alive. I still feel a tingle in my tommy when I think back to these moments on the boat.

As it sits up, the yearling is about as tall as the adult bear — and it shows a lot more curiosity in our presence than the weary mother

The determined mother treads past R/V Helmer Hanssen, showing off her strength with every movement

Lots of birds (ivory gulls, northern fulmars, Brünnich's guillemots, black guillemots and little auks, ...) as well as walrusses were some of the other amazing wildlife encounters on the trip — a truly unforgettable experience.

An ivory gull sailing over our heads as we watch the polar bears on the foredeck

Kapp Linne on a shoe string

After three months of winter here on Svalbard, one thing is clear: student life in the Arctic is hard. But hopefully I (Felix) will be able to show how we lack no comfort on our student budget.

At Kapp Linne, a 100km scooter ride from Longyearbyen, a tourism company has taken on the history 'Isfjord Radio Station' and transformed it into a luxury hotel, with rooms in the high season going for as much as some of the best spa hotels at home.

The tea room a Isfjord Radio Hotel

But fortunately, Norwegians love their cabins, and in a place like Longyearbyen, where the average stay of a resident is only four years, clubs have taken on the responsibility and ownership of cabins all around Spitsbergen. Anka, Sam, Vanessa and I took the opportunity and rented such a cabin at Kapp Linne.

The cozy 'Russekeila' cabin

The cabin was situated about 10min from the luxury hotel, so we enjoyed a cup of coffee/tea as well as the diverse bird life at Isfjord Radio. Migratory birds are coming back to Svalbard with snow buntings, common eiders, king eiders, northern fulmars and kittiwakes being common sightings around the shores. We also went for a walk on Linnevatnet, the largest lake on Svalbard. The lake ice is currently about 1.5m thick, underneath hides a population of Arctic Char. Without a rod and ice drilling equipment, we missed out on the fishing. But a pot of homemade Chili and some card games in the cabin concluded a wonderful day out at Kapp Linne, with great impressions the landscape and wildlife on the outermost tip of Isfjorden.
The sea ice in Grønfjorden (contrary to the lake ice) was not thick enough to travel on, and we stayed well clear of it when going back to Longyearbyen. When we went to Barentsburg on a field trip one week later, all the ice had broken up.

Grønfjorden with the ice edge on the right side and the Russian settlement of Barentsburg on the opposite shore

After such a great cabin trip, we had gathered enough energy to face the period of report deadlines and exams. Who knows, maybe hardship will finally get to us with all the academic work of the next weeks.