The morning was spent on the snow mobile recovering 4 of the 7 buoys that were located on this side of the active ridging area. These are the short deployment buoys without any telemetry. We did a pretty good triangulation and I was warned by Jackie that I might not be able to reach buoy #7 because it was on the far side of a large lead.
We needed to drive to the middle of line #5, jump a lead, and then go to the end of line #5 and start scanning. Jumping the lead part was the tricky part. Robert and I looked for about 15 minutes for a safe place to cross. We both found elements we thought would be safe and then found a spot that met safety criteria we both felt comfortable with. We looked for a spot that had some thick plastic ridging with only a narrow section of slush (50 cm wide) and the snow depth was lower on the other side. Robert took the radio and the ice pick and I drove the snow mobile in preparation for the crossing. I gave myself a good long straight shot and then rev’ed it right up and went across (see photo). It was the scariest thing I’ve done since coming here. I was grateful for Robert’s willingness and patience because we both thought very carefully about these sorts of situations and we were both willing to listen to each others ideas and come up with a safe and comfortable solution.
We headed out the end of Line #5 and saw our first 30 gallon bag full of snow and headed toward it. It was on the other side of another lead that was much wider but had quite some aggressive ridging (too much for the snow machine). So we took the long sled and the ice pick and hand picked our way over this new ridge/lead section. We reached the buoy and found it was #5. We saw in the distance to the left the next buoy and figured that was #7 and headed toward that an additional 0.5 km away from the snow machine. We retrieved that, took a bearing from there to the camp (see notebook) and headed back the kilometer it took to get to the snow machine. We then headed northward in the direction of the remaining two coolers.
After some time we found one (buoy #1) but realized we had overshot one (buoy #6), so we started a search pattern for it. We went way out into the deformation zone with the snow machine and carefully picked our way taking care not to be stationary for any length of time. We tried to find higher vantage points by standing on the seat of the snow machine and climbing to the top of some of the ridges but no success. After an hour of searching for the last buoy we decided to give up and head back to camp for lunch (it was about 11:30 at this point). We had radioed in that we had given up and were driving back to camp when right in front of us what did we see but the last buoy straight in front of us. We collected it, laughed about the bizarre finding, took a bearing, and headed back to camp. When I plotted up the locations I realized that #6 was twisted significantly out of alignment from the others so there had been quite some floe rotation as seen by this buoy in particular (either that or a different placement of this buoys by Jen and Jackie relative to the others).
After lunch I prepared for the arrival of my students on the 3pm flight and also prepared for the helo flight to collect the buoys in the afternoon. I went through all the information I knew based on what Jen and Jackie had told me and the sketch that Jackie had made. The students arrived and we were quickly told to get on board the helicopter to get those buoys as a high priority. Mani and Scott were still trying to get used to the place so it was a shock to them to already get ready for a helicopter ride. We got in and they were just amazed that they were able to do this. We went looking for the buoys with myself, the pilot and co-pilot feeling quite comfortable with the location and planning we had done for retrieval. We had a good sense of the previous bearing and a good idea of how the ice looked when we deployed the buoys. But this was to be a big learning experience for me. We looked for a good solid hour for those buoys. The ridges had grown into a huge size (found one taller than the helicopter) and the field had twisted and changed in structure. The helicopter guys even felt that the field had changed enormously since we had set the buoys out only a week ago. The end result was an empty cargo return and I was feeling like I had really let the team down. I learned later from Jackie that I must always take a position, range, and bearing on any buoy I deploy. It is also wise to have some form of telemetry so I was learning from this experience about how to properly deploy buoys in the event I’d be able to do this as an experiment myself someday. In my mind, I was already mapping out the design of my first buoy system based on what I learned from helping out with these buoys.
From about 4pm when we returned until just before dinner at 7pm, Mani and I went through every ounce of imagery we could to try and sort out where the buoys may have moved to. We got a good sense of how the field was moving dynamically and thought up some strategies of how to retrieve these things. During dinner after much discussion with fellow colleagues we finally decided that the best strategy was to inform the pilot and the Helo-EM bird team to keep a look out for our 3 remaining buoys during their remaining 4 flying days. If they spot anything in the next few days, they will take a GPS way point and record it and get that information back to us. I am quite glad that we started the retrieval process this early because it looks like we may need the remaining time to hopefully recover those buoys. Jen says she doesn’t know how to integrate a radio frequency responder into her short range buoy system so maybe I can help with the buoy development by checking with some of the CRREL technical guys when I get back to figure out how to do that. At least I got back all 6 CRREL units which I am responsible for. Two of them had difficulty working during the deployment, one of which I will need to replace so I will need to talk to their owner when I get back to figure out the best way to either repair or replace those two units.
After dinner, Mani, Scott, and I took a walk down to the lead in the middle of Line #4. I spent time with them on the basic physics and safety issues of leads, thin ice, and ridges. Scott made a test run with his video camera of the lead to get some panned images to see how well the camera worked in the cold. It seemed to do just fine. Jackie is giving folks a guided tour of the ridge surveys around the perimeter of the camp tomorrow and several of us have asked to come including Mani and Scott. We will see how tomorrow goes with that. The boys have to do that in the morning, return for lunch and then pack to head home already on the 3pm flight to catch the 5:45 out of Prudhoe to get back home. I wished I could have gotten them more time on the camp but that is all that was allowed due to constraints beyond my control.
Looking forward to a good day with them tomorrow. Even though they only get one day with one overnight, I still think it is a fantastic experience for them. I am hoping that it opens their eyes to the vastness of the world and keeps them in science. At the very least, Mani is really enjoying this and fully appreciates what is going on. Hopefully Scott will form some impressions as well. He only started this last fall and is still getting used to the UD Ph.D. program.
Time for bed. There is a cold running around camp and I need my sleep to keep from getting it.
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