Mommy's BIG Arctic adventure

A little more than two years ago, after much foot dragging and commitment dodging (and a bit of what I'm pretty sure qualifies as begging) I agreed to participate in a month-long research cruise in the Arctic. It had a lot going for it...a polar bear recapture study, an ice diving component, and very few other research groups on board to haggle over station time. As cruise time approached that original month expanded to 5 1/2 weeks and I began thinking of ways I might be able to get out of it. By cruise time I had managed to resist the urge to check myself into the hospital, break a limb, or otherwise come up with an airtight excuse to stay home. I can't say the time flew by while on the ship but I will admit that in hind sight it may have been a worthwhile adventure to be a part of, and it will be a story to tell Kieran for years to come.

Near the end of September we assembled in Barrow and waited overnight for the USCGC Polar Sea to show up on the horizon. I have a picture of myself in front of this sign in 2002, taken during my first visit to Barrow. Good ole' Barrow. I hadn't been back since Spring 2007 when Kieran was still a secret and I was heading into the height of morning sickness. I'm not sure I felt any better on this visit knowing I wouldn't see Kieran again for more than a month.

Barrow doesn't have a dock - deep water or otherwise - so we were transported to the ship via helicopter from Barrow's search and rescue building at the airport. Notice the high-tech refueling operation going on here.

Final preparation for the 1 minute flight to the ship. There was another group on the ship that needed offloading as we were being flown out for our cruise. The whole operation took most of the day. It was a good time to introduce ourselves to our cruise mates.

During lunch one day I sat with Bill, the helo pilot that flew me on to the ship, for the first time. During our meal we discovered that for part of the year he flies Max around the Aleutians...it's a small world up here. When I mentioned Max's name Bill chuckled and said, "So you're the wife who always told Max not to fly in marginal conditions!" And I told him that Max would always reassure me that he had a great pilot that wasn't interested in taking chances. It's moments like these that make living in Alaska feel so special.

This was my first look at the Polar Sea. This is also one of the only pictures I took of the ship. Now that I'm home I wonder why I didn't take pictures of the lab space, the galley, my stateroom(!!) with the incredibly cramped bunk space...the only thing I can come up with is that it was all too close...literally. Particularly the bunk space. I don't think any of us actually took pictures, though there was plenty of talk about documenting the uncomfortable little spaces we slept in while on board. I think deep down none of us wanted to revisit those rooms through photographs after we returned to real life.

Here's one of the helicopters on the helo deck. The refueling operation on the ship was pretty slick compared to the one in Barrow.

We had a welcome meeting after dinner the first night. It's both meant to set the tone of the cruise and to introduce safety procedures.
The bridge is long on windows and short on chairs. The only place to sit is the captain's chair and he doesn't share. We spent lots of hours up here watching ice go by, planning station deployments, waiting to hear from the helicopters as they chased down bears, or just generally passing the time watching the scenery.

Here's a view of both the ship's main stack and some broken thin floes. The ice provided an ever-changing view and back drop for sightseeing.

Another view from the starboard side with pancake ice in the background.

A more expansive view of pancake ice. This is an early stage of forming sea ice and must be one of the most photogenic stages. I never got tired of looking at it as the ship cruised along toward the next target bear.

My job on the cruise was to sample ice along the way, whenever the ship stopped long enough to let the polar bear team look for and process their bears. Once the ship stopped and was somewhat securely lodged in the ice we were lowered off the ship by crane on this platform. The bear guards always got the first ride.

Here's the "Coring team" in action. To the coast guard we were the less interesting and less exciting cousins of the "Dive team", though we were all part of the same project. I think part of the problem was that the dive team wore dive suits and we were required to wear the very same outfit that the coasties were required to wear whenever they went out on the ice - boring. Oh, and the other part of the problem was that anyone diving under sea ice in the Arctic is pretty dang cool - and we weren't them. We were okay with our lower status and I think our big drill eventually earned us some respect among the 18 year olds on board.

Measuring ice temperature. The procedure is slightly different for taking an ice core's temperature and taking the temperature of a toddler. Good thing because I'm pretty sure Kieran wouldn't hold still for this.

There was no shortage of documentation of this cruise. We had three videographer/photographers on board and when they weren't able to film/shoot polar bear recaptures (which turned out to be often) they were happy to get off the ship and document what the rest of the scientists were up to...even the boring coring team.

Here's photographer Dan Cox using strobe lights to try to make an ice core look exciting in still photos...with limited success.

We spent a fair amount of time waiting for our experiments in the ice and on the dive team while they finished their underwater work. This was one of the more dramatic dive sites - directly in front of the bow of the ship. The ice farther off proved too thick to cut a dive hole so the divers went in where the ship had already cleared a small patch of open water.

This is a typical dive site. See, the divers look super hard core. How can we compete with that?!?

Spooling the tending line. They all said that they were colder out of the water than they were during the dives. Yes, they are slightly crazy, but they are also some of the nicest people you can imagine. Brrr.

Again, brrrr. The dive team was collecting ice samples from deeper keels of ridged ice, too deep to sample from the surface with a corer. They also collected any animals they found under the ice and did some seawater measurements and videography. These guys are pros under water - I'm amazed they can get so much done with numb, glove-covered fingers.

Here's Shawn's fancy camera in action. Very impressive. Imagine this coming toward you out of the dark.

Young Arctic cod live in the crevices of ridged ice, safe from preditors. In this case, probably safe from the monster in the previous picture.

Chipping off ice samples from below.

On the top side of the ice we had some gorgeous days off the ship in the first weeks of the trip. This station started out as one of the most scenic. Nice moon in the sky, beautiful soft light with the sun close to the horizon at mid day, and clear views all around.

An ice bow - caused by ice crystals in the air - formed while we worked.

And it continued to get frostier and windier as the afternoon wore on. Eventually, we noticed that the ship had been blown off its perch on the ice and was drifting ever so slowly away from us.

Rather than fire up the engines and reposition the ship, the captain sent the helicopter out after us and our gear. We were airlifted the several hundred meters to the ship...a first for me.

Here's diver Heloise enjoying her first Arctic helidiving experience - perhaps the first ever attempted!!

Mainly the helicopters were used for bear reconnaissance and recapture. When they were on board they lived in this big hanger at the stern of the ship.

They were simply put on wheels and pushed out of the hanger to the helo deck and prepared for take off.

Here's the "darting" helicopter trying to get within range of this mom and cub. The dart gun is on the other side of the helicopter being held by the darter who is tethered and hanging half way out of the helo door. Yes, this is even more exciting than the divers!
Once the tranquilizer takes effect the team lands and starts the processing. The bears are poked and prodded, measured, written on, tagged, and otherwise molested in the name of science. Even a small but sterile surgical field is created to remove temperature loggers that were implanted in the bear's abdomen earlier this year. I find it hard to look at the pictures (this is a rather mild one) but as a scientist I also believe that this is important research that may someday help the bears. In fact, some of the people in the picture are the very ones who are responsible for getting the polar bear listed as an endangered species. These are good scientists and they do their work with care and as responsibly as they possibly can.

Every polar bear captured in the Arctic is given a lip tatoo that will identify the bear in future captures and give opportunistic data about its whereabouts, its body condition, its breeding success if traveling with cubs...it just gives the bears (a cub in this case) a green mustache for a few days.

Pre-tatoo, this is about as cute as it gets. Alex, the bird/wildlife observer who took this photo said the bears smelled just like dogs.
Toward the end of the cruise daylight was a concern. Here Merav Ben-David, the chief scientist on the cruise and the polar bear head PI helps finish an abdomenal surgery before sunset.
Polar bear research games...Merav opens the valve on a bag containing polar bear breath for one of the USCG chiefs to sniff. Bear breath is collected to get data on the bear's current metabolic condition. The isotopic makeup of the breath can show whether the bear is metabolizing fats or muscle - important information about its nutritional state.

We had some close encounters with bears on the ship as well. This was a mom and two cubs - one of which was ready to challenge the ship for dominance. The little cub in the foreground charged the ship several times and ignored the prostests of its mom until she threatened to charge him. I could almost hear her saying, "If you don't get back here right now...!"
He eventually listened, reluctantly, and continued to turn around as if to say, "I'm only leaving because I have to, NOT because I'm afraid of you!"

Then, after 3 days of sitting in ice waiting out a storm we were visited twice by this beautiful, healthy female. She was terribly curious about the ship and the good smells coming off of it. She looked us over for 20 minutes or so before walking away. An hour later she returned for an even closer look. She seemed in no way threatening. Just very curious.

George, the Inupiat bear observer that joined us in Prudhoe Bay so we could legally enter Canadian waters to recapture one of the bears said to me while we while we watchd this sweet girl, "Polar bears are actually very personable if they aren't hungry." He said they often come into their camps and check things out and then walk away without bothering anyone. It probably seemed like a very small comment to George but I don't think I'll ever forget it. It was heartening to hear that the people who live closest to polar bears know them this well. My preconceived notion of guns first, ask questions later was happily shattered with George's story.

Polar bears weren't the only wildlife sightings over the course of the cruise. There were days when the only wildlife around was almost more exciting than bears. We had heard of snowy owls spending time on the pack ice but we were still surprised and excited to see one, then two, and more owls near the ice, in some cases hundreds of miles away from shore. Alex took this picture of the only snowy owl seen actually sitting on the ice.

Here we are, the science crew with the captain (back center) just days before returning to Barrow. It's a testiment to the comeradery of this group that we are all wearing smiles at this point - it was a challenging cruise, but in the end it was a great way to meet an extraordinary group of people while sharing our research and experiences and making connections that will last for a long time to come.

Here's a nice parting shot...I need to credit the photographers who took the majority of the images posted here. Thanks to Pam, Alex, Katie, Dan, Brenna, and Heloise for sharing your pictures. And thanks to all the scientists (that includes you photo/videographers) on board for being such terrific company during our big Arctic adventure.