Vardi Vice 2012

6thJuly 2012 As promised, here is a little description of the wildlife we’ve encountered in the past few weeks, and we’ll start from the bottom up. First and foremost, there are the algae and the virus. I know some of you might think “What? That’s wildlife??” but yes, to me it is. These organisms are just as amazing as any other, and the more we learn about them the more I’m struck by how sophisticated they are and how little we actually know about their intricate life cycle. The fact that you can’t see them with the naked eye just makes them all that bit more intriguing, and our job here that bit harder. Here is a picture of the virus I took back home at the electron microscopy unit at Weizmann. All it is, is ... read more

Day 12 It’s just over a week and a half since we left Ponta Delgada, and we are settling nicely into a routine. We are traveling back and forth from areas of suspected high biomass, to areas we think have been infected by viruses, sampling along the way to see if we can catch the interesting stuff. If you take a look at the route the Knorr has sailed in the past few days (http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=8581) you'd probably think we have a problem with the navigation system, or that someone on board has a drinking problem. But no, all it is, is us trying to find 5 micron cells inside an ocean. But we are starting to see very promising initial results, so we're modifying our sampling and analyzing regime accordingly. Between sampling and experiments, ... read more

Day 8, 23 June 2012 We haven’t hit gold yet, but we’re getting into a good working routine. We usually start the day just before sunrise, sampling the water at 05:00, and end the day close to midnight, finishing off the evening sampling and preparing for to coming morning. During the day we work loads, each on their own task, but everyone cooperating nicely. We usually have time to go out and look at the ocean, which seems different each time I look at it. The color of the water is constantly changing, mixing blues with greens, white caps with the reflection of the sun. The day before yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and boy, was it long. The sun rises at 5-ish, and at 11pm there are still some ... read more

After an emotional beginning with loads of expectations to find a bloom our first stations were a disappointment. Emiliania was not there...well, only very few were there. We had to concentrate the water over 200 times to see 3 or 4 Emiliania cells under the microscope. The hypothesis is that we’ve arrived too late and the bloom had been already swipped away, probably due to viral infections. We might have been in the middle of what Vardi et al. 2009 coined as the ‘oceanic plaque’. After a lot of discussions among all participants, Kay Bidle, the chief scientist, decided to head north towards a patch of high chlorophyll and particulate inorganic carbon (PIC), which is generally an indication of high coccolithophore abundance. We are now at 46 degrees North – 28 degrees West. We have still ... read more

17thJune 2012 Life at sea has its cost. It’s very tiring trying to stay standing all the time, great workout for your legs and glut’s. Taking a shower is a bit of a circus act, and I’ve only had one in calm seas so far, I hate to think what’ll happen when things get rough. We also have to get used to the meal times. We start breakfast at 07:30, and are finished with dinner by 17:30. In between we have a full cooked lunch, snacks at 3ish, and a free for all fridge with all sorts of goodies and an assortment of fruit all day long. The thing is, we’re working ALL the time, so by 23:00, we’re all hungry again. Oy Vey… I complained to you earlier about the sleeping arraignments, but I must ... read more