I've been away for a month and its almost halfway through the cruise (tomorrow). We are about to cross some interesting regions of the Southern Atlantic where the ocean currents mingle and phytoplankton benefit. The aim is to sample in the middle of an ocean eddy in the middle of the great calcite belt. Hopefully there will be many happy coccolithophores living here, if the satellite image is anything to go by, assisting the export of organic carbon to the deep sea. With any luck they will have formed aggregates (marine snow), which I can collect and photograph and then attempt to measure their sinking rate. So far the sinking rate experiments have not been very successful, marine snow is easily lost in the blink of an eye and sinks faster than you would expect! I caught a few particles in the most recent cast of the snow catcher, but not as much as in the first two casts, so I will be playing with them later.
Its getting windier and colder, but the sun came out again today and improved the mood on board.
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