May 26, 2012
We can feel our hands again
As we sailed south, water temperature rose. Now we are on parallel 60. We have come down from parallel 65, the latitude of central Alaska, northern Iceland, and the Bering Strait, all very cold areas. These days, water temperature has risen to a “warm” 4ºC, almost 4 degrees more than in the North. This makes a huge difference underwater: our hands hardly feel numb while we dive now, something to be grateful for when you must open a tin to take samples or use a photograph or video camera. External temperatures have also risen somewhat, although the wind remains quite cold. This change in external temperature is hardly felt on board, where we still wear the same number of clothes.
ROV and dives are finding much more life as we sail south, which makes it easier to bear the 50-80 minutes which we spend at the bottom while diving and the ROV hours. Moreover, the sun has been fully setting for a couple of days now, even if it is at 23:00 CET, and sunsets are real, because suddenly the sun goes away and does not rise until three hours later, which makes light disappear and turn into night. We left Helsinki harbour 12 days ago, and it’s still two days until we reach Stockholm, where we will spend a day and a half. We will get food supplies and take walks longer than the ship’s length.