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Kyle Jero's Blog

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November 7, 2009
November 4, 2009
November 1, 2009

November 7, 2009

Today is the last day of this trip to Sweden and Samantha's and my training. We have spend a lot of time over the past few days hammering out details of checks, rechecks, back up procedures, mailing procedures, calibrations, thresholds, run times, recording rates, pretty much anything and everything that could happen. Serap and Paul are both very happy with the work that has been completed so far and feel that things should go smoothly in the next few days as the other students and workers arrive to prepare for the actual launching of the ship. Samantha and I took the day off to enjoy the city and the sun, which finally decided to peak its head out from behind the clouds. Now it is time to pack and get some rest before heading to the Copenhagen airport in the middle of the night! I will end this with a collection of some pictures I have taken this week that I have been saving for a special occasion. I believe that time is now. Please enjoy. The night shots where taken off the boat in the shipping yard, and the day shots are from in and around the medieval fortress Kärnan.

Cheers,
Kyle

November 4, 2009

Today was day three at work on the Oden. It has been cold and wet for the past few days so the warmth of the computer room is always something to look forward to. Serap's cables arrived yesterday so the IceTop tank complete with working DOMs is now taking data and getting some final tweaks before we determine the run matrices for the voyage. Hopefully Paul's H-3 detectors will arrive and be installed on Friday so we can get some experience with those as well before we have to head back. Serap and I have spent the past two days debugging and rewriting python scripts designed to extract basic information about hit rates, thresh-hold and high voltage levels, temperature, and pressure from the DOMs. Together we have gotten everything in a format so Paul can write a program to create summaries for all the information obtained daily so it can be emailed from the ship during the voyage. As far as major technical work that has been about the extent of it aside from a major cleaning of the DomHub by Sam.

On a less technical side of things the crew seems to be used to our presence on the ship now, since we are the only scientist present, and is interested in our work. I think it's just because they want to use our ice for their drinks once we finish with it, but I will take anything to be on better terms with those big guys. Also, we went on a tour of the upper levels of the ship from the second mate on hand, though I cannot recall his name at this time, and it is as impressive inside as it is out.

The bridge of the ship is quite amazing and up to date. There are two types of sonar on the ship for viewing the ocean and the ocean floor. One is a fast scanning type that returns images of the sea floor up to 2km below the ship. The second is even more impressive, it scans into the ocean floor up to 200 meters below the surface. Here are a few pictures of the bridge

The sonar equipment

And the bridge itself.

Most of the equipment was turned off as the ship is now at dock, but I can imagine it will be a very active place once the cruise gets under way, and especially once the ice breaking begins.

Other than that the ship included the sorts of things needed for day to day living. Laundromats, kitchen, lots of cabins, conference rooms, exercise room. And of course.

Two Swedish sauna's

And Serap's personal favorite.

The bar.

Overall it was a good and informative tour and I can only hope I will remember a quarter of it so I can get around on my first day when it actually comes time to take my ride.

On the same day we got to meet a group of NSF and Swedish Polar Research dignitaries that were on the boat getting tours and learning about the projects that will be occurring during the research portion of the voyage from McMurdo to Punta Arenas. We opened up the freezer container to let them have a peak at our very "cool" experiment then took them inside to our computer room to warm up and give an explanation of the purpose of the experiment as well as an overview of the equipment present in the room.

They seemed impressed and pleased about everything we had to say, which in turn made us very happy.

I think that is about the extent of my news over the past few days. I will leave you with a few pictures of the boat and the freezer container this time. I hope everyone is doing well and I can't wait to see you all again soon!

Cheers,
Kyle

For reference the container in the upper middle of the picture is ours.	Sam getting on the ship! (For the second time)
The view from our high perch.	Paul and Serap getting in to check things out.
This is where they keep the ice on an Icebreaker (even when its 32 F outside it still feels warmer when you step back out of the container)

November 1, 2009

Samantha and I successfully arrived in Helsingborg yesterday after meeting Serap and Paul in Copenhagen. The travel was smooth and we all seem to be over our jet lag already. We got in contact with the crew from the Oden this morning and went out to see it for the first time today. (It is docked here) It is very impressive and massive. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but I forgot my memory card for my camera in my computer when we went. I will be sure to include some in my next post.

We have not gotten a tour of the boat yet, but the crate is located on the upper research decks just below the steering room and our equipment is in one of the electronics rooms on the same floor. Luckily the room where we will be working is very very warm! Today we unpacked and connected all the equipment up. However, a few of Serap's cables for connection between the GPS and the DOM controlling computer are missing so Serap and Paul had to go back to the hotel to get a hold of Allen in Uppsala, Sweden.

Sam and I stayed to finish connecting the computers and verify they were still working. Everything seems to be in working order so far. We met with Paul and Serap on the way between the hotel and Oden and they said they had gotten a message through to Allen. They should be turning on all the other equipment now to check everything and then coming back for dinner.

Before I go I would just like to say to everyone who came to the send off thank you for your support, I know it meant a lot to me. I will write more when I have a chance and send pictures too. For now I leave you with a picture of Sam's and my feet relaxing before a nap in the Amsterdam airport and a quote.

"Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have."

I am just glad that I did instead of any of those.

Adjö´ så lä´nge! (Goodbye for now.)

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November 7, 2009

November 4, 2009

November 1, 2009