Visitors on the open ocean

The ENDEAVOR

To meet other ships up close is rare on the open ocean. This made the rendezvous between the American ENDEAVOR and the Spanish SARMIENTO a very interesting change of the daily routine. Since SPURS is an international cooperation, the chief scientist Ray Schmitt, Chris Duncombe-Rae and Julian Schanze climbed in the zodiac and navigated to the SARMIENTO under the eyes of scientists and crew on deck, who were watching the ENDEAVOR up close while the visitors were approaching.

Watching the visitors

The guests are all SPURS veterans from the R/V KNORR cruise in September 2012 and everybody was eager to share initial results and discuss the further planning.

But first the guests were shown around the spacious SARMIENTO and introduced to the captain and officers. Over dinner and coffee the further approach for the mission was discussed.

While the ENDEAVOR will be busy with recovering and maintaining instruments until the weekend, we will start another SeaSoar deployment in hope to find a fresh intrusion like the one we saw on the Southern end of the first SeaSoar sections. This will provide an opportunity to deploy instruments from both ships and map the region around the feature. Helping us to understand how freshwater is carried into the region and eventually enhanced in salinity again, due to exchange of moisture to the atmosphere.