Lucky Station 140 is Station of the Day today, February 1, 2006. Today is our first day of stations. Many thought that today's honors would fall on station 137, the first station of the cruise. Instead, that station was marred by technical problems and thus lost the first day's honors. We were forced to revert to Seabird CTD software for the first two stations because our own software was temporarily out of commission. Station 140 marked its glorious return. Even though bottles 16 and 21 failed to close on Station 140, we were expecting this problem and for the first time worked around it. This station was started by the night watch and finished by the day watch, thus building science morale. The albatross were quite interested in this cast; at least 11 flew along the starboard of the ship to keep an eye on the action. Maximum depth was 4000 meters. Maximum tension was around 4000 lbs. The cast took about 3 hours. Winds were perhaps 25 knots. The sun occasionally punched through the clouds. Above are two lovely shots of Station 140.
Readers who followed the last cruise will be amused to know that as I am writing this another wave has boarded the starboard side of the Knorr and flooded the hallway along the edge of the analytical/chemistry lab and splattered water across the main lab. The wave pushed through the double doors near the CTD hanger as well as the double watertight doors and neighboring vents in the lab.
