Dan's Wanderings: Bering Sea research cruise March 27-April 20, 2008

This spring I was fortunate enough to sail for 3 weeks on the US Coast Guard Icebreaker Healy in the Bering Sea. My job was to assist folks from NOAA in water sampling and sea-ice coring. I flew to Dutch Harbor to get on the ship and I got off on St. Paul Island and flew back to Fairbanks. The following photos are from the trip.

The following is an excerpt from the project's website and brief explanation of what the project is about and entails. Here is the link:
http://doc.nprb.org/web/BSIERP/zzWebsite/home/01.08_%20Bering%20Sea%20at%20a%20glance.pdf

Why Study the Bering Sea?

The Bering Sea, one of the most highly productive

marine ecosystems on earth, supports the largest

commercial fisheries in the world. Alaska’s fisheries

provide more than half of the seafood consumed in the

United States. Pollock, cod, flatfish, halibut, crab, and

salmon are abundant in the Bering Sea and form a powerful

economic engine for fishing communities.

Whales, seals and seabirds flock here from afar to feed —

some staying year round, others migrating here to feed and

mate. Fur seals breed on island rookeries, while walrus haul

out on sea ice to bear young. Fin, minke, humpback, gray,

and right whales, as well as belugas and porpoises, feast

on huge schools of smaller fishes and tiny crustaceans,

while orcas hunt other whales, seals, or salmon. Sea

otters stay close to shore near kelp forests, plucking

invertebrates from the seafloor. More than 30 different

species of seabirds breed here, some 36 million individuals,

from shearwaters, fulmars, kittiwakes, albatrosses, and

storm petrels to puffins and murres. Nearly half of Alaska’s

seabirds live in just 10 colonies in the Bering Sea.

Climate change and reduced ice cover could have

significant impacts on each of these populations of the

Bering Sea. We need to improve our understanding of the

current mechanisms that combine to create and sustain this

highly productive ecosystem and how they may be altered

over time as a result of climate change.

Here you can see our cruise track. We left Dutch Harbor at 2 pm under cloudy skies but calm seas. It took us about 24 hours to get to our first sampling station just SW of St. Paul Island. Our track followed historic tracks and sampling stations that NOAA has been sampling for a number of years. This gives our data a historical perspective. We got into sea-ice very soon after our first sampling station and we remained in sea-ice for the next 2.5 weeks. We headed towards Nunivak Is. and then took a hard left and headed for the date line. Along the way we got a far off view of St. Matthew Island. Once we got to the date-line we headed north towards St. Lawerance Is and then headed back east, then turned south for a short bit, turned right and headed west towards Zhemchug Canyon. It is the largest canyon in the world, in terms of total volume, depth and area, above or below water. Before this trip I had never heard of it and it is fair to say that most others have not either. It has rarely been visited by any researchers. The Navy probably knows plenty.

This from Wikipedia: “Zhemchug Canyon is a giant underwater canyon located in the middle of the Bering Sea. This submarine canyon is the largest canyon in the ocean.^[1] The canyon has a vertical relief of 2600 meters dropping from the shallow shelf the Bering Sea to the depths of the Aleutian Basin^[1]. Zhemchug Canyon is deeper than the Grand Canyon ^[2]. Zhemchug Canyon has two main branches, each larger than typical continental margin canyons such as the Monterey Canyon^[1].

What makes the Zhemchug Canyon the largest canyon in the world is not only its great depth, but its large cross-sectional area.^[1] Zhemchug Canyon is the largest submarine canyon in the world, based on drainage area (11,350 km²) and volume (5800 km³)^[1].”

This from Ned Rosell:

“The ancient Yukon River may have contributed to the vastness of Zhemchug Canyon, according to a theory first presented by David Scholl and the late David Hopkins. During the last Ice Age, when more of the world’s oceans were locked up in glacier ice, the Yukon flowed a few hundred miles farther southwest, carving at its mouth the vast gorge that is now Zhemchug Canyon, which lies about 170 miles northwest of St. Paul Island.

Named after a Soviet research ship and a word meaning “pearl,” Zhemchug Canyon cuts into the ocean floor at the western edge of the Continental Shelf, “one of the flattest and smoothest places on the planet,” Dan O’Neill wrote in his book, The Last Giant of Beringia. “Its slope, at no more than three or four inches per mile, is almost unmeasurable.”

From that undersea plain, Zhemchug Canyon plunges more than 8,500 feet into the Aleutian Basin. “

We were going to go out and sample the water from the canyon, 3,000 meters, but the weather was too rough for us to safely conduct operations off the side/rear of the ship. So we hung a left and headed SE making tracks in and out of the sea-ice so we could study what was happening at the sea-ice edge where the ice was rapidly melting. Then we headed for St. Paul and the departure of 12 of us via helicopter. 11 folks had flown to St. Paul and got onboard to replace us.

It was a fun trip and my first time back working in sea-ice since the spring of 2000 when I sailed from McMurdo Station to Palmer Station on the Nathaniel B. Palmer ice-breaker.

On the way to Anchorage we had a splendid view of the Alaska Range. Denali is on the right and Mt. Foraker is on the left.

As we proceeded there was a great view of the flats to the south of the range. Here you can see how the glaciers left behind lakes/ponds trending in the direction of the advance/retreat.

A view of the sea-ice in the Bering Sea as I flew to Dutch Harbor from Anchorage.

Arrival in Dutch Harbor. Snow on all of the mountains this time.

The type plane, a SAAB 340 Turbo Prop, that flies to Dutch about 3x a day from Anchorage. It holds 30 people. Took the same plane out of St. Paul. It is a 3 hour flight from Anchorage to Dutch. Same for St. Paul to Anchorage.

This cool looking float plane was at the airport when we arrived. While we were out on the this cruise someone onboard got word that the plane was involved in a crash on the runway at Dutch. The airport has a public road that runs past the end of the runway and there is a retractable gate there that is open most of the time. A red light is supposed to start flashing when a plane is about to land. The light was not working and so a truck drove onto the runway and the plane hit it. Sad, because this plane has to be old.

View of Dutch Harbor/Unalaska just before we set sail. I did not take this picture. A few folks from the lower 48 that were on the cruise brought up their skis and hiked up the nearby hills to ski down.

View of the Healy tied up behind a large cargo ship being loaded with many, many containers of sea-food. Amazing to think that many ships this size come in and sail away to all corners of the globe with seafood caught in the Bering Sea.

The Healy in thin sea-ice. Some folks got to fly in the helo we had onboard. They took all of the aerial photos of the ship. From this photo I can explain a few things. Rooms/lounges are in the white cube with the portals. The science deck with the science lounge/conference room and sick bay is the first line of white portals just above the red line. One deck down are the quarters for the crew also with a lounge and the ship's library. 2 decks down from the science deck is the mess hall. 3 decks down is the gym and the laundry. One deck above are the CPO (Chief Petty Officer) quarters, additional scientist rooms, a barber shop, and a lounge.

The deck below the bridge is the captain's quarters, the officers' quarters and the chief scientist quarters.

The bridge extends from side to side. That is 80 feet! Above the bridge is a mast that goes up to the Aloft-control. Here the ship can be driven. It is done from this vantage point while going thru thick ice. It is easier to find routes thru the ice when you are 99 feet above it and have a view, in clear weather, of 11 miles. Radar is used to but it can’t always pick up small leads in the ice.

You can just make out the helo pad at the end of the ship. There is a helo hanger just forward of it that can accommodate 2 helos. There was only one on this cruise but it was not a Coast Guard helo. It was a contracted one out of Homer with 3 crew.

In the hanger there was a lot of space to stage our sea-ice equipment. The Coasties held movie nites in there on Sat. nites. A basketball hoop was in there as well. It could be moved out on the helo deck, weather permitting. The Coasties also shot skeet off the helo deck one day during our cruise. The movie nites, skeet shoots and other activities are considered morale activities for the Coasties. The non-commisioned folks spend 3 years on the ship. The commissioned officers spend two years. It is good to have some activities for them besides working, eating and sitting in your room.

View of the Healy in the sea-ice. On days that we got off the ship, we would use the brow (gang plank) off the bow on the port (left) or starboard (right) side. It was quite a slope, about 30 degrees. The brow was too short/the bow so far off the surface of the ice.

Healy from above. The Healy is the first Coast Guard ship named after a black person. Michael A. Healy’s story is an amazing one.

This from the Coast Guard’s website:

“Captain Michael A. Healy was born near Macon, Georgia in 1839. He was the fifth of ten children born to Michael Morris Healy, an Irish plantation owner, and his wife Mary Elisa Smith, a former slave. This family produced a number of distinguished individuals. Three brothers entered the priesthood; James became the first black bishop in North America, Patrick was president of Georgetown University, and Sherwood became an expert in canon law. Three sisters became nuns, one reaching the level of mother superior.

When his siblings became bishops, priests and nuns, it may have been to compensate for the man who became known as "Hell Roaring Mike".

Michael Healy was uninterested in academic pursuits and so began a seagoing career as a cabin boy aboard the American East Indian Clipper JUMNA in 1854. He quickly became an expert seaman and rose to the rank of officer on merchant vessels.

In 1864 he applied for a commission in the U.S. Revenue Marine and was accepted as a Third Lieutenant. After serving successfully on several cutters in the East, Healy began his lengthy service in Alaskan waters in 1875 as the second officer on the cutter RUSH.

He was given command of the revenue cutter CHANDLER in 1877. Promoted to Captain in March 1883, he was given command of the cutter THOMAS CORWIN in 1884.

Finally in 1886, he became Commanding Officer of the cutter BEAR, taking her into Alaskan waters for the first time. Here he remained until 1895.

Although already held in high regard as a seaman and navigator in the waters of Alaska, it was as Commanding Officer of BEAR that Healy truly made his mark in history. During the last two decades of the 19th Century, Captain Healy was the United States Government in most of Alaska. In his twenty years of service between San Francisco and Point Barrow, he acted as: judge, doctor, and policemen to Alaskan natives, merchant seamen and whaling crews.

He operated in an eerie echo of what would become the mission of his Coast Guard successors a century later: protecting the natural resources of the region, suppressing illegal trade, resupply of remote outposts, enforcement of the law, and search and rescue. Even in the early days of Arctic operations, science was an important part of the mission. Renowned naturalist John Muir made a number of voyages with Healy during the 1880's as part of an ambitious scientific program. With the reduction in the seal and whale populations, he introduced reindeer from Siberia to Alaska to provide food, clothing and other necessities for the native peoples.

The primary instrument in Healy's capable hands, to accomplish all of this, was the cutter BEAR, probably the most famous ship in the history of the Coast Guard. Under "Hell Roaring Mike", BEAR became legendary as "Healy's Fire Canoe". Healy and BEAR proved to be a perfect match, a marriage of vessel capability and unrivaled ice seamanship that became legend.

The USCGC HEALY (WAGB 20) carries on the legacy of her namesake, providing a highly dedicated scientific platform with the search and rescue, and resupply services which have become the hallmark of the United States' icebreaking fleet for over 100 years.

USCGC HEALY (WAGB 20) was constructed by Avondale Industries in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her keel was laid on September 16, 1996. A spectacular launch followed on November 15, 1997. Delivered to the U.S. Coast Guard and placed "In Commission, Special" on November 10, 1999, HEALY joined the icebreakers POLAR STAR (WAGB 10) and POLAR SEA (WAGB 11) in their homeport of Seattle, Washington. The ship departed New Orleans on January 26th, 2000, arrived in Seattle on August 9th, 2000 and was placed "In Commission, Active" on August 21st, 2000. “

Straight above the Healy

View of my stateroom. I shared it with 2 others. The room was huge and did not seem cramped with 3. We shared a bathroom with the next room over.

View from the door.

The science conference lounge. A TV room is just to the right, about 10x18 feet. The ship receives 3 channels from AFN (Armed Forces Network), the same channels we would get at McMurdo Station in Antarctica and all over the world at US Military bases. CNN, FOX news, ESPN sports and a variety of other shows. There were 3 movie channels as well that would play movies that were onboard.

The Mess Hall, looking towards starboard. Huge! 4 meals a day; breakfast, lunch, dinner, midrats (mid-nite rations). The food was really good. We had gobs of fresh fruit and veggies.

View looking port.

Starboard eating area.

Port side eating area. The large lights above the right-most table are for when the table would be used as an exam table/1st Aid station if there were too many casualties for the sick bay.

Port side of the weight room.

Starboard side of the weight room.

Port side of the bridge.

Looking from the port side across the bridge. HUGE!

One of many water-tight doors on the ship. There are 5 of them that you have to open and dog shut if you travel from the science labs to the mess hall. I always walked along the side-deck one deck up so I could avoid all the doors.