finally home again

Finally home again!

Bowhead Whale contained 1890's projectile

Another news item that I missed while at sea (from msnbc.com):

"A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago.

Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3½-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale’s age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.



The whale had a bomb lance fragment lodged a bone between its neck and shoulder blade. The fragment was likely manufactured in New Bedford, on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, a major whaling center at that time, Bockstoce said.

It was probably shot at the whale from a heavy shoulder gun around 1890. The small metal cylinder was filled with explosives fitted with a time-delay fuse so it would explode seconds after it was shot into the whale. The bomb lance was meant to kill the whale immediately and prevent it from escaping.



“It probably hurt the whale, or annoyed him, but it hit him in a non-lethal place,” he said. “He couldn’t have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.”

The 49-foot male whale died when it was shot with a similar projectile last month, and the older device was found buried beneath its blubber as hunters carved it with a chain saw for harvesting.

UPDATE: an arcticle of the scientific journal "Polar Biology" has now appeared with detailed information on the dating of these harpoon and lance fragments. See the article online here.

Polar Operations Guide for AUV's online

Here comes another tidbit that floated into my newsfilter while I was at sea:

Here is a website that is result of a conference on AUV's. This acronym stands for "Autonomous Underwater Vehicle", the "untethered" version of a ROV, or Remotely Operated Vehicle, in both cases an underwater robot used in scientific, commercial as well as military missions).




Since the participants of that conference workshop wisely decided that their subject, best practices for AUV operations in polar areas, is still a budding field of expertise, they decided to turn it into a web-based project where users can contribute and participate in the accumulation of such expertise.

A must for "underwater exploration gear" freaks like me...

Arctic expedition cruise season finished

After 2.5 months of cruising the waters of Svalbard, Greenland and Iceland, I am finally back onshore - although still not home but on Svalbard ;-)

My "new" ship, the Vavilov, and the operator Peregrine proved to be a great success and a very enjoyable experience indeed. Many thanks to all who have sailed with me in this July and August!



I will shortly make the trip logs of the Vavilov reports available on my own download pages but some of them are currently also available on the operator's web pages at adventurefleet.com/files.

I am looking forward to a more relaxed autumn with some more teaching at the university center on Svalbard and some desk time at my new home office. And by the way, I am also getting married... ;-)