PI’s Ken Johnson and Kenneth Coale before departure from Fuel Dock in Lyttelton. 

The R/V Revelle leaving the fuel pier at 1800 January 5, 2002 from Lyttelton Harbor. The ship steams east out of Lyttelton, Banks Peninsula on the right.

The ship steams east out of Lyttelton, Banks Peninsula on the right.

Longitude:172E

1530, January 6, Lyttelton, New Zealand

We’re sailing on the first leg of the Southern Ocean Iron Fertilization Experiment (SOFeX) at 1800 today.  We’ve finished loading the ship with an incredible amount of gear. They have run out of eye bolts to secure equipment and we’re improvising now.  Nine full containers (seven  6 meters long and two 13 meters long) full of equipment have been loaded on board; assembled and secured for sea. This includes a SeaSoar mapping system  with a 11.8 metric tons van. It was too heavy for the ship’s crane to lift and the dock wasn’t strong enough for the 100 ton crane that came to pick it.  Anyway everything is on board now, but science labs on the ROGER REVELLE, largest ship in the UNOLS fleet, are full. 

We’ve had to wait in line at the fuel dock; we’re getting 757,000 liters. Whose credit card does THAT go on? It takes almost 10 hours to fill up and, with three big ships in front of us waiting for fuel, we’ve had to delay our departure. But we’re going in three hours. Thirty three scientists are on board and they’re looking forward to sailing. Everyone enjoyed Lyttelton, though.  Especially the Volcano Café and the Lava Bar. And there’s a big storm to the south (nothing but Antarctica down there!). You should see the weather they have here: wind from the north and it's 30 C, 5 minutes later it switches to the south, temperature drops (long pants and sweatshirts), wind goes to 30 knots and we’ve had the most intense downpours I’ve seen. Lyttelton flooded on the last one with water pouring into the hotel where some of the scientists were staying.

Well that’s it for now. Three days of transit to the first iron fertilization site, but we’ll stop to test equipment on the way.