Monday 24th of July

We are finishing today our work in the Igaliku fjord. We picked up the lander after a successful second deployment. Now the ship is at the mouth of the fjord for some final oceanographic stations. The last three days the weather has been very nice to work on deck with temperatures up to 17°C at midday. The views were amazing, especially the bright blue glacial water in combination with the high mountain peaks with glaciers but also the green slopes and valleys. We were able to accomplish almost all our originally planned stations,  while we did some additional sampling on our way out of the fjord. For all those reasons the atmosphere on board remains excellent. With 17 stations sampled of which 2 full, 2 medium, 4 basic and 9 oceanographic stations the scientific teams in our CANOE project will be able to reconstruct the benthic-pelagic coupling in this fjord. It will allow us to unravel how the retreat of glaciers from the sea to land impacts the fjord ecosystems.

Late afternoon we  will start our transit to Ikersuaq fjord to explore new unknown areas. The planning is a bit uncertain because of the ice conditions in that fjord. Since the marine terminating glacier is melting there we do not know to what extent we can enter far enough in the fjord. Hopefully we can sample a gradient that is representative to identify the pelagic and benthic processes taking place there.

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