North of Iceland . . . Ice and Beer
After saying farewell to three of our colleagues who returned to Nova Scotia by air, we left Reykjavik at 2:00 PM on 1 February 1989. On to the survey area! Let’s do some oceanography. Wrong! We sailed northwest along the coast of Iceland and into the Denmark Strait. Rough weather. What else? This time the temperature was low enough that we had to contend with freezing spray. By this time we had become accustomed to 20-30 foot waves and were starting to think this was normal. However the ice was another thing.
Sailing into the wind when the temperature is below freezing was not a good idea. The spray froze and built up on everything it touched. Cables that were normally a half-inch to an inch in diameter build up ice to the point where they were often six to eight inches across. There was ice everywhere on the ship’s superstructure. CSS Baffin was a rather high vessel to begin with and tended to roll a lot more than many ships. Adding literally tons of ice to the exposed portion shifted the center of gravity and made the vessel top heavy . . . to the point where there was the real possibility of it rolling over if it caught a wave across the beam.
By this time we were rounding the northwest tip of Iceland and we got enough break in the weather so that Captain John Lewis could turn the stern into the wind. He then called on all hands, both ship’s crew and the scientific staff to help with the ice. And what does one do with tons of ice frozen to a ship? Beat it off with wooden mallets and shovel it over the side. This was no easy task with seas and swells still running at 15-20 feet and a brisk wind blowing. It took us about a half a day but we finally got the ship clear. I had mentioned before that time often embellishes memories, but rest assured this is no exaggeration. We had 25-30 people working in shifts for four to six hours to get all the ice removed. And you can be sure that we had our hearts into it, because the safety of the ship and all on board depended on it.
After the ice incident, we made our way along the north coast of Iceland. We were looking for a break in the weather so we could make a run for the survey area north of Jan Mayen Island. Since the forecasts did not look good (see the transcript of a typical CW one from GAK Portishead ), we used the time in the lee of Iceland to test a new device. This was a mechanism designed to allow the towing of a submerged instrument through ice. We were able to get a few hours in doing this, proving that it would work when we hit the ice edge farther north. And we would be there in a couple of days. Absolutely. Of that we were sure . . . although by this time some of us were wondering if maybe we should go home. We were careful not to mention this out loud. We were true blue researchers. We never give up. Never!
Just after this, volunteers were summoned to the after deck of the ship. What now, we asked ourselves? A bit of background first. Back in those days, our research vessels carried “the bond.” The bond was duty free liquor and cigarettes. In keeping with seagoing tradition, each hand was allotted a given quantity of liquor and tobacco each week. This has since been stopped for a number of reasons, but suffice to say that in the early days of oceanography our ships were wet. It turned out that we had sailed with a new allotment of beer in the ship’s hold. Somehow, about 75-80 cases from the previous season had been left on board. Beer has a shelf life and after some period of time it is deemed unfit for human consumption. This was discovered and the decision was made that it had to be destroyed. The ocean is a large place and it was decided that it would be all right to throw it over the side.
This presented a problem. Full cans of beer will float and eventually wash ashore somewhere, because they are not completely full. They have an air gap. In order to dispose of the beer, each can had to be opened before it was tossed overboard. We had tried negotiating with those in charge to sell us the beer at a reduced rate, or maybe even give it to us, rather than waste it. However, it was date-expired and health considerations prevailed. And rightly so. So a “bucket brigade” was set up from the bond room down in the hold, up several flights of stairs and out to the port and starboard quarters. Each case held 24 cans and was handed from person to person until it reached the one at the rail. On the port side, that would be me. I was charged with the task of flipping open the tabs on each can before tossing them over. Now, one has to think about this a bit. We’ve been to sea in terrible weather for almost three weeks. We aren’t convinced that there is anything wrong with this beer. Yet there is an officer at every key point with a clipboard keeping count. This beer is going over the side. As I was flipping the tabs open, I decided to see if it had a disagreeable taste. After all, if it had gone bad, you should notice a difference in taste, right?
I took a sip out of one of the cans and it seemed OK to me. But what did I know? So, over the side they went. As I continued on, I spot-checked a few more cans. For the life of me, I couldn’t seem to find a bad one. After a half dozen cases or so, I found I was checking pretty well every second can. Now, a sip of beer out of a can isn’t very much, but recall that we had somewhere around 80 cases at 24 cans to a case. Assuming that I got half the cases, and sampled half the cans, that would be somewhere over 400 samples. At this point it is best to let you draw your own conclusions . . . suffice to say that the next day I was of the opinion that the powers that be had made the right decision. The beer had gone bad!
Last updated on Thursday, 12 April 2007