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Writer’s rite of passage

When on an icebreaker, you’d better dress for it! Science writer Helen Fields learned how to don an immersion suit, also called a “Gumby suit,” on the second day of a six-week expedition to the Bering Sea aboard the R/V Healy led by WHOI biologist Carin Ashjian. Fields and photographer Chris Linder are chronicling this research cruise for “Polar Discovery,” featuring photographs and stories of polar research on scientific expeditions as they happen. “If you jump into the water while wearing an immersion suit, your head won’t even go under,” writes Fields, then notes, ” We’ve been assured that this knowledge is unlikely to be put to practical use.”
(Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)