Marion Island Relief Voyage on the SA Agulhas II Voyage 051, March 2022

The Marion Island Relief Voyage was conducted on the SA Agulhas II Voyage 051 from 31 March to 23 May 2022. The 2022 Marion Relief Voyage 051 offered the 10th opportunity to conduct multi-disciplinary, ship-based oceanographic research on board the SA Agulhas II en route to, from, and around, the sub-Antarctic Prince Edward Islands (PEI’s). For the first time since the start of the global pandemic, 17 berths were allocated for ship-based scientists, but due to the helicopter logistics still being ship-based no additional research time was allocated and ship-based research was capped to 13 days before the voyage. This meant 10 days of research was allocated to the area around the PEI’s and 3 days allocated to the return leg to Cape Town, to enable the sampling of the Crossroads Transect. Thus, not all the approved NRF-funded SANAP projects could be accommodated. Similarly, annual ship-based research and long-term monitoring conducted by the Oceans & Coasts Research Branch of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) was substantially reduced. The ship-based research was conducted as a joint multi-institutional, multidisciplinary effort with scientists, research technicians, interns and students from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment: Oceans and Coasts Research (DFFE-OCR), the University of Cape Town (UCT), the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) and the University of Pretoria (UP) all collaborating to achieve a variety of research and monitoring project objectives.