Day Eight

Greetings!

And I thought yesterday was slow!  Today we in fact were traveling the whole afternoon from noon until nine PM, moving from the Newport transect line, southest to our first station on the Heceta Head transect line.  However, the water was lovely today and there was not nearly as much boat rocking as yesterday.

Because we were between stations, I just ran surface samples today, collecting unfiltered saltwater from, conveniently, the sink right next to me.  So unfortunately today didn't hold much time outside, although it sounds like some folks were fishing in the morning.

Today pretty much consisted of me alternating between eating, chatting, reading, and running samples every 20 minutes.  Not too exciting, but it was kind of nice to unwind and not have to keep a tight schedule.  I did get some fun photos of people around the ship. It's really hard most days since everyone is working so hard.  I feel kind of bad asking them to stop for a photo op!

Sara and Claudine- our CTD deployment and retrieval experts

To compensate for the lack of excitement, the food was excellent!  For lunch we had portabella and havarti ciabatta sandwiches, curly fries, and a really good Portuguese potato and sausage soup.  Pretty sure it doesn't get much better than that.

Dinner was ham steak with pineapple, scalloped potatoes, and soup again.  I had to watch myself to make sure I didn't eat too much!  The cooks were nice enough to put out a caramel and peanut cheesecake, of which I treated myself to part of a slice :)

This evening I got to burn off a very small portion of my cheesecake, as we reached a CTD station, and then I helped with net tows.  Once again, the weather was gorgeous and there was a beautiful 3/4 waning moon reflecting off the water.  We also caught lots and lots of euphausiids (krill) since we are in a highly productive area.  The continental shelf off of Heceta Head (and Strawberry Hill) extends hundreds of meters from shore, resulting in large retention of nutrients and therefore, lots of critters.

Beautiful 3/4 Moon

 Also in the water: a whole flock of very hopeful-looking seagulls who have been following the boat for a couple days.  Unfortunately for them, we aren't a fishing vessel.  Quite frankly, I felt kind of bad for the little guys.  I tried to get a good picture, but it turns out that getting a photo of a bobbing seagull with only mild backlighting is very difficult.  Here's my best shot:

The worst sea gull photo ever.  I'll have to try again later.

We will be on this particular transect throughout the day, and then heading south to the 42nd parallel.  Meaning: California! I can't wait.

Best wishes to you folks on land,
Shea