Day Three

Today was an action-packed day! I woke up in the morning just in time to watch my first "real" CTD deployment and retrieval, as well as attempting my first collections. After the CTD rosette is on the deck, each lab takes turns collecting samples from their specific bottles of interest. Since we need such a large volume sample, we go last!

CTD water collection

Essentially I use a huge funnel and a 10L container to drain the water out of the bottom of the collection bottle. We are collecting samples from the lowest point in the water column, the surface, and the chlorophyll maximum - or the area in the water that has the most phytoplankton activity going on.

Also this morning I learned how to collect samples for pH analysis - it is very similar to what we do but much less messy! The rest of the day was filled with filtering water from our CTD castings, as well as from our regular 20 minute samples. I managed to stay busy almost the whole time. Our lab set up is below, in case you are curious!

General Lab Space

During the third CTD collection, there was a humpback whale off of the starboard side of the ship, but of course I missed it. I will have to be sure to keep a good eye out for animals in the future.

Right now we are located in the Olympic Peninsula National Marine Reserve area, and fairly close to shore. However, most of the day we were unable to see land. The ocean was incredibly calm today, and after the sun set, it was a beautiful night with the full moon sparkling on the water.

I was lucky enough to spend some time on deck as I was helping to collect invertebrate samples. It appears that we are quite popular, as the ship's lamp lights illuminated lots of seagulls bobbing on the water near the vessel. Our net collections revealed lots of animals as well, including salps (jellyfish-like animals), euphasids (krill), copepods and amphipods (bug-like water creatures), and tunicates (hard to explain- essentially they are weird little animals that seem like plants if you didn't know better).

Bucket full of invertebrates!

I hope the weather stays this nice! It is very nice to be offshore, as there is very little wind, and so far we have been lucky in terms of rain. Tomorrow holds much of the same, but I am really enjoying myself. I feel like I have my sea legs under me a bit more, and am not nearly as exhausted- coffee is still a necessity though!

Thanks for reading!
Shea