Day Six

Greetings!

Today was a lovely day all around. It held lots of good food, good weather, fun sights, and a calm work schedule.

I woke up this morning to find that we were right off of Lincoln City, with some gorgeous views of Cascade Head, as well as the town of Lincoln city directly Starboard-side. We had a beautiful blue sky and the water was a really pretty shade of teal green.  Even some of the busiest folks on our ship took some time to sit out in the sunshine for a while.

Cascade Head

At lunch, we were served the tuna that was caught yesterday - we had albacore fish and chips, as well as fresh albacore sashimi, which was excellent. To make it even better, we also had mozzarella sticks and onion rings on the side.

We continued down the coast today, and reached Newport in the evening.  There was a beautiful red sunset, and then when it was finally dark I could see Yaquina Head lighthouse in the distance.  Ironically, the town of Newport was much more visible than the lighthouse, but it was still neat. Also, since we were so close to shore I was able to speak with my parents on the phone, which was nice after almost a week of not having cell service!

Sunset

At night I helped again with net tows, and Yvan was nice enough to take photos of me helping Jennifer deploy and retrieve nets.  The weather was nice again, which made it a bonus to be out on deck.  However, we didn't catch anything too exciting this time.  Oh well!

Retrieving the plankton net

So I guess that is about it!  I can't wait to get further down towards California and hopefully start seeing more marine mammals.  I received an email today that some blue whales were spotted off the coast of Southern Oregon, so maybe we will get lucky!  Did you know the blue whale is the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth?  That would be pretty cool to see.

I could really get used to this.

Shea


**Note: I am having issues posting photos, so if I can't get them to work tonight I promise to put them up tomorrow!

Day Five

Evening!

I am happy to say that today was not nearly as crazy as yesterday in terms of collections.  I still managed to run analyses on 4 stations (yesterday was 5), but things really started to wind down in the evening as our last CTD casting went down to nearly 3,000m deep (almost 2 miles!).  Deployments this deep take almost three hours to drop and then retrieve.  In the meantime I managed to get some lab organization done, and then also got to read!

Besides running analyses, there were quite a few fun things to report. First, I have found the snack shelf on the ship.  Think industrial sized bins of gummy worms, red vines, popcorn, and Atomic Fireballs, all for the taking!  I may gain weight on this trip after all.  However, I've been fairly good about avoiding junk food this week so hopefully I can keep up the self-restraint.  If that wasn't bad enough, the desserts the cooks put out daily are enough to tempt any sweet tooth- apple pie, chocolate cake, and strawberry shortcake were on the menu for the last three days.

Candy stores!

Second, I was able to watch some deep-sea fishing by the crew earlier this afternoon. They caught a few various things, but most excitingly, a really nice albacore tuna.   I have actually never seen a freshly-caught tuna before, and boy was it pretty!  I had to get a camera out and explained that I've never seen one before, since we don't  have many tuna back in Wyoming.

Freshly-caught albacore tuna.  See boot in the top left corner for size comparison.

As it turns out, that comment sparked one of the cooks to chime in and say that he lived in Billings, Montana for 30 years - less than 2 hours away from Sheridan.  If that weren't weird enough, he is good friends with my old babysitter from elementary school.  How bizarre that I would run into somebody with two degrees of separation from me out in the middle of the Pacific!  It really is a small world sometimes.


This evening I helped with net tows again, which yielded very few creatures much to my disappointment.  Better luck tomorrow!  Right now we are a little north of Portland, so we may get some cool things when we reach central Oregon in the upwelling zones. However, the weather still held out for us, so it was nice just to be outside.

Invertebrate tow net.  I'll try to get a photo of me next time!

So I think that is about it for today!  I have been pretty tired since nine or so, so I'm ready to get some good sleep.

Peace,
Shea

Weather Today: Warm, gray, drizzly
Ocean: Smooth as glass!
Menu highlights: fully-loaded hot dogs, steak chili and macaroni for lunch, and an amazing dinner: stuffed pork chops, sweet potatoes, and salad with artichoke hearts. Yum!

Day Four

Good evening!

I actually woke up this morning well-rested and refreshed, which means I am probably adjusting to being on a ship much better than the first couple of days.  It turns out that was a very good thing, because my shift started just in time for another CTD collection.  In fact, we had five of these during my 12 hours, which is pretty insane!  After a 30 min collection period, it was about one and a half hours between stations- giving me just enough time to run my samples through the filtration system!  Then, considering each collection included three 10-liter bottles,  so that was about 60 pounds of water per collection, meaning.... I hauled about three times my weight in water today!

And I was worried that I wouldn't get exercise on the ship....

Besides the busyness, the weather and ocean were absolutely gorgeous today!  It was probably about 60 degrees out, with no wind, and the ocean was especially calm.  In fact, I hardly felt the ship rocking. 

Even more exciting than the excellent weather, I was lucky enough to spot a small group of whales this evening around 7pm!  They were too far away to tell what they were, but we were able to see their dorsal fins and backs as they swam through, and I also saw them spout.  Now I can finally say that I saw some marine mammals!  Yvan (my boss) says that we will likely see many more as we head south...I'm sure I'll post about it if we do!

Another neat thing I was able to witness was the deployment of our small boat (the Zodiac) as they chased down one of NOAA's unmanned underwater gliders.  They were able to find it, and then calibrate it to make sure that it is taking the correct measurements on its rounds.  NOAA's gliders are small submarine-like collection devices programmed to cross large tracts of ocean and report data back via satellite.  Unlike manned research vessels which require man hours, or oceanographic bouys that can only sample one location, gliders have the ability to sample multiple locations in real time. Here is a good website explaining them: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20091207_glider.html

Crew on their way to rendezvous with the glider

This evening, I was able to experience the lovely weather again when I helped with net tows.  We caught a lots of euphasids today, along with a few salps.  I got to look at the krill under the dissecting scope as well!  I could really get used to helping with net tows on these warm, calm evenings.

Beautiful Night

Food was excellent again today...I have been missing breakfast since my shift is noon to midnight, but it looks like they had crepes.  Lunch was a croissant sandwich, and dinner included a mix of comfort foods, including hot wings, cornbread, blackened halibut, and corn on the cob.  I was even tempted into having a slice of apple pie for dessert. It's a good thing I am burning so many calories throughout the day, or I'd be liable to gain a lot of weight.

Alright, I think that is about all for now!  I actually fell asleep uploading pictures onto my post last night, so I should do that now before history repeats itself. 

Ciao,
Shea

PS:  Wondering where I am?


Visit: http://webcam.oregonstate.edu/wecoma/

This shows where we are, and also has a live webcam feed (which isn't very exciting in my view- just a bunch of water!)

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

Day Two

I'm just about to reach the end of Day 2 (okay, well officially Day One at sea) and boy am I tired! Your body really has to work to get used to being on a ship, even though you may not be thinking about it. I have had much more caffeine than usual today and am hardly feeling it.

This morning we went through a quick safety training/drill and then did a practice run with the CTD rosette (CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth). Essentially, we can deploy a set of automated bottles at any depth we want, and program to open and shut automatically. Then after a short while, we can bring these back onto the ship, and collect the water from them. Of specific interest to researchers on our ship are levels of nutrients and chlorophyll, pH, salinity, zooplankton and phytoplankton tiny plants and animals), and sediment.

CTD Equipment at Port

Our first real CTD casting will be tomorrow around 6:30AM, so I'll be sleeping at that point. However, I'll get to do a couple of collections tomorrow. By the evening, we should be in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary in northern Washington state.

The food was excellent all day - lunch was a tuna melt sandwich, and we even had a prime rib roast for dinner with baked potatoes!

Well, it's time to run another sample! We are running unfiltered sea water through the system every hour, as well as another automated system every 20 minutes...just enough to keep busy all shift!

More tomorrow, and photos later,
Shea

Day One - Wow!

So here we are...day one!

I woke up this morning and drove to Newport with absolutely no idea what to expect! We arrived and I finally realized how HUGE the Wecoma is (185 feet) compared to my old favorite, the Elahka (52 feet).

We spent most of the day in organized chaos unpacking gear and wandering around trying to stay out of the way, so there isn't too much to report on the event front. I finally got all set up in my bunk, which is quite cozy but functional- there are two bunk beds, 2 wardrobes, and a shared bathroom. I have three roommates, one of which is from OSU (Anne), one from Baja, Mexico (Anna), and a Swiss student (Claudine).  Three of us are graduate students and Anne is an undergrad in environmental engineering. 

Tight Quarters!

I got the full tour of the ship today, and was impressed to find that the ship has a wet lab, dry lab, full galley, dining area (which resembles a cute cafe!), walk-in freezers, a library area with lots of DVDs and books, as well as a television, 2 washer/dryers, and perhaps most importantly, a 24-hour salad bar and fully-stocked ice cream cooler.  Coffee is also available 24/7, which is great for those 12-hour shifts.

Lounge Room w/ TV, DVDs and Book Library

The crew is all very nice and welcoming of questions and chatting, which is wonderful.  I couldn't believe how accommodating and patient (!) they all seem to be with those of us who aren't familiar with ship ops.

Dining Area

This is shaping up to be an awesome journey, and I can't wait until we launch tomorrow morning! I will keep this updated as much as possible, and upload photos as we go if we have good enough internet access.  Ciao!

Galley (Salad bar is in bottom left of picture)