The R/V Armstrong and her crew are no less than what I remember them to be from my last experience onboard two years ago for the first ADEON cruise: professional, timely, respectful, and wonderful. I am excited to be back for ADEON 4.0.

We left the dock early yesterday morning and have been trekking steadily southward towards our first station off the coast of Virginia all day and into the night. A storm system sitting just offshore of the eastern US is trying to throw a wrench into our plans, kicking waves up into 10 ft swells or more in some areas – not so fun conditions for getting our science done!

The ADEON Cruise 4 Science Crew includes Chief Scientist Dr. Joe Warren, 3 Research Scientists, 1 Artist, 9 graduate/undergraduate students, and me (Jennifer Miksis-Olds, Lead Principal Investigator of the ADEON project). This is our 4th project cruise out of 5.

And we are off to sea! The RV Armstrong left the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution dock this morning at 8:30am EST and we have begun our transit to our first science station down off the Virginia coast. This is the fourth cruise on the ADEON (Atlantic Deepwater Ecosystem Observatory Network) project. We have 7 sites along the continental shelf-break (where the water depth goes from ~ 200 m to 4000 m) from Virginia down to Florida where we have bottom landers that are sampling the environment and soundscapes continuously over the past year.

On behalf of all the science party, I would like to thank the Captain and crew of the ship for helping us to conduct our science in a safe and efficient manner.  The Endeavor will be retiring from active service in the UNOLS fleet in another year or two so this will likely be the last time I sail on it, but it was nice to get back on board after being on it as a grad student in the mid-90s.

It’s the last day on the RV Endeavor, and as much as we’re excited to escape the bad weather, it’s always bittersweet leaving sea. The past few weeks have flown by, and it’s been an exciting time learning science, and learning about our shipmates. All of us, especially on night shift, have gotten really close, and it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to them on land.

This is Hali Rederer writing my last blog aboard the RV Endeavor, ADEON cruise.  We are heading back to Narragansett, Rhode Island a few days early because of stormy weather and rough seas.

Not all of us are blessed with artistic abilities. In fact, you could easily mistake my stick figures for those drawn by a second grader – no insult intended to any second graders who may be reading. Since I am interested in studying how sound reflects off of different animals, understanding their shape, size, and other internal features is really important.

Another successful lander turnaround

Hi everyone. As you know, my primary role aboard the R/V Endeavor and ADEON cruise 3 has been to refurbish the landers and the equipment they support so they can be redeployed at the next station.

The past several days have been a flurry of activity to finish recovering and deploying the final acoustic landers before the weather gets bad. After successfully deploying our last lander yesterday (!!!) and getting in some last nighttime net tows, we are now in transit back to Narragansett, RI.