Dec 06 – Sailing Southward
So we’re traveling south to our first lander site off the coast of North Carolina and have a fairly long steam ahead of us. Thankfully, we’ve managed to let the big nor’Easter pass through us, but we’ve still got some lumpy seas (much like mashed potatoes, lumps in the seas are not ideal) ahead.
My job on this trip is to monitor the ship’s echosounder system which allows us see where the fish and zooplankton are in the ocean and get an idea of their relative abundance. We also use two different types of nets to get samples of the small (and bizarre) creatures that exist in this mesopelagic world. More on that later though.
The initial few days aboard the vessel are a bizarre mix of unpacking your equipment and clothes, securing everything in the lab and in your room so that the lumps don’t cause any unforeseen issues, and learning about life on a research ship. My roommate is Grant (who you’ll meet in a later blog) – it’s his first ocean research trip and this is somewhere around my ~80th, so I get to provide sage advice like “Don’t let your toothbrush fall into the toilet” (which actually isn’t a problem on the RV Armstrong as the sinks and heads (ship toilets) are in separate areas – but has been an issue once or twice on previous cruises I’ve been on).
More details later on the science we’re doing on this trip – and for my MAR 352 students who have a final exam this week – you may want to research which saxophonist took “Giant Steps” forward in the bop jazz movement. (a non-subtle bonus question hint).
Joe Warren, Stony Brook University
