Chloe Nunn here again from the R/V Endeavor. I am writing this at midnight, the end of my shift. I am unusual in that instead of having a 6-6 shift, I work noon to midnight, while today’s other blogger works midnight to noon. This means that I am fortunate enough to experience both night and day shift activities! However, I love carrying out hand-on oceanographic work, which means I find it very difficult to go to bed, at the end of a shift, when everyone around me gets to keep going with the exciting work. A 24 hour shift would be my dream, but sadly I am not a superhuman; I need to sleep.
My shift begins with a 2hr Marine Mammal Observation watch, followed by 2hrs of logging. As of yet I have not seen a marine mammal on watch. We keep a log of all activities of the science party on the ship. This is so that those using the data can go back to the events of the cruise and double check anything which may have impacted data collection. It is also helpful in the event that some metadata (weather, time, location, etc.) is lost for any particular activity. As the end of the day shift nears, I help with whatever needs to be done in cleaning up the lander for the next deployment (Image 1). When the night shift begins at 6pm I help with the pole mount which is used for the Fine- Scale Acoustic Surveys (FSAS). The instrument is attached to the side of the boat and can be lowered in and out of the water. It is an important piece of equipment, and we keep a watchful eye over it, especially in choppy weather. Following the FSAS, we deploy our nets to collect our biological samples.
A couple of days ago we were told that we may be able to see a rocket launch while we were off of the Florida coast. It was due to occur around 3am, at which time myself, and a few others went up to the flying bridge (platform above the captain’s pilot house) to see if we could watch the launch. Unfortunately, we didn’t, probably because we were too far north, but the stars were out in full form. Someone had rigged a couple of hammocks (Image 2) up there as well, so I stargazed for a while and was able to see many shooting stars.
Yesterday was hump day of the cruise. We are now officially closer to the end than the beginning. I will be sorry to see the end of this amazing experience, but might be excited to be on land after the expected bad weather later this week. Don’t worry though, you’ve got at least one more blog post from me before we dock in Rhode Island!
