As an artist in residence, (upon invitation from Jennifer Miksis-Olds, and Kristina  Durocher, the curator at the Art Museum at UNH, where I have several large sculptures on exhibit) my role is somewhat unusual, to say the least. I’ve been incorporated into the scientific process on the ship, rather than being left to my own devices, which is what happens at most artist residencies.

Hello everyone! My name is Carmen Lawrence, a project scientist at JASCO Applied Sciences. My primary focus during this cruise is the successful retrieval, refurbishment, and deployment of our acoustic monitoring stations, “landers”, at each of the seven stations.

At 16:07 yesterday, we were leaned over the bow to watch a dozen bottlenose dolphins leap through the waves. They jumped and splashed around as they rode our bow, and I felt as if we were engaged in an interspecies race. We stand watch for marine mammals all day when we’re on station, and these dolphins have certainly been the star of the show. Meanwhile, we’ve been pulling up some other cool animals in unexpected places.

It is night three of our cruise on the RV Armstrong! As a member of this ship’s night watch, I am writing this dark and early at 3:00 am. Fortunately, it took surprisingly little time to adjust my sleep schedule to the night shift. This is probably a good thing because we have been hard at work the last few nights with zooplankton sampling, tows, and acoustic surveys.