Hello Land Dwellers!  We’re down to the last week of our cruise, so we’re closing in on the last few stations for the ADEON project and about to start the JASON group’s portion of the cruise.  The ship should be in deep (2000+ m) water for their engineering dives which means we (the night watch) may have the chance to do some deep sea net tows.

I’ve been sailing on research cruises since 2008 as an operator of National Deep Submergence Facility vehicles such as Alvin, Sentry, and most recently the ROV Jason.  The job is challenging and satisfying, but there are some drawbacks.  For this job we give up a lot of time away from home, friends, and family to support science operations.  We live on a ship for up to two months at sea, sometimes over holidays.