Ship Log 5/19/08
All is well at sea. No pirates, no scurvy and no one has yet gone overboard…
It’s 10:30 at night, and the lab is still bustling as people tend to their various experiments and get things organized for tomorrow. We just finished our evening lecture—given outside on the bow of the boat in the muggy, Bahamanian heat. The lecture was on the effects of pressure on deep-sea animals—it’s so cool to learn about animals and processes that we are seeing every day! Today is our sixth day at sea, and things are settling into a routine. It’s crazy that the routine involves submersible launches and snorkeling trips and seeing animals that most people don’t know exist! We do so many cool things, but do you know what we don’t do much? SLEEP! I was on the late shift last night for the CTD cast. We didn’t start the cast until just before 9pm. For the CTD cast, an apparatus with 24 bottles is lowered down to the deep ocean. I think you’ve probably heard about it in some of the other ship logs that we’ve sent to you. Do you remember that the CTD allows us to collect water from specific depths of the ocean? Well last night the CTD went deeper than any of our sub dives! It went deeper than 4,000 meters! And guess what went with it… Dozens of Styrofoam cups decorated by the amazing students of the southern Oregon coast! The cups are back on the boat. What do you think they look like now?
It takes a couple of hours to send the CTD down that far and bring it up again. Once it is back on board, it takes about two hours to process the water samples so they can be looked at later. I didn’t go to bed until after two in the morning! That might not seem too late to you, but keep in mind that breakfast is only served from 6:30-7:30 in the morning. And I like my breakfast.
Today there was a brief thunder and lightning storm. It never actually rained, but I stood on the back deck and watched dark clouds gather on the horizon. Tomorrow we snorkel in the morning and do another CTD cast in the afternoon. I was lucky enough to see a Nurse Shark the last time I went snorkeling, and Annie Pollard saw a Sting Ray. Maya Wolf and Sara Matthews are going down in the submersible. I can’t wait to hear about the animals they find!! I am so happy to be on this adventure. Every day we are out here, I am reminded that marine biologists have the coolest job in the world. Take care young scientists, you’ll hear from me again soon.
Katie Bennet.