13 Aug 2012 - Back on Land...

[Ed: We'll have a few follow-up posts about the cruise now that we're back on land.]

Lots of Data!

Hello!

Well the cruise is over, the equipment is packed, and the data binder is tucked safely in my backpack! We just have a couple more days in Oregon and then it's back to Long Island! I am happy to report that we titrated 1,524 organisms on this cruise! This means I have a lot of data analysis to do when I get home! I wanted to explain how we use our titration data to calculate an organism's density since it was never fully explained earlier. When titrating, we record the amount of seawater and glycerin mix that was added to make the organisms become neutrally buoyant, as well as the temperature and salinity of the seawater. We use the temperature and salinity to calculate the density of seawater. The density of the glycerin mix is calculated from the density of glycerin and the density of seawater. We then use these values in the following equation to calculate the animal's density.

Animal Density = ( (Seawater Density * Seawater Volume) + (Mix Density * Mix Volume))/(Seawater Volume + Mix Volume)

We can then use the animal's density in a model that helps us understand how these animals scatter sound. This information can allow us to use acoustic data to make estimates about how many animals are in the water column.

It was such a great cruise and I have enjoyed being a tourist and getting to see some of Oregon before our trek back to Long Island. With over 1500 organisms measured, I'm predicting a very busy semester filled with data analysis!!

Until our next cruise.

Kaylyn

The ALES team on the bow of the Oceanus! Photo credit: Kelly Benoit-Bird

Steph and I busy at collecting data! We each titrated over 600 organisms!! Photo credit: Dezhang Chu.

We spotted some California sea lions in Newport when we went to lunch after we got off of the boat!!

07 Aug 2012 - Titration Song

Hello Everyone!!

So over the past couple days we have been really busy because we are doing five net (IKMT) tows a day! This is exciting because we get to see so many more organisms from the deep ocean, but it also means we have that many more organisms to titrate!

A large Dragon Fish!

A huge jelly fish we pulled up in the net. Thankfully we didn't have to try to titrate that!

A Hatchet Fish! One of my favorites!

Titrating isn't that bad, but it's tedious. When you do it for hours at a time you can get sick of it really fast. To try and pass the time I started writing/singing a song about it. Soon Stephanie, Emily, and Neal chimed in, and this is what we came up with.

“Don't Stop Titratin' ”
(to the tune of Jouney's famous song “Don't Stop Believin' ”)

Just a small town Hake,

Swimmin' in a giant ocean,

Took the IKMT,

and traveled at four knots.

Just a city squid

Born and raised in the mesopelagic,

Took the IKMT

and traveled at four knots.

A scientist in an empty room,

The smell of glycerin and rotting fish,

Will they sink, or will they float,

It goes on and on and on and oooonnn

Don't stop titrating

Hold on to that beaker

Seawater, glycerin mix, Oh Oh Ohhhhh!

Don't Stop titrating!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed our song.! We have titrated over 1400 organisms on this trip! I better get going because we have the first net of the day coming in!

Kaylyn

06 Aug 2012 - Lots of krill

So our luck in catching squid and hake appears to have run out, however we still are catching lots of stuff in our net tows.

By far the most common critters we catch are krill.  Krill are always described as "shrimp-like" animals, but they aren't shrimp (although they do look similar). We've been catching Euphausia pacifica, an animal that's between 1-3 cm in length and serves as the base of the food chain out here with fish and higher predators (whales, seabirds, etc) eating lots and lots of krill.

This catch contains probably more than 100,000 individual krill.

These krill have been eating pretty well as you can tell by their green/brown stomachs which indicate that there's lots of phytoplankton (small ocean plants) in the water column.

The team (Kaylyn, Stephanie, and Emily) have been titrating a lot of animals on this trip (when I say titrate, I mean measuring the density of the animal relative to the density of seawater).  This is an important property which helps us estimate how much sound these animals scatter.  Despite the loss of all our gear before the cruise and only having one working titration set-up (we'd packed two), they've set a new record (for my lab) in number of individuals measured. We're currently at ~ 1100 individuals, although we've got several more tows to come so who knows how many we'll end up with.  Despite this huge number of measurements, Kaylyn is still smiling.

Titration is fun !

The other animal we've caught a lot of in our nets are myctophids.  We've been doing a lot of different measurements on these guys, measuring their lengths, heights, and widths. Dissecting them to locate and measure their swim bladders (an air or wax filled organ in the animal that helps it control its buoyancy), and even dissecting out the myctophids otoliths (very very tiny ear bones that help identify the animal (when they're found in predator scat) or identifying where the animals live via isotope chemistry (not something we're doing).  The OSU group has very adeptly shifted from rod and reel fishing for larger fish and squid, to taking apart small fish.

Who knew junior high cafeteria trays were so useful on a research cruise.  Dave, Neal, and Aaron (top to bottom) and the remnants of one of the tows.

We're on the home stretch now.  Back on shore on friday.
Joe

05 Aug 2012 - Mrs. Burger Would be Proud

[Ed: Somehow this post didn't go up when it was supposed. I blame user (joe) error. Sorry about that.]

Or not. But I do think she’d be miiiiiighty impressed.

Besides phromina, there are a lot of other neat organisms in the ocean.

Team Trainwreck (what we sometimes call ourselves in the lab in memory of certain events), just in our studies, have specifically been looking at myctophids (lantern fish), krill, shrimp, juvenile squid, siphonophores, cheatognaths, amphipods.

Today I came across a deep sea friend with which I go way back.

…the Dragonfish.

Today’s big dragonfish find! A male? Ooooooooh eerie eyessss. Photo by Emily Markowitz.

Back a long, long time ago when the world was young, a fledgling high school Emily was in the midst of a very big decision. She had to decide whether to go to a science school and pursue her interest of the deep sea or to undertake a fine arts degree so she could appreciate them for their amazing portrait.

OK, so it was a little over a year ago, but still…

In the build up for this great life changing decision, Emily was taking a variety of science classes as well as Mrs. Burger’s AP Studio Art. Our concentration portfolio had to include 12 pieces and a common theme. I choose deep sea marine life.

My rendering of a dragon fish from when high schoolers roamed the earth. Watercolors by Emily Markowitz, 2011

Back then, my renderings were inspired by The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvian (Check out: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/nouvian/index.html, too bad I don’t see my original dragonfish there). It’s funny to think that now, as turn of events would have it, I’ve now seen some of them in real life.

The dragon fish above may not look too similar to my ‘interpretation,’ but this larval dragon fish may give a better representation…

 Still not clicking for you? Oh well, I guess that’s why I choose science. Photo by Emily Markowitz.

The dragon fish, for all their visual worth, have no really cool story (or at least that I know of) to tell like Phronima does. According to fishbase.org, the order etymology of Stomiiformes means “mouth-shape” (stoma is Greek for mouth and forma is Latin for shape)… which is pretty self explanatory.

Until next time,

Em

Post script: NOM

Mouth of a larval dragonfish. Photo by Emily Markowitz

04 Aug 2012 - The Crew

Since we have been doing the same thing every day for a week now, I figured you might be tired of all the titration business… So I’m going to introduce you to some of the crew here on the Oceanus!! Since we have the night shift it is mostly always quiet and lonely because everyone else is sleeping (except tonight, tonight the lab is hoppin’ with scientists measuring myctophids!), we had the pleasure of getting to know some of the crew since there are always people up on watch on the boat. First thing we do when we wake up is head for food… obvious.

In the kitchen are two of my favourite people! Kris and Taylor! Kris probably takes the cake for my most favorite person on the ship, not just because he makes the best food ever, but because he really cares about us! Every single meal there is a “gluten-free” option for myself since I am intolerant. But it is so much more than that! He gets up around 11pm every night and makes us a midnight snack, and by snack I mean delicious meal! Last night there was pizza and it was fantastic. Now for my favorite part of the day, BREAKFAST. Seriously every single day there is a fantastic breakfast ready for us when we’re done working. We’ve even been given the choice for breakfast since we’re pretty much the only ones who ever come to breakfast… and our favorite breakfast is French toast. Seriously, I don’t know how he does it but it is the best breakfast I have ever eaten, and he even takes the time to bring it over to us at the table where we are eagerly waiting and giggling (as soon as the sky turns blue we get really really hyper and excited for breakfast), he even brings over the maple syrup! REALLY? He is awesome. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with him a while too during breaks and what not and he is such a down to earth person who also happens to love Zac Brown Band! We really appreciate everything he does for us out here; the cruise would not be the same without him!

Kris and I hanging in the kitchen.

Now Taylor, AKA Taylor Swift, his partner in crime also works in the kitchen helping him cook and clean and such, he’s a good guy. Taylor is trying to learn Spanish, so what do we do? Speak to him in Spanish… or try to since we’re a little rusty, Kaylyn is much better than I am but it is still fun.

Now when we are titrating for hours on end we always are greeted by visitors passing through as they make their rounds about the boat. A few I have had the pleasure of getting to know. First, there is Marc, he is one of the crew I’m not sure really what his job is [Ed: Marc's an AB (able-bodied seaman) meaning he does a little bit of everything on the ship.], but he can be found fixing things on the boat and making the rounds to see that everything is a o k! Marc has two beautiful 6 month old twins and he always has pictures of them to show us, they are seriously the cutest little things ever! Makenna and Caleb, Caleb always smiling and laughing in every single picture Marc shows us and the little girl is known as “miss moody” she is quite the character, and is always dressed in the cutest little outfits! Marc is also really helpful when we have questions or want to go out on the bow of the boat in 8 ft seas. He is always there when you need him!

Marc!

Another frequent visitor is Jay he’s the engineer (pronunciation of engineer: ang –in- eer), he was in the Navy for a while and is a very entertaining part of the crew he always makes me laugh! He loves Jimmy Buffet as much as I do and amphi-amphi-amphi-amphipods! When you’re feeling down he will always bring a smile to your face no matter what.

Then there is the Captain, Jeff, he is usually hidden away in the bridge or somewhere but when he is about he is really funny! Kaylyn and I went up to the bridge one night to check it out and he gave us the rundown on some of the equipment, but then we saw on the camera that they caught a squid so we hurried downstairs to see the catch. But anyways, he is a great guy.

Well that’s it for now! I will report back with more later.

Steph

03 Aug 2012 - The Perks of the Night Shift

Hello Everyone!

Kaylyn here, currently trying to type without falling off my chair. We're in 8-10 foot seas right now and the boat is pitching and rolling. I think it's fun because it feels like a roller coaster! I love looking out the port holes for when a big wave comes up and splashes them because it looks like a washing machine.

Anyways, it's 5pm and it's my morning because the rest of the titration team and I have been working the night shift. This is because we usually do two net tows, one at a 6pm and another at midnight. Even though we are getting much faster at measuring the density of the organisms (Steph did 20 krill in about 5 minutes this morning), it still takes awhile so we end up working until 6am. I know this sounds awful., but it's really not that bad once you get used to it, and there actually are some perks! I have decided to outline the top three for you.

The first perk is that since everyone usually goes to bed around 2 am, so from 2 until 6am we have the lab to ourselves. This gives us free range to play whatever music we want to, and be silly! Steph even did some Zumba in the lab this morning. I'm sure this doesn't sound like much to you guys, but when you are titrating for several hours good music and some silliness helps the time pass more quickly.

The second perk of the night shift is that we get to see the sun rise and set every single day. There is nothing more beautiful than a gorgeous sunrise or sunset when you're out on the ocean.

 Sunset through the porthole.

 Me and a beautiful Pacific coast sunrise.

Honestly, the number one perk of the night shift is breakfast. Most of the time Steph and I are the only ones who show up for breakfast because the rest of the science party is still sleeping. Because of this, we have been able to choose what Chef Kris serves for breakfast. So far, his french toast is our favorite! The best french toast we have ever tasted!!

So happy about my delicious breakfast! Thanks Kris!

Well, I better get ready because I'm sure we will be doing a net tow soon!

Bye for now!

Kaylyn

02 August 2012 - Meet the Humboldt Squid !

One of the target species we're looking for out here is the Humboldt squid.  They can be tricky to catch, particularly from an oceanographic research vessel which isn't designed to trawl large nets or long-line fish.  However, last night we had success with rod-and-reel fishing (albeit really fancy reels) targeting fish that were somewhere between 70-100 m depth.  We've been fishing like this as part of our regular station operations trying to catch hake or squid (depending on where we are and what time of the day it is).

We (the royal "we" meaning Kelly Benoit-Bird's group from Oregon State)  have three fishing stations on the port side of the back deck.

They use a lure/jig with a series of sharp hooks such that if the squid encounters it, it gets hooked on the barbs and as the reel pulls the squid back to the surface, it can't escape.

This animal still has lots of energy even out of water. When we first pulled it out, it was inking/squirting everywhere.

The Humboldt squid we caught last night is on the small side (they can be 5' long).  Kelly's past research has measured how much sound these animals scatter, but we don't know exactly what part(s) of the animal cause the acoustic scattering. If we can figure that out, then we (scientists) would be better able to measure their presence and abundance in the ocean.  These animals have started to show up along the Western coast of the United States more regularly (and over larger areas) over the past decade. The change in their distribution may be related to environmental factors such as changes in water temperature or oxygen levels which may expand or reduce their preferred habitat areas.

Various parts of the squid that we are measuring.

Our group is responsible for measuring the material properties of the different parts of the squid which will help us to better understand their acoustic scattering characteristics. We measure the density and the soundspeed of the various tissues and organs.  In order to get these pieces, we dissect the animal and then measure different parts of it. For this squid, we did measurements on its mantle (body tissue), arms, eye, brain case (i.e. the cartilaginous skull), the pen (which helps make the animal rigid), and the beak.

A dissected myctophid, the balloon-like structure in its body cavity is its swimbladder (probably over-inflated due to us bringing it up from depth). Other internal organs have been removed so we can measure the swimbladder.

In addition to the squid, we've been examining other animals we catch in the net (as you've seen previously). One of the most interesting animals we catch regularly are myctophids which are small fish that spend most of their time in the middle of the ocean (i.e. hundreds of meters deep). These animals were first observed (acoustically) over 60 years ago, and we still know very little about them. They have a swim-bladder (an air or wax filled organ) inside of them which 1) helps them maintain their buoyancy in the water column and 2) scatters a lot of acoustic energy. We've been dissecting the animals that we catch and measuring their swim bladders to better understand our acoustic backscatter data.


We've been busy the past few days with lots of measurements and Chad just caught a hake (on a squid jig) so it's back to the wet lab.


Joe

01 August 2012 - ALIENS! ALIENS EVERYWHERE!

As we travel the shelf off the west coast in our tireless quest of the deep sea for north pacific hake and Humboldt squid, we have met many sophisticated and diverse critters. We have come across all sorts of life from larval fish to ctenophores to chaetognaths to snow crab zoea to shrimp parasites to juvenile octopus and squid (my favorite!). It is amazing to think that the deep ocean – a place that few have really seen - has such an amazing array of life. As we take up new net tows for analyzing, one of my main jobs has been sorting the different organisms for our density-titration experiments.

MEEP that’s a lot! Photo by Emily Markowitz

In my humble opinion, the neatest organisms we have come across is this amphipod…

RHHHHHAAAAAAA! ATTTAAAACCCKKKKKKK!!!! Photo by Emily Markowitz

Does she look familiar? She might… the amphipod or a close relative of the amphipod above in the Phronima sp. is said to be the inspiration for James Cameron’s Alien in the movie “Aliens,” 1986. I can understand why they chose this critter! Amphipods are incredibly hardy, lively and have fast-snatching claws so they can prey on smaller invertebrates and amphipods (as well as decaying material). For more info, check out: http://arthropoda.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/did-phronima-inspire-the-design-of-the-alien-queen/ and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/

The funny thing about this inspiration is that, while the Aliens on the screen are so big… This Phronima was only 27 mm in length! Now imagine that most other amphipods are much smaller and many can’t really be seen by the naked eye!

But honestly, the coolest thing about this gal is her relationship with another deep sea organism, the tunicate.

Bet you can’t find me! Photo by Emily Markowitz

Oh, OK. Fine then. You got me! Welcome to my tunicate home! Photo by Emily Markowitz

They have a parasitic relationship which is apparently very common among these two species. In it, the female amphipod finds a free floating tunicate and devours the inside tissue. She uses it as a home to lay her eggs. The orange dots in the walls of the tunicate are her developing young’ins!

This is just one of the interesting organisms we have pulled up in our net tows.

More later!

Em

31 July 2012 - Titration Playlist

I am the titration master, there is no question about it, my skills are said to even rival those of the almighty Joe. Totally kidding… but my titration skills have drastically improved since the beginning of this cruise! I believe the last time I ever titrated something before this cruise/internship was in chemistry 101 my freshman year of college... needless to say it took a little bit for me to get back into the swing of things, and the way we titrate materials is COMPLETELY different to titration in chemistry 101. We start out with the titration apparatus; which consists of two/three burets depending on what is needed for the titration, two beakers, tweezers, a stirring rod, a white background, a ruler, and a camera. We then fill the burets with sea water and a 50/50 sea water/glycerin mix. If the organisms are alive, we have to anesthetize them, and we do this by a beaker full of sea water and half an alkaseltzer tablet. This knocks them right out (with one exception…see below)! The glycerin used is denser than the sea water and by combining the two by the right amount we can make different organisms suspend neutrally buoyant in the mix. This is then used to somehow find the density of the organism… I have yet to truly figure out how that works but that’s for another time, for now more on titration.

So, now that you have an idea about titration, I will tell you which organisms you should avoid at all costs because they will literally leave you in the fetal position in a corner…

This is during the crab zoea titration, Kaylyn had to come to the rescue.

These organisms are in order from fetal position in a corner to OH MY GOSH I LOVE THESE THEY ARE SO COOPERATIVE:

Crab Zoea (Baby Crabs) – these guys can survive the apocalypse I swear… two alka-seltzer tablets later they were still zooming around the beaker…

Fish Larvae – require freshwater and sometimes their swim bladder popped… I didn’t realize this until probably an hour and a headache into the process

Fish Parts - these are messy and smell and sometimes uncooperative

Chaetognaths – they remind me of tapeworms and I have nightmares about them

Siphonophores – AKA the invisible organism…

Squid – They are super cute but temperamental

Shrimp – They are not half bad

Krill – currently my favourite because they all seem to have the same density

Amphipods – I haven’t titrated too many of these, but they are FREAKING COOL

So that’s my list from extreme hatred to love to titrate!

This titrating business isn’t all fun and games of course; it definitely takes a toll on you! We have the lucky bucket which we plant ourselves on to achieve desired height off the ground, but this is not enough, and we are forced to extend our arms up in the air to reach the table, and last night (or morning since I’m now nocturnal) I woke up from a titration dream and my arms were extended above my head in the perfect titration position!

Kaylyn in perfect titration position.

I have titrated over 220 organisms to neutral buoyancy on this trip so far and we are only a week in! My goal is to titrate 500 organisms or more on this cruise. Well I have to go work on that! Later Gator!

Steph

30 July 2012 - Meet Frank!

Hello!

Unfortunately we still haven't caught any Pacific Hake or Humboldt Squid, but we have caught many of other neat organisms in our net tows. Most of our net tows have consisted of krill, shrimp, amphipods, chaetognaths, and larval fish.

A huge amphipod we found in our net. Most of the amphipods I have seen are about the size of a grain of rice, so you can imagine my surprise when we found one this big!

It has been really great to see the great variety of the zooplankton out here, but a couple nights ago, we were caught by surprise when we found that there was a large eel-like animal in our net! Once we were able to get it into a tub we could see that it wasn't an eel at all. It was, in fact, a Lamprey! For those of you that don't know, lampreys are parasitic animals that attach to other fish and suck their blood. Even though I knew this, I thought the one we caught was kinda cute (in an ugly kind of way).I soon named him Frank, Why Frank you ask? Well, because he looked like a Frank of course!

See! He is kinda cute!!

Joe successfully transferring Frank into a bucket. Look at Frank's ring of teeth! Awesome!

Soon the name caught on, and I started the release Frank campaign. Joe took some convincing because he thought he would look pretty cool in a jar in his office, but soon the decision was made that we should let him go! I was very relieved, and I readily volunteered to release him. I am happy to report that Frank is now happily swimming in the ocean again!

 I was so happy to release him back to the ocean! Nice to meet you Frank!

Well, I better go back to work!

-Kaylyn

29 July 2012 - Fishing and Sunshine

So while the weather so far on this trip has been great, we've had less luck with the fish and squid showing up where we'd like them. Part of this project involves us capturing hake and squid and since we can't trawl from this ship, the Oregon State group has rods and reels to fish for them. So far we haven't had any luck with this since the fish have been very deep (~ 300 m or so).  But we did have some luck yesterday during our survey with one of our scientists doing a bit of recreational trolling and he caught a 25 lb albacore tuna (which is on the menu for tonight).

Aaron, a scientist from OSU, caught this albacore yesterday. It's on the menu for dinner tonight.

This cruise is a bit of a reunion for me with our ship, the RV Oceanus.  The Oceanus used to be operated and located at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution which is where I went to grad school. So I sailed on two cruises on the Oceanus in the late 90s.  The Oceanus is now operated by Oregon State (they even painted the stack Orange and Brown!) so it's been fun to be back on the same ship a decade later.

The RV Oceanus at the dock here in Newport. It's  ~ 175 feet in length, has a crew of  ~ 12 and 10 scientists are onboard this trip.

As part of going to sea, we go through a series of safety drills if we ever needed to abandon ship (for all the mom's reading this blog, this is a very very unlikely event).  One of the safety features are immersion suits (sometimes called Gumby suits) which are neoprene suits that provide floatation and warmth in case you had to get off the Oceanus. It takes a little practice to figure out how to put them on so as part of the ship orientation, everybody tries one on.

Emily,(no really, that's Emily. I'm sure of it.) successfully in her Gumby suit.

That's it for now,

Joe

27 July 2012 - Hit the ground running

Howdy-day!

Today closes our first full day on the ship out at sea. While we may only be over 400m depth and just close enough to see the tall mountains in Oregon, we have already finished calibrating all of the echo-sounder equipment,

With the echo sounder readings we can determine where things are in the water column, how many organisms there are, and what they might be. Photo by Emily Markowitz

taken two CTD casts,

Retrieving the Conductivity Temperature Depth sensor. The CTD creates a profile of the water column that is documented on a computer onboard. Bottles inside the cage can (though we aren’t using them this trip) be used to take water samples at different depths so further water quality measurements can be made. Photo by Emily Markowitz

and three IKMT net tows.

We are nearly done with sorting, titrating and documenting our latest catch! Photos by Emily Markowitz

One of the goals of this cruise has been to gain a better understanding of the differences of Target Strength between squid and hake. Though we haven’t been able to catch any of either yet, the net tows provide an interesting demographic of the ocean’s water column and a welcome back-up plan in case we don’t find enough of either organism to collect data with.

The weather here is surprisingly calm and sunny despite the west coast’s characteristic overcast. This has made it so much easier to drop our bags off in the state rooms, learn our way around the vessel and basic data collection procedures. Nothing lasts forever though - we still have a little over 2 weeks ahead of us and we’ve been told it will become a little choppier after Monday!

Cheers,

Em

27 July 2012 - Sharks and Zoops

Hello from somewhere in the Pacific Ocean!! Today is day three of the cruise and so far it has been a blast, a ton of work of course but very exciting and fun at the same time. So far we have calibrated all the equipment, dropped a couple nets out, and sorted the contents of the net tows. We have come across numerous types of organisms; the first net tow gave us many medusa, jellies, and ctenophores along with a couple fish, some copepods and a krill or two. However, the net tow that came up yesterday provided us with many different organisms that were very foreign to me, we found some ctenophores, baby crabs, amphipods (some monster amphipods tossed in there), chaetognaths (which terrify me.. if you do not know what they are please google them… then cry about it), some large krill, a bunch of medium and small krill, more fish, about a dozen little squid and a baby octopus! Needless to say it was a pretty exciting catch for me haha. 

Product of the second net tow.

Now on to the most exciting part of the trip for me… WE SAW A BLUE SHARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Blue shark sighted 3 meters off the bow of the boat! VERY EXCITING

Ah one of my all-time favourite sharks! I had previously told one of the other scientists how badly I wanted to see whales/sharks/birds out on the water and he came rushing down early yesterday afternoon and told me to follow him to the bow of the boat, so I did and there off the bow was a 6 foot(ish) blue shark! Not even 3 meters away from the boat! Then we saw a few more further out either fighting or something who knows. But it was amazing. Well that’s all for now! Talk to you guys again soon (:

Stephanie Mincieli (AKA Blondie)

26 July 2012 - The Good and the Bad...

Hello! Kaylyn here, writing from the R/V Oceanus. We are currently in the search for Pacific Hake and Humboldt Squid (but more on that later). I wanted to fill everyone in on the hectic start to our cruise so far.

The Bad News:

On the morning of our first day in Oregon, Joe received a call that all of our cruise gear was lost due to a large train derailment in Montana. We had spent a week painstakingly packing everything we needed for our cruise, and now we find out three days before the start of the cruise that we now have no gear!

“R.I.P. Cruise Gear :(”

We were devastated, but we were not defeated! Over the next two days we ran around and tried to replace all of the necessary gear we need to carry out our experiments on the cruise. We needed everything from pencils and foul weather gear to titration equipment and aquarium pumps. We were able to acquire some of the more specific scientific gear from the other scientists on the cruise, but everything else we needed to buy. This consisted of going to two Walmarts, three Drug Stores, a Staples, a Marine Supply Shop, and a Home Depot. Surprisingly, we were able to acquire the essential gear we needed for the cruise. No train derailment can stop the ALES team!

 “Stephanie and I trying on our foul weather gear in the middle of Walmart”

The Good News:

After we had shipped our gear a couple of weeks ago, I had realized that I had forgotten to pack our mascot Wolfie! I didn't want to leave him behind, so I packed him in my suitcase. Thank goodness because he would have been lost with the rest of our gear! He is now happily sitting in the dry lab!

“Wolfie just chillin' with the graduated cylinders. “

-Kaylyn

25 July 2012 -- Off to an "interesting" start.

So the ALES lab is back on the road, heading to Newport, OR for a research cruise in the Pacific Ocean with collaborators from Oregon State University and the National Marine Fisheries Service. We'll be at sea for over two weeks looking for schools of hake (a fish) and Humboldt squid (as well as any other interesting creatures we can find). We'll talk more about what and why we're doing this as the blog progresses. We should have daily updates once I get my act together and start putting up the posts.


One of the logistical issues we have in doing a cruise on the west coast (being based in NY) is that we have to get ourselves and our gear to Oregon. Moving people is easy (flights, hotels, rental minivan) and normally shipping 700 lbs of gear is pretty easy as well.


But not this time as this picture from the Billings Gazette illustrates.

Yep, guess who had all his gear (mostly scientific equipment like computers, electronics, sample jars, nets, etc  but also a good chunk of the clothing I normally wear when I'm on a ship) destroyed in a train derailment.  Not a good time. What made this particularly aggravating was that the shipping company had told me TWICE that my boxes were not involved in the accident (which thankfully didn't injure any people, just cargo) and would just be delayed.  Instead on tuesday morning I was woken up (in the hotel at the Portland Airport) by the shipping company telling me that my stuff was a "total loss".


So several months of planning, several years of gear acquisition and development, and thousands of dollars were now gone. So what do you do ?  You call your collaborators and your fellow marine scientists spring into action.  Fortunately, colleagues of Kelly Benoit-Bird (our Chief Scientist) at Oregon State University and Dezhang Chu (the other PI on the cruise) at National Marine Fisheries Service were able to assist and between the 3 of us, our contacts, the generosity of our fellow scientists (and thousands of dollars spent in 36 hours at local hardware, plumbing, electronic, and general stores), we were able to get enough stuff to leave the dock on time on thursday.


We unfortunately won't be able to do everything we were hoping to accomplish on this cruise, but we should be able to complete our primary objectives (as long as the weather and the biology cooperate).


So we've had a bit of a rough start to this trip, but as you'll see in future blog posts the science will continue!
Joe Warren