NOAA Teacher at Sea
Karen Meyers & Alexa Carey
Onboard NOAA Ship Albatross IV
August 15 – September 1, 2006
Mission: Ecosystem Monitoring
Geographical Area: Northeast U.S.
Date: August 15, 2006
Science and Technology Log
We’re still at the dock in Woods Hole. NOAA inspectors delayed the ALBATROSS IV’s departure for a day. We’re due to leave at 2 p.m. today. Weather is overcast and windy.
The science crew consists of Jerry Prezioso, Chief Scientist, who is from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service; Jon Hare, also of NMFS; Don Cobb of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Barbara Sherman, who is a secretary at EPA in Narragansett and is out for a week as a volunteer; Carly Blair, a graduate student from URI; Alexa Carey, a student from Gold Beach, OR; Tamara Brown, a middle school teacher from Teaneck, NJ; and me. I’ve met most but not all of the ship’s crew. There are three NOAA Corps officers: Ensign Chad Meckley, Ensign Chris Daniels and Ensign Chris Skapin. We learned that the NOAA Corps is the seventh branch of the uniformed services, responsible for operating NOAA’s ships and planes.
The plan is to cruise south, perhaps as far as Cape Hatteras. NMFS will be doing plankton tows and testing a video camera for surveying plankton. EPA is taking water samples to test for a variety of nutrients and sediment samples to test for heavy metals and benthic organisms. We’ll come back to WH on 8/23 to exchange personnel and then head north up to the Gulf of Maine and possibly as far as the Bay of Fundy near Nova Scotia, Canada.
