NOAA Teacher at Sea
Alex Eilers
Onboard NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan
August 21 – September 5, 2008
Mission: Leatherback Sea Turtle Research
Geographical area of cruise: California
Date: August 21, 2008
Well I’ve arrived in San Diego safe and sound. The weather here is fantastic – warm, mostly sunny and a bit breezy. Let’s hope it stays like his throughout my time at sea. Here is a brief outline of how I’ve been preparing for the research cruise. I started the day at a LUTH survey orientation meeting. LUTH stands for Leatherback Use of Temperate Habitat. Lisa Ballance, the director of Protected Resources Division and Scott Benson, Chief Scientist welcomed the entire team. We spent the morning listening to the research planned for the trip and I was amazed at the amount of science to be conducted. This is going to be an exciting adventure. I must admit though – I’ve got some homework to do. I have to become more familiar with the acronyms the scientists are using, like CTD’s, TSG’s and especially XBT’s – because I have to load these this afternoon.
After lunch we piled in the vans and headed toward the ship to begin the loading process. My assignment was to load and store the XBT’s and help load the oceanographic equipment. And, I did my homework – I found out that the XBT stands for eXpendable BathyThermograph and they are used for the collection of oceanographic temperature data.
