NOAA Teacher at Sea
Julia Harvey
Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson (NOAA Ship Tracker)
July 22 – August 10, 2013
Mission: Walleye Pollock Survey
Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska
Date: 8/8/13
Weather Data from the Bridge (as of 17:00 Alaska Time):
Wind Speed: 15.72 knots
Temperature: 13.4 C
Humidity: 73%
Barometric Pressure: 1012.1 mb
Science and Technology Log:
We came. We fished. We measured, counted and weighed. Now What? We completed one last trawl on Tuesday night (August 6th). When we finished we had caught over 65,000 walleye pollock and a whole lot of POP (Pacific ocean perch) on this leg of the survey.
The scientists now process and analyze the data.
Darin and Patrick will present at a public meeting when we are back in Kodiak on Friday. They will discuss what was seen and preliminary findings of the walleye pollock survey. Back in Seattle the MACE team will further evaluate the data along with data from the bottom trawl survey and determine the walleye pollock biomass for the Gulf of Alaska. This will then be taken under advisement by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
There is also the lab to clean. Even though we cleaned the lab after each trawl, it needed a good scrub down. There were scales and slime hidden everywhere. Just when you thought you were done, more scales were discovered.
Did You Know?
The note on the white board stated that there will be beam seas tonight. What does that really mean? It means the waves are moving in a direction roughly 90° from our heading. So the water will be hitting us at a right angle to our keel. It will be a rocking boat tonight.
Darin took a sample of the salmon shark’s fin when we caught it. It will be sent to a scientist in Juneau who works at Auke Bay Laboratories (where Jodi works). The sample will be used to examine the population genetics of the salmon shark and other species such as the Pacific sleeper shark.
Personal Log:
In my first blog, I wrote about a childhood dream of becoming an oceanographer. After my third year of teaching in the Peace Corps, I decided education was my new direction. I was excited to taste that bygone dream aboard the Oscar Dyson. How do I feel now? I jokingly sent an email to my assistant principal telling her to look for a new science teacher because I love life at sea. I love collecting data in the field. Although I was not responsible for analyzing the data and I do miss my boys, I had an awesome cruise. So where does that leave me?
It leaves me back in the classroom with an amazing sea voyage experience to share with my students. I will always long for that oceanographic career that could have been. But perhaps after my experience, I will inspire future oceanographers and fisheries scientists. And I would do Teacher at Sea again in a heartbeat. I will follow up with the outcomes and biomass estimates from MACE (Mid-Water Assessment & Conservation Engineering) and I will most definitely follow Jodi’s research on the use of multibeam sonar for seafloor mapping.
I want to say thank you to everyone who made my experience one of the best of my life and definitely the best professional development of my career. Thank you to Jennifer Hammond, Elizabeth McMahon, Jennifer Annetta, Emily Susko and Robert Ostheimer for the opportunity to participate in the NOAA Teacher at Sea Program. Thank you to NOAA for developing a practical and realistic opportunity to connect my students to ocean science. Thank you to the science team (Chief Scientist Patrick Ressler, Darin Jones, Paul Walline, Jodi Pirtle, Kirsten Simonsen, and Abigale McCarthy) aboard the Oscar Dyson for their willingness to train me, answer all of my questions, preview my blogs, and to allow me have a glimpse of their lives as scientists. Thank you to Patrick Ressler and XO Chris Skapin for promptly providing feedback on my blogs. And a special thanks to the night shift crew (Jodi, Paul and Darin). I was very nervous about adjusting to my work hours (4 pm to 4 am) especially after falling asleep that first night, but I am very grateful for colleagues who were fascinating and night-time enjoyable. Chats with everyone aboard the Oscar Dyson from fishermen to NOAA Corps to engineers to stewards to scientists were educational and pleasant. I met lots of people from all over the U.S. and some just from Newport (2 hours from Eugene).
WOW. How fortunate was I to be chosen? I am nearly speechless about what I saw and what I did. What a mind blowing three weeks. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
Now I begin the transition of living during daylight hours.
I hope everyone was able to sample a little of my adventure. I appreciate everyone who followed my blog especially Camas Country Mill folks.
