NOAA Teacher at Sea
Melissa Barker
Aboard NOAA ship Oregon II
June 22-July 6
Mission: SEAMAP Groundfish Survey
Geographic Area of Cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: June 22, 2017
Weather Data from the Bridge: In port at Pier 21, Galveston, TX waiting out Tropical Storm Cindy.
Latitude: 29 18.61 N
Longitude: 94 47.56 W
Air temp: 28.8 C
Wind: gusty
Sky: overcast
Science and Technology Log
There is not a lot of science happening yet on the Oregon II. We are waiting out Tropical Storm Cindy that has made landfall on the gulf coast, so the science team has not yet arrived. The ship is pretty quiet with a few folks taking care of odds and ends. LT Reni Rydlewicz and ENS Chelsea Parrish welcomed me and showed me around the ship. Both officers took me to the bridge, the command center for the ship, to look at charts of where we will be sailing once underway.
I learned that we will be sampling at a set of randomly predetermined sampling stations in depths of 5-60 fathoms (fm). One fathom is equal to six feet, so we will be sampling at depths of 30-360 feet. We will use a 40-foot trawl and sample within 2.5 mile radius of the station locations. We will use paper and electronic charts to navigate our way from station to station. I’m looking forward to getting underway, hopefully on Friday evening.
Our sampling stations are highlighted in yellow on the electronic chart. All the dots are oil and gas locations. On the paper chart, the lines that look like roads are called fairways and are safe areas of navigation. The numbers are depths in feet. The Oregon II has a 15 foot draw, so we typically try to stay in water at least 35 feet deep. NOAA creates these charts and give frequent updates to the officers.
Personal Log
I’m making the most out of my time in Galveston and at port on the Oregon II. I spent some time learning my way around the ship. Take a tour of the Oregon II by watching my short video below. The video can also be accesses here.
While exploring around the downtown area, I realized that I am definitely not use to the 100% humidity that we are experiencing. It really makes me appreciate the dry heat at home, but I am glad that it stopped raining making my exploring slightly drier.
I visited the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling Rig Museum. The Ocean Star is an old jack-up rig that was decommissioned in 1984 and now serves as a museum to educate the public about exploring, drilling and producing offshore energy resources.
I had no idea how many rigs there are in the gulf and that much of the oil is transported back to the mainland via pipelines. As of 2008, there was over 27,000 miles of active oil and gas pipe in the gulf transporting nearly 200 million barrels of oil and 1 trillion cubic feet of gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “the Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 17% of total U.S. crude oil production.” And as of 2013, the oil production in the gulf exceeds 686 million barrels per year.
When rigs are decommissioned they can sometimes be converted into artificial reefs. According to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, as of July 2015, 470 platforms have been converted into permeant artificial reefs in the Gulf of Mexico. You can learn more about this program here and see a short video of how rigs are turned into reefs here.
Did You Know?
As we collect data, we will be transmitting realtime shrimp biological data to the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission (GSMFC) in Ocean Springs, MS. Often times it can take weeks, months and even years to process data from large scale scientific projects. The realtime data transmission allows the GSMFC to use the most current data to manage the fisheries effectively.
Dawson Sixth Grade Queries
What does your room look like? Where do you sleep? (Emma, Mia)
You can check out my video above to see my berth or stateroom as well as the rest of the Oregon II. My room is compact and uses space efficiently like everything on the ship. If I stand in the middle of the room and stretch my arms out I can touch the wall and cabinets at the same time. The other dimension (bed to far wall) is longer, roughly 8 feet with a little entry for the door. There is about enough room to do downward dog or warrior one, but not much else. With our 12 hour shifts, there is little time for hanging out, so sleeping is the main concern when in our staterooms and the bed is very comfortable.
How many people are on the boat? (Sylvia, Maylei)
Right now there are not many people on the ship, but when we hopefully set off on Friday evening we should have about 28 people total, including 10 in the science party and 18 officers, crew, engineers, fishermen, and stewards. Look for more information about the folks who live and work on the Oregon II in future posts.
what kind of shrimp are you studying?
Hello Aiden!
Thanks for the question. There are three commercial shrimp that we are sampling: brown, white and pink. So far we are catching almost entirely brown shrimp. We’ve only seen a few pink and no white yet. And if you want to impress your friends, you can use the scientific name for Brown Shrimp: Penes aztecus.