NOAA Teacher at Sea: Tammy Orilio NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson Mission: Pollock Survey Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska Date: 2 July 2011
Personal Log:
Well, my trip has finally come to a close. It’s been an eventful 3 weeks and a great experience! I’d like to extend a big THANK YOU to everyone involved with NOAA’s Teacher at Sea program, which allowed me to participate in this wonderful excursion. I learned so much while on this trip, and I cannot wait to be able to use the information in my future classes. I almost said I couldn’t wait for school to start back up, but that’s not quite right- I’m just starting my summer vacation!!
Secondly, I’d like to thank the crew on the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson, and the scientists on this leg of the trip, for letting me come aboard and participate in this research survey. The time on board, whether working or waiting for fish, will stay with me forever!
Jason- thanks for being so easy to work with! I’m glad we were the “guinea pigs” for working on our logs together- I think it worked well! I’m glad I didn’t ruin the picture you bought by hitting that annoying child on the plane with it!
I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog, and I want to thank you for reading it! It feels great when I see my “Total Pageviews” going up and up 🙂 Dana Steel, thanks for answering all of my questions- correctly!!
Here are some last photos of the trip- I stole them from Jason’s blog (thanks!), and he got them from Paul, our Chief Scientist on the trip. This is what you get when you have a good camera. Thanks again, everyone!!
Fog/clouds in the Gulf of Alaska?? Who ever heard of such a thing?!?!
NOAA Teacher at Sea: Tammy Orilio NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson Mission: Pollock Survey Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska Date: 2 July 2011
Personal Log:
We arrived back at the City Dock in Kodiak early Wednesday morning, so I had all day Wednesday and most of Thursday to explore the area. One of the science team and I set off around noon on Wednesday to check out the town, and boy, did it feel good to finally be off the ship!! 18 days is a long time to be confined to one space! The area where the Oscar Dyson is docked is an “industrial” area, with lots of fish processing plants and canneries, and you could definitely tell even if you weren’t looking- the smell was that strong! Once we got past the industrial area, we were in the main part of the town of Kodiak- lots of little shops catering to fishermen, some restaurants, lots of bars, and a few little gift shops. We first went to a grocery store because we wanted to buy some candy (one thing we didn’t have on the ship!) and as soon as I got inside the store, I started feeling some “dock rock.” It didn’t last very long though, thank goodness!! We walked around a little more, then stopped in to the Kodiak Visitors Center, where they’ve got displays about all of Kodiak’s wildlife. A few of us went out to lunch for sushi later that day- you could definitely tell the salmon was fresh!! Later on, we went to a Mexican place for dinner, and I gotta say, Mexican is not very good up in Kodiak!
Big bear chase me! (Who knows the movie?)Mrs. Pearce used to work here!The marina.
On Thursday, Jason (the other TAS), Rick (one of the scientists) and I went to a place called Fort Abercrombie to do some hiking before we left later that evening. It’s got campsites, hiking trails, and remnants of World War II stuff there. I’d love to go back and camp there sometime!
Jason & Rick on some of the artillery.What an amazing view.It kind of looks like a monster with a big mouth.Clouds over the mountain.Lake Gertrude in the foreground.Little waterfall.
Jason and I were on the same flight out of Kodiak on Thursday evening, and we both also had a long (about 3 hour) layover in Anchorage, so we ate one last good Alaskan seafood dinner at the airport, and looked at some of the Native Alaskan art they had there. I left Anchorage around 9 p.m., and was unfortunately stuck in the middle seat for the LONG nearly 7-hour flight to Houston. Since I was stuck in the middle seat (and the guy next to me kept spreading his legs into MY space, grrrr) I didn’t sleep much on the flight. As soon as I landed in Houston (about 30 minutes later than scheduled), I had to get right on my last plane to Fort Lauderdale. I was back in the warm South Florida climate around 11 am Friday, and totally wiped out from traveling! Here are some of the last pics from my trip.
The Kodiak Airport. That’s all of it!You can see the Oscar Dyson- it’s the second ship from the left.The town of Kodiak.
NOAA Teacher at Sea: Tammy Orilio NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson Mission: Pollock Survey Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska Date: 29 June 2011
Weather Data from the Bridge:
Latitude: 58.01 N
Longitude: -152.50 W
Wind: 23.95 knots
Surface Water Temperature: 9.4 degrees C
Air Temperature: 10.8 degrees C
Relative Humidity: 71%
Depth: 177.72 m
Science & Technology Log:
What are krill, you ask? They’re animals in the Phylum Arthropoda, which means they’re related to insects, spiders, crabs, lobsters, etc. They have jointed legs and an exoskeleton, are usually a couple centimeters in length, and are reddish/orange-ish in color. They can often be found in dense schools near the surface of the water, and play an important role in the ecosystem as a source of food for lots of larger animals (like fish, whales, & penguins).
I’ve mentioned the two types of trawl gear that we use to catch fish, but if we want to catch smaller things like plankton, the mesh on those nets is way too small. Therefore, we use a third type of trawl called the Methot which has very fine mesh to corral the plankton down into a collection container at the end of the net. In addition to having a hard container at the end- as opposed to just a bag/codend that you see in the fish trawls- the Methot trawl also has a large metal frame at the beginning of the net. Check out the photos below.
The Methot trawl being taken out of the water. Note the square frame.The container that collects all of the plankton in the net.
After the net is brought back on deck, one of the fishermen or deckhands brings the container of krill into the fish lab. The first thing we do is dump the container into a sieve or a bucket and start picking out everything that isn’tkrill. The two most common things that are collected (besides krill) are gelatinous animals (like jellyfish & salps) and larval fish. The fish get weighed (as one big unit, not individually) and then frozen for someone to look at later on.
The larval fish that we separated from one plankton tow.
After sorting the catch, we’re left with a big pile of krill, which gets weighed. We then take a small subsample from the big pile of krill (it’s a totally random amount- depends on how much we scoop out!) and then weigh the subsample. Then the fun begins, as I’m the one that does this job- I get to count every single individual krill in the subsample. Tedious work. All of the data is then entered into the computer system, and the krill and anything else that we’ve caught (besides the larval fish) are thrown back into the water.
Sorting through the big pile of krill.How many individual krill are in this picture? You get a prize if you’re the closest without going over 🙂
Personal Log:
I mentioned that once we’re done with the krill, we throw it back into the water- that was until I came aboard! My eel (Ms. Oreelio for those of you that don’t know!) eats dried krill, and I’m going to run out soon, so I figured I’d take these krill home with me! I got a gallon-size baggie from the galley (kitchen) and filled it up with krill, and holy cow, it’s a lot!! I stuck it in our freezer- which is at -22 degrees C (or 7.6 degrees F) so now I have a big frozen block of krill to take back home with me. What a great souvenir.
NOAA Teacher at Sea: Tammy Orilio NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson Mission: Pollock SurveyGeographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska Date: 28 June 2011
Weather Data from the Bridge: Latitude: 57.11 N
Longitude: -155.58 W
Wind Speed: 3.61 knots
Surface Water Temp: 9.0 degrees C
Water Depth: 271.10 m
Air Temp: 8.3 degrees C
Relative Humidity: 84%
Science & Technology Log
Today we will look at the acoustic system of the NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson! Acoustics is the science that studies how waves (including vibrations & sound waves) move through solids, liquids, and gases. The Oscar Dyson uses an acoustic system to find the pollock that we process.
The process begins when a piece of equipment called a transducer converts an electrical pulse into a sound wave. The transducers are located on the underside of the ship (in the water). The sound travels away from the vessel at roughly1500 feet per minute, and continues to do so until the sound wave hits another object such as a bubble, plankton, a fish, or the bottom. When the sound wave hits an object, it reflects the sound wave, sending the sound wave back to the Oscar Dyson as an echo. Equipment onboard listens to the echo.
An image of the computer screen that shows a great number of fish. This was taken underneath the boat as we were line fishing in Sand Point.
The computers look at two critical pieces of information from the returning sound wave. First, it measures the time that it took the echo to travel back to the ship. This piece of information gives the scientists onboard the distance the sound wave traveled. Remember that sound travels at roughly 1500 feet per minute. If the sound came back in one minute, then the object that the sound wave hit is 750 feet away (the sound traveled 750 feet to the object, hit the object, and then traveled 750 feet back to the boat).
The second critical piece of information is the intensity of the echo. The intensity of the echo tells the scientists how small or how large an object is, and this gives us an idea of what the sound wave hit. Tiny echos near the surface are almost certainly plankton, but larger objects in the midwater might be a school of fish.
The same spot as above, but with practically no fish.
One of the things that surprised me the most was that fish and bubbles often look similar enough under water that it can fool the acoustics team into thinking that the bubbles are actually fish. This is because many species of fish have gas pockets inside of them, and so the readout looks very similar. The gas pockets are technically called “swim bladders†and they are used to help the fish control buoyancy in the water.
Personal Log:
Well, it’s now Tuesday morning, and we are making excellent time on our way back to Kodiak. The water has not been as rough as expected, thank goodness! Yesterday’s forecast said we’d encounter winds up to 35 knots and seas up to 18 feet, but I have definitely not felt anything like that. It’s not quite over yet, though, so I’m not getting my hopes up too much.
We’re scheduled to arrive in Kodiak sometime tomorrow (I don’t know the approximate time yet), or maybe even later tonight, which means I’ll have a day to kill there. I’m looking forward to it because I didn’t get a chance to explore when I first arrived. When I made it to Kodiak, I only had the clothes on my back, and it was raining for nearly the entire two days I was there, so I didn’t want to go outside and explore because if my clothes got wet, I had nothing else to change into! One animal I haven’t seen on this trip is an eagle, and I hear they’re very easy to spot in Kodiak, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to look around tomorrow!
Question of the Day:
What is one way that bony fishes can control the amount of gas in their swim bladder?
NOAA Teacher at Sea: Tammy Orilio NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson Mission: Pollock Survey Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Alaska Date: 27 June 2011
Weather Data from the Bridge:
Latitude: 55.33 N
Longitude: -160.52 W
Wind Speed: 18.24 knots
Surface Water Temp: 7.3 degrees C
Water Depth: 28.43 m
Air Temp: 8.2 degrees C
Relative Humidity: 91%
Personal Log:
I woke up yesterday to the sound of the anchor being dropped (it’s a really loud noise that goes on for a few minutes). We weren’t scheduled to stop anywhere, so I figured something out of the ordinary had to be happening in order for us to be dropping anchor, and I soon found out what happened. Turns out a crew member had an accident onboard, so we headed to the nearest community to get to a medical facility, which is Sand Point- a small little fishing village.
So we ended up spending the day anchored in Sand Point yesterday. It was foggy & rainy yet again, so a few of the scientists purchased fishing licenses online and they fished off the back deck. They ended up catching some cod, halibut, and sculpins (Irish lords to be exact). They also ended up dragging some kelp up to the surface, and of course I was excited about that because I love seaweeds 🙂 And I’ve never seen live kelp in person before- I’ve only seen the dried stuff we ate in Marine 1!
Some buildings and a couple of windmills in Sand Point.A barge anchored in the bay.Morning on 26 June 2011.A helicopter leaves the airport on 27 June. That spit of land is the runway.Docks.We think this is Laminaria, but not positive.Some kind of kelp. Salty.
We are still anchored here, because one of our science team members is going to fly out of here this afternoon to get to a meeting in Juneau. Sadly, our trip is essentially over- we are not going to do any more fishing 🙁 I’m disappointed that the trip was cut a few days short, but the situation was out of everyone’s control, so there’s nothing I can do about it. I am thankful that I did get to go on this trip even if it was short- it was a great experience!
We’re supposed to be leaving Sand Point at some point this evening, and the weather forecast doesn’t look so good. High winds- up to 35 knots (that’s about 40 mph) and 18 ft seas are forecast for tonight, with only a little decrease for tomorrow. Going to be a great time!! I will definitely have to take my seasick medication before we leave here.
Question of the Day:
What kingdom & phylum are brown algae (such as kelp) in?
