Jacob Tanenbaum 2008 – Page 2 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

October 11, 2008March 18, 2021

Jacob Tanenbaum, October 11, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jacob Tanenbaum
Onboard NOAA Ship Henry Bigelow
October 5 – 16, 2009

Mission: Survey
Geographic Region: Northeast U.S.
Date: October 11, 2008

Science Log

Greetings from Canada, my son Nicky’s favorite place! We are now in Canadian waters. We have crossed the international boarder. More amazing things keep coming up in our nets. Today we had some interesting sea-stars. Take a look. The larger ones are called Sun-Stars. Do they look like the sun to you? Sea stars are scavengers. They will move around the bottom looking for whatever food is laying around. The legs of the sea star have small tentacles that push food towards the mouth in the center.

Did you know that squid can change color? Often male squid change color to attract a mate or to scare off other males who are competing with them. If there are two males near one female, they able to turn one color on the side facing the female, and then turn another color on the other side facing the male.

We had more dolphins circling the ship last night. We think our lights may be attracting certain fish or squid, then the dolphins come to eat that. They are not with us during the day at all. One of the benefits, I guess, of being on the night watch. I cannot shoot still photos due to the low light, but have wonderful video. The sounds that you hear on the video were recorded with the ship’s hydrophone. This is a special microphone that can record sounds underwater. The sounds were recorded as the dolphins swam around the ship. You can hear the sound of them swimming by as well as the sound of their sonar as they locate fish to eat. Click here to watch and listen. Thanks to survey technician Pete Gamache for recording this for us. Click here to see the video. Don’t miss it!

We drove past some seaweed called sargasum weed. It normally grows in an area towards the middle of the Atlantic called the Sargasso Sea. We are well west of the Sargasso, but this seems to have drifted our way. Sargasum Weed grows on the surface of the water. These huge mats of seaweed support an entire ecosystem of sea creatures. Many come to seek shelter in the weeds. Many more come to feed on smaller creatures hiding there.

Snuggy and Zee paid a visit to the fantail of the ship.

The fantail is an area by the stern of the vessel where the nets are deployed. The photos show the area where the work gets done. Our ship works all night long, of course, and trawls are done at night as well as during the day. Take a look at this video which explains how trawls are done.

Our ship is shadowing another NOAA ship, the Albatross. Why? The Albatross is an old ship and will be replaced by the Bigelow in the years to come. At this point, the ships are trawling in exactly the same place to see if they get similar results in their surveys. Making sure the vessels measure the same thing the same way is called calibration. Right now we are doing calibration with the Albatross.

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Now some answers to your questions:

RM – No we did not see Nantucket yet. We were too far out to sea. We may see it on the way back. Thanks for writing.

T – I love Block Island too. Thanks for the warning about rough seas. I am glad you and your mom are both enjoying the blog as much as I enjoy writing it for you. I’m used to the 12 AM shift now. I that I finally got 8 hours of sleep.

AR – There were TONS of skates in the water.

Hello to Mrs Eubank’s Class. Its great to hear from you. Great questions. Now for answers:

— Amanda, I think fish can get smaller pieces of plastic confused with tiny plankton, but our buoy is too large for that. I don’t think it will hurt fish. I think they will stay away from it.

–Tiffany, this is a tough question and a very good question. I guess over time, our buoy will stop working and will become floating trash. The truth is all science effects the environment you study. The trick is to do more good with your work than harm. Our buoy will help us understand our environment better so that all of us will do less harm in the future. Our ship also burns fuel as we study the ocean. That pollutes a little, but hopefully through our work, we do more good than harm to what we study.

Weston, It felt like the drifter weighs about 35 pounds or so.

Bryce, we use a large net to scoop along the bottom. The opening is about 4 meters wide.

Luke, we have not, nor do I expect to find new species. Our purpose is to learn more about the species that we already know about.

Bryce, we were about 140 miles from the nearest land the last time I looked.

RJ, some scientists made our drifter.

Weston, there are about 1000 drifters right now in the open sea.

I enjoyed your questions. Thanks for writing.

Mr. Moretti’s class, I’m not sure what killed the whale, but remember, all things the live also die. We cannot assume that something human beings did killed that whale. With all the pollution we create, we cannot assume, however, that we did not hurt it. We should stop polluting just to be sure we do not hurt other living things.

Many of you have are working hard to figure out our math question from the other day. Here is how it works. If we are going 8 knots for 24 hours, we multiply 8 times 24 and get 192 knots in a day. If we want to convert that to miles, we multiply again by 1.15 because each knot is 1.15 miles. We get 220.8 Congratulations to all who got this correct. It was a tough question.

Several of you have asked how long I would be on the ship. I will be here until the end of next week. I leave the ship on Friday October 17th.

LP – I enjoy the show Deadliest Catch very much. I think it is cool that scientists sometimes do that same kind of exciting work.

SD, there is no way for me to videotape under that water, but tomorrow I will show you how our sonars (we call them echosounders) work. That is one way to see under the water.

DT from SOMS dont’ worry, there is no light pollution out here. I am on the back deck of a working ship, so right where I am there are lights. I need them to do my job. I just have to go to the upper decks to get away from it or ask the bridge to shut them down for a bit.

October 10, 2008March 18, 2021

Jacob Tanenbaum, October 10, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jacob Tanenbaum
Onboard NOAA Ship Henry Bigelow
October 5 – 16, 2008

Mission: Survey
Geographic Region: Northeast U.S.
Date: October 10, 2008

Science Log

Did you figure out the answer to yesterday’s question? Those creatures were the real cast of Sponge Bob Square Pants TV Show. We saw a sponge, like Sponge Bob, and sea stars like Patrick, plankton, like Sheldon Plankton, some squid like Squidward, a crab like Mr. Krabs next to a sand dollar (because Mr. Krabs loves money), a lobster like Larry the Lobster and a snail like Gary. All the creatures in the program actually exist in the sea, except for squirrels, and we have seen them all on this adventure. Amazing creatures keep coming up in our nets day after day. Let’s take a look at a creature called a skate. The skate makes those funny black rectangles that you find on beaches. Take a look at where those rectangles come from and what is inside of them. Click here for a video!

Skates also have interesting faces. They live along the bottom of the sea. Their eyes are on top of their head to spot predators and their mouthes are below to eat what is on the bottom. They have two nostril -like openings above their mouth called spiracles. They look just like eyes but actually help the skate breathe. Here are a few interesting skate faces.

This sea robin uses three separate parts of its pectoral fin, called fin-rays to move, almost like its walking along the bottom of the sea as it looks for food. This helps is move very quietly, making it able to sneak up on prey unobserved.

These two baby dog-fish show different stages of development. This one is still connected to an egg sack. The other has broken loose from it, but you can still see where it was attached just below the mouth. Usually in this species, just like most fish in the shark family has eggs that develop inside the mother’s body. She gives birth to the pups when they have hatched from their eggs and are ready for the open sea.

Many people have asked me about garbage. Here is some of what we have found so far. We caught part of someone else’s fishing net. Here is a Styrofoam cup and here is a plastic bag, which we caught 140 miles from the nearest land. How do you think it got here?

Finally, we were visited by some dolphins last night. They were eating smaller fish and as they came in for their attack, you can see the smaller fish jumping straight out of the water into the air to try to avoid being caught. Click here for a video.

Snuggy and Zee decided to visit the kitchen today. Here are Zee and Snuggy with our chief Steward Dennis M. Carey and our 2nd cook, Alexander Williams. The food here is fantastic. See how large the kitchen is? We have a lot of people to feed on this ship, and the cooks here work hard. You have seen a few of the many different jobs that people can do on a ship like this. You have seen the scientists at work in the labs, you have seen the engineers who make the engine go. You have been to the bridge where the NOAA Corp officers run the ship. You have been to the kitchen where the cooks keep us so well fed. Tomorrow, you will see how the deck crew trawl our sample nets through the water. Keep checking the blog this weekend. There will be lots to see.

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Now, some answers to your questions and comments:

Hi to KD and to Derek Jeter. We are staying safe. Thanks for writing.

Hello to St. Mark School in Florida. I’m glad you are enjoying the blog. I really enjoyed your thoughts about what these fish have in common. Great work. Here are some answers:

If a ship hit a drifter, the drifter would probably be broken. But the ocean is a big place, and that does not happen very often.

Can your school adopt a drifter? Of course! Take a look here: http://www.adoptadrifter.noaa.gov/. In the mean time, you are welcome to follow the adventures of our buoy. Keep checking this website!

I have Snuggy because some of my kindergarten classes asked me to take a bear with me to sea. So I did!

How heavy are the drifters? It weight 30 pounds or so, I would guess. Enough to make me work to pick it up.

I knew the whale was dead because part of it was decomposing. We could see it and we could smell it. Yuck.

Did any fish try to bite me? Yes. One scallop closed its shell on my finger. I had to be quick to get my hand out of the way in time. Other than that, no.

At 8 knots per hour, the ship could travel 192 knots, or about 220 miles in a day.

Congratulations to all who calculated correctly. The truth is that we have to stop for sample trawls every hour or two, so we seldom make our top cruising speed when we do work like this. So, we usually travel less than we could.

Oh, and to all those who asked, so far I have not gotten sick. Yet.

Thanks all for writing. Keep checking the blog!

October 9, 2008March 18, 2021

Jacob Tanenbaum, October 9, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jacob Tanenbaum
Onboard NOAA Ship Henry Bigelow
October 5 – 16, 2008

Mission: Survey
Geographic Region: Northeast U.S.
Date: October 9, 2008

Science Log

Hello everyone. I hope you are all enjoying your day off today. Since you have time off from school, I bet many of you are spending time observing these sea creatures…

Can you guess what they all have in common? Post your answers on the blog.

Need a hint? That crab is standing right by a sand dollar. Money. Hmmm.

This angler fish is an interesting character. It sits on the bottom of the water and blends in with its surroundings. It has a small hair that sticks out of its face that is use to lure prey closer to its mouth (just like its cousin from deeper waters, the angler fish). When the prey get close by it strikes. With all of those rows of sharp teeth it makes short work of smaller fish. Can you imagine a fish with a built in fishing rod. Very interesting. We came across a dead whale floating in the open sea. What an amazing sight (and smell). Yuk. Look how big it is next to the ship. The barnacles on its face were the size of baseballs.

A lot of you have asked what my stateroom looks like. Here are Snuggy and Zee in my “rack.” That’s what we call a bed. Do I have a roommate? Yes. Sean is very nice. I’ve only met him once or twice because he sleeps when I work and I sleep when he works, so we don’t run into each other much. That’s often how things work on a ship like this. The second picture is the door to the corridor. The locker to the right is where I keep my gear. The door on the left leads to the “head,” which is what we call the bathroom on a ship.

Many of you asked what the engine room is like. Joe Deltorto, our Chief Engineer, was kind enough to give me a tour. The Bigelow has an interesting engine room. Huge diesel generators make electricity. Lots of it. Enough to power all of our computers, sensors, lights, and even the ship itself. The propeller is turned by large electric motors. This makes the Bigelow one of the most quiet research ships anywhere. Why is that important? Sound is often used to see what is below the surface of the water. Sonars push sound through the water and listen when it echos back. That’s often how boats see what is under them. The Bigelow has a more sophisticated version of this called an echosounder. It can see much more, but still uses sound to see. So the engines have to be super quiet.

Today we will deploy our Drifter Buoy. This is an instrument that we are adopting. It will float in the open sea for the next 14 months or so and tell us where is has gone and what the temperature of the water around it is. Drifters are an important way that scientists measure. Keep watching here. I will update the blog when I deploy the drifter.

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Here are some answers to your wonderful questions and comments.

Have I gotten sea-sick? No. So far, the water has been very calm. I feel very luck. The ship has hardly moved at all.

Does it smell on board because of all the fish? Surprisingly, no. even the fish labs have lots of fresh ocean air coming through. There is no bad smell. When we came across a rotten whale floating in the ocean, then there was a smell! Oy!

The whales we have seen so far were all humpback. Even the dead one.

Have I seen fish that were new to me. Oh yes. Most of what we have seen has been new to me! That’s what makes these trips so much fun! I love learning new things.

What do I want to see that I have not seen yet? Dolphins.

In answer to so many of your questions, no, I have not fallen in yet. Either has anyone else. The Bigelow is a very safe ship. Everyone is well trained and very concerned for the saftey of themselves and all the others on board. I feel very safe here.

Hello to Ms. Farry and classes in TZE. I’m glad you are looking at the blog.

Hi Turtle. Nice to hear from you. Yes, I think we can work that out. We are on the shelf, so our deepest CTD deployment will be only be about 300 meters. Will that do?

FD and JEGB, thanks for your questions. No, so far we have not seen any 6 pack rings on any creatures. I did see some garbage float by many dozens of miles from shore. It was right where the whales were swimming. Sad.

IJ, cool idea, though I wonder, though if the water would carry toxins from the smoke into the streams rivers and oceans? Keep thinking maybe you will discover a way to solve this problem someday.

Mi Mrs. Bolte’s class. I’ll get you engine room photos very soon, and there is a photo of my stateroom for you today. I’m glad you like the blog.

MS, the people here are friendly, very professional and so helpful with everything I have needed for all my projects.

MH, yes I do miss my family.

MJ, we see lots of ships out here. Yes. It has been fun to see.

Several of you asked about cell phones. They do not work out here. We are way too far from land. All the crew were on deck as we left port making their last calls to their families. So was I.

Hello to Mrs. Ochman’s class, Mrs. De Vissers’s class, Mrs. Sheehy’s and TN’s class. I hope the pictures in the last few days answered lots of your questions.

Mrs. Christie Blick’s class, here are some answers to your questions: No, the clothes just keep you dry (and comfortable) when you are working. You get used to them. I am adjusting well to the time change. It is a little like going to New Zealand like Mrs. Christie-Blick did recently. I wake up at about 8:00 PM, go to work at midnight and then go to sleep in the early afternoon. Our time, that is. If I were in New Zealand, I would be on a normal schedule. I’ll post pictures for your soon for my stateroom. It is very relaxing here. There is not a whole lot to worry about. There is a lot of work, but it is not hard.

The zig in our course, by the way is probably where we stopped for a trawl. We sometimes circle around when we do that.

Hello Mrs. Benson. Thanks for checking out the blog. No artists here at the moment. I enjoy amature photography and what subjects there are out here!

Hello Guy D. Thanks for following the blog. I appreciate your support.

October 8, 2008March 18, 2021

Jacob Tanenbaum, October 8, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jacob Tanenbaum
Onboard NOAA Ship Henry Bigelow
October 5 – 16, 2009

Mission: Survey
Geographic Region: Northeast U.S.
Date: October 8, 2008

Science Log

Today we started working. My shift is 12 midnight to 12 noon, so I slept for a few hours in the afternoon and then worked overnight and into the morning. It is hard to get used to staying up all night. It feels a little like I took an unexpected trip to Europe. Our first haul took the longest to sort out because many of us were learning how things were supposed to work, but after a full day, it started to feel routine. Here is a sampling of some of the amazing creatures that came up in our nets:

This is a dogfish. It is a relative of the shark, but without all those ferocious teeth. So many people have asked me if I have seen a shark, I had to put these photos up for you!

This lumpfish is a related to the anglefish, which has a light and lives in deeper water.

Here is a squid, a sea-robin a baby dogfish that had just hatched and a flounder or two.

These are the skate egg cases. Have ever found one on a beach? Now you know what it grows into.

This is a long horned sculpin. These creatures buzz when you hold them and stick their fins up to scare you off. Amazing!

The largest lobster I have ever seen. Can you guess why I'm smiling in the picture? Here is a special shout out to my favorite lobster (and clam) fans, Simon and Nicky Tanenbaum! — The largest lobster I have ever seen. Can you guess why I’m smiling in the picture? Here is a special shout out to my favorite lobster (and clam) fans, Simon and Nicky Tanenbaum!

And finally, we saw whales!

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NOAA Ship Albatross, also working on this survey

On a personal note, this is a very comfortable ship. Zee and Snuggy will continue to show us around each day. Several of us watched the presidential debate on live satellite TV in the lounge tonight. Here are Snuggy and Zee having a quick meal.

Cottage Lane students, we are traveling about 8 knots per hour right now. Can you calculate how for we can travel in a day? Remember, the ship works all day and all night. How far can it go at that speed? Post your answers on the blog, then watch the video. Would you like to do this kind of work? Let me know.

I have enjoyed reading your comments very much. We are going to have a little delay in my responding to comments today as I get used to working the midnight shift. You are all correct when you say that the Bigelow has a LOT more technology than the Eagle. Consider this: I went on deck at about 4 in the morning to do some work and found that I could not see the stars because the electric lights on the ship were so bright! I guess we have to have a GPS when you reach that point! Celestial navigation just will not work on a ship with lights so bright!

A lot of you were focusing on what sailors then and now need to survive: Food and water, for example. Did you know old sailing ships had to bring their entire supply of fresh water with them in barrels. Today, our ship can take the salt out of seawater to make it safe to drink. Technology has changed the way we live on ships!

To my fellow TAS from the Delaware: Thanks for writing. We are doing bottom trawls and are looking to survey the entire benthic community here. Thanks for the sea-sickness tips. I may need all the help I can get if the weather decides to change.

Lynn: thanks for reading the blog. Zee is fine, and so far so am I. With luck, the weather will hold! If not, Zee may do better than I do. We could see Cape Cod earlier today. Beautiful!

October 7, 2008March 18, 2021

Jacob Tanenbaum, October 7, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jacob Tanenbaum
Onboard NOAA Ship Henry Bigelow
October 5 – 16, 2008

This one shows our ship under the bridge leading into Newport.

Mission: Survey
Geographic Region: Northeast U.S.
Date: October 7, 2008

Science Log

Our first day at sea is a day of mainly travel and drills. We are moving east around the island of Martha’s Vinyard towards our first tow of the day.

Did you know that ships like the Bigelow have all kinds of safety procedures? We had two drills today. In one the crew all went to the back of the ship and put on our survivial gear. This suit will help us survive and be spotted by rescurers in the event we have to abandon ship. It is called an abandon ship drill.

During a fire drill, we go to our assigned safe spot for attendance – we call it muster. And the officers and crew practice putting out a fire. A fire on a ship can be dangerous. There are no fireman to call, so crew have to learn to put out fires on their own. That takes practice.

Snuggy and Zee also had their own tour of the ship. Each day they will visit a few places and show you pictures so you can see what different parts of the ship look like. They came in on the gangplank this morning. Just like all the sailors do. Tomorrow, WOS students, please tell me what other parts of the ship we should visit. CLE students, you had lots of good ideas about how Columbus’ ship and mine are different. Technology is at the top of the list. Imagine crossing the ocean with just a compass, a steering wheel and a quadrent. What an adventure. We live in luxury even on our working ship. My quarters even have carpet! Keep those ideas coming. Good night to them both. It’s four in the afternoon and time for bed. I get up at 11 and start work at 12 midnight.

The nets are ready for our first day of fishing. Zee and Snuggy are ready to help.

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Hello to all who wrote so far. Mrs. Christie Blick’s class, Mr. Connaughton’s class and others want to know when we start our survey work: We will begin our experiments late today after I have gone to bed, so I will tell you what we catch tomorrow. And I will send you LOTS of photographs! What do we want to catch? Well, different scientists need different things for their work. One of our scientists is studying lobsters. I hope we catch more than he needs so I can have a few for myself!

CP and others, it is not likely that we will see anything new in the water that has never been discovered. Sceintists study this area in detail every day to look for changes to the number of fish or patterns in where they live. we have a good idea of what is doen there.

AR, I will try to answer all your questions in the days to come. I have a bed called a rack here on the ship. I have a small quarters and one very nice roommate. I’ll show you around soon.

The weather here is perfect. The water is not cold or hot. It is just right. By the way, I will not be going to the bottom. We will lower nets to the bottom and see what we bring up.

EA, this ship is 210 feet long.

My brother David asks if I bring music along. Yes. I have my whole collection on my computer. Including all your discs!