NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jenna Cloninger
Aboard Bell M. Shimada
June 11 – June 26, 2025
Mission: Integrated West Coast Pelagics Survey (Leg 1)
Geographic Area of Cruise: Pacific Ocean, California Coast
Today’s Date: June 12, 2025
Track the Ship: Bell M. Shimada
Weather Data Snapshot: 5:18am, Pacific Daylight Time
Currently, the air temperature is 64°F (17°C) with a wind speed of 4 knots and a wave height of 4 feet. The sea looks quite calm from the side deck, and the air feels a little chilly to this Georgia girl. Yesterday, I wore shorts and a sweatshirt and felt fine. Today, I am wearing jeans with a long-sleeve thermal shirt, a T-shirt, and a fleece jacket and am still feeling quite cold. The sun is only just starting to rise, but there is a dense layer of cloud cover and fog in the area at this time of year, so I have yet to witness a true sunrise while at sea. Hopefully the sun will make its appearance at some point today.
Science and Technology Log
Before we can talk about what’s happening on the ship, I need to highlight the amazing visit to the La Jolla location of NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center on my second day in San Diego. My Teacher at Sea mentor and newfound friend, Melissa Liotta, took me to see where she works and to learn about some of the incredible things happening with her colleagues at the Center. There are too many names and faces for me to remember everyone, but I want to emphasize how genuinely excited everyone was to meet me and to work with me as a Teacher at Sea. It was quite a warm welcome, after flying across the country by myself and not really knowing what to expect when I landed on the west coast for the first time in my life.
There was one part of this visit that deserves its own highlight, and that’s my tour of the experimental research aquarium at the Center. Melissa introduced me to Kathy Swiney, a research fisheries biologist who studies abalone populations off southern California. What are abalone, you might ask? Abalone are a family of marine gastropods, which are invertebrates related to snails, found within the phylum Mollusca. In other words, they are soft-bodied creatures with hard shells that crawl along the ocean floor. Here is a NOAA article if you would like to learn more about abalone.
I had seriously underestimated how interesting they could be! Kathy explained their anatomy, their reproductive strategies, and NOAA’s conservation efforts to me as I held one of the sweet little creatures in my hands. (My abalone even did a little “dance” where it wiggled its shell – so cute.) Most species of abalone are endangered or vulnerable due to overfishing for their meat and their beautiful shells, and Kathy’s team works to breed abalone that can be reintroduced to the ocean to help supplement wild populations.
Now, back to the ship. Since this is the first leg of the Integrated West Coast Pelagics Survey, many operations and procedures have been modified to combine data collections from two previously separate surveys, one targeting Pacific hake, and the other targeting a collective group of coastal pelagic species (CPS), including sardine, anchovy, and mackerel. The plan is for the ship to trawl for Pacific hake in the midwater region during the day and to trawl for CPS at the surface region at night, which means the science team is working 24 hours a day to maximize the use of resources while at sea.
While initial operations are underway, I am learning my way around the wet lab, which is where we will be sorting, measuring, and dissecting different fishes after each trawl. There is a lot to learn! As a teacher, I am reminded how overwhelming it can be for my students to learn new vocabulary, concepts, and processes in a short period of time. Each interaction with a member of the science team is like a miniature lesson all on its own, except there are no guided notes handouts or Google Slides for me to refer back to. Although it is overwhelming, it is also exciting to learn more about the oceanographic concepts that I teach to my students each year. This experience is helping me understand how critical it is for teachers to be able to explain concepts in age-appropriate ways and in small enough “chunks” for students to grasp in a single learning session.
Personal Log
Overall, there has been quite a bit of free time for me while we wait for normal operations to begin. While the scientists are busy preparing equipment and setting up their data collection programs, I have had time to get settled into my stateroom and chat with the other scientists about the best ways to avoid seasickness, which has been on my mind since we embarked. (Motion sickness medication, eating light meals and snacks, and looking at the horizon are all common recommendations.) The most interesting adjustment for me is the fact that everything is moving all the time at sea. Whether you’re in the wet lab, in the shower, or walking up and down steep staircases, you are constantly swaying in a corkscrew-like motion as the ship wobbles back and forth in the water. It can be quite disorienting during waking hours, but when it’s time to sleep, I have found the rocking motion to be comforting.
Speaking of waking hours, I’m in the middle of adjusting my sleep schedule so that I am awake from midnight to noon each day. That means that I am going to sleep early in the afternoon and missing dinner so that I can be awake around 11:00pm to begin my shift. I am told that the first three days are the most difficult, but after that, your body starts to settle into the new routine.
Did You Know?
At the research aquarium, I learned about rockfish and something called barotrauma, which is a type of bodily trauma caused by a sudden change in pressure when rockfish are captured and removed from deep water. When rockfish are brought to the surface too quickly, the air inside their bodies expands, leaving them unable to control their buoyancy. When released back into the ocean, these fish may have trouble swimming downward, which leaves them vulnerable to predation at the surface. Other symptoms of barotrauma in rockfish include bulging eyes and a bloated belly sticking out of the mouth. But don’t worry – there is hope for the rockfish! Recompression devices and strategies can be used when a fish is returned to its normal depth, which allows its body to adjust back to its normal state. Here is a NOAA article if you would like to learn more about rockfish barotrauma and recompression.
That’s all for this blog post – focusing on this laptop screen while at sea is making me feel a little queasy! I hope to provide more concrete updates on our trawling operations over the next few days, as well as career insights and personal anecdotes about my experience at sea. Thanks for reading!
