NOAA Teacher at Sea Trevor Hance Soon to be Aboard R/V Hugh R. Sharp June 12 – 24, 2015
Mission: Sea Scallop Survey Geographical area: New England/Georges Bank Date: May 28, 2015
Personal Log: Permission to Come Aboard?
Greetings from Austin, Texas. In less than two weeks, my grand summer adventure begins. I will be flying out of Austin, and heading to Boston where Peter Pan will magically transport me down the Woods (Rabbit?) Hole and out to sea aboard the R/V Hugh R. Sharp, where I will support scientists conducting a Sea Scallop Survey.
Photo from the NOAA Fisheries website that I’ve been using to determine how to dress!
My Real Job
I teach at a fantastic public school in Austin that incorporates student interest surveys in lesson design and enrichment opportunities across subjects. Although we are within the city of Austin, our campus backs up to a wildlife preserve (30,000 acres, total) that was set aside as land use patterns changed, and threatened habitat and ecosystems of 2 endangered birds, 8 invertebrates and 27 other species deemed “at risk.” We have about 5 “wildspace” acres on our actual campus property that is unfenced to the larger Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. We use that space as our own laboratory, and over the last decade, fifth grade students at our school have designed, constructed and continue to support the ecosystem through ponds supported by rainwater collection (yes, they are quite full at the moment!), a butterfly habitat, water-harvesting shelter/outdoor classroom, grassland/wildflower prairie and a series of trails. In the spring, I post job descriptions for projects that need work in our Preserve and students formally apply for a job (i.e. – resume/cover letter). They spend the balance of the spring working outdoors, conducting research relating to their job, and doing their part to develop a culture and heritage of sustainability on our campus that transcends time as students move beyond our campus during their educational journey. My path through the curriculum is rooted in constructivist learning theory (project-based, place-based and service learning) and students are always outdoors. Parents, of course, always get a huge “thank you” at the end of the year from me for not complaining that I’ve ruined too many pairs of shoes.
Below are a few pictures from our game cameras and shots I’ve taken of my classes in action this spring.
Texas bluebonnets are beautiful, and even more spectacular when you get close and see “the neighborhood.”Rain or shineEarly morning observation in the PreserveGambusia — my favorite!Western ribbon snake snacking at the tadpole buffet.One of our frog surveys in actionSo, did anyone figure out what does the fox say?Wild pigs rootingBandits abound when the sun goes down.
The endangered golden cheeked warbler, taken by me early May
As I write, there are about 5 days left of this school year, which means that most of our big projects are complete and the rain has paused, so we’re spending a few days having a big “mechanical energy ball” competition (aka – “kickball”), and I get the distinct feeling that the students are quite prepared for their summer break!
My Background
I was an “oilfield kid” and grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, the heart of Cajun Country, and about an hour’s drive to the Gulf of Mexico. In college, I worked in the oilfield a bit, and after finishing law school, I was a maritime attorney, so I was able to spend some time aboard vessels for various purposes. My time aboard the Hugh R. Sharp will be my longest stint aboard a vessel, and I’m quite excited for the work!
My Mission
R/V Hugh R. Sharp (btw students, it is a vessel or ship, not a “boat”) is a 146-foot general purpose research vessel owned by the University of Delaware (go Fighting Blue Hens!). Each summer I get a travel coffee mug from the college where I attend a professional development course, and I’m hopeful I can find one with a picture of YoUDee on it this year!
Photo from the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health
Photo from the University of Delaware bookstore website of the mug I might pick up while traveling this summer
R/V Hugh R. Sharp
While aboard the vessel, we will be conducting surveys to determine the distribution and abundance of scallops. My cruise is the third (and northernmost) leg of the surveys, and we’ll spend our time dredge surveying, doing an image based survey using a tethered tow-behind observation vehicle, and some deeper water imaging of lobster habitat. Those of you who know me, know that I am genuinely and completely excited and grateful for the opportunity to “nerd out” on this once-in-a-lifetime get-away-from-it-all adventure! Check back over the summer and see what I’ve been up to!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Emily Whalen Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow April 27 – May 10, 2015
Mission: Spring Bottom Trawl Survey, Leg IV
Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Maine Date: May 1, 2015
Weather Data from the Bridge: Winds: Light and variable
Seas: 1-2ft
Air Temperature: 6.2○ C
Water Temperature: 5.8○ C
Science and Technology Log:
Earlier today I had planned to write about all of the safety features on board the Bigelowand explain how safe they make me feel while I am on board. However, that was before our first sampling station turned out to be a monster haul! For most stations I have done so far, it takes about an hour from the time that the net comes back on board to the time that we are cleaning up the wetlab. At station 381, it took us one minute shy of three hours! So explaining the EEBD and the EPIRB will have to wait so that I can describe the awesome sampling we did at station 381, Cashes Ledge.
This is a screen that shows the boats track around the Gulf of Maine. The colored lines represent the sea floor as determined by the Olex multibeam. This information will be stored year after year until we have a complete picture of the sea floor in this area!
Before I get to describing the actual catch, I want to give you an idea of all of the work that has to be done in the acoustics lab and on the bridge long before the net even gets into the water.
The bridge is the highest enclosed deck on the boat, and it is where the officers work to navigate the ship. To this end, it is full of nautical charts, screens that give information about the ship’s location and speed, the engine, generators, other ships, radios for communication, weather data and other technical equipment. After arriving at the latitude and longitude of each sampling station, the officer’s attention turns to the screen that displays information from the Olex Realtime Bathymetry Program, which collects data using a ME70 multibeam sonar device attached to bottom of the hull of the ship .
Traditionally, one of the biggest challenges in trawling has been getting the net caught on the bottom of the ocean. This is often called getting ‘hung’ and it can happen when the net snags on a big rock, sunken debris, or anything else resting on the sea floor. The consequences can range from losing a few minutes time working the net free, to tearing or even losing the net. The Olex data is extremely useful because it can essentially paint a picture of the sea floor to ensure that the net doesn’t encounter any obstacles. Upon arrival at a site, the boat will cruise looking for a clear path that is about a mile long and 300 yards wide. Only after finding a suitable spot will the net go into the water.
Check out this view of the seafloor. On the upper half of the screen, there is a dark blue channel that goes between two brightly colored ridges. We trawled right between the ridges and caught a lot of really big fish!
The ME70 Multibeam uses sound waves to determine the depth of the ocean at specific points. It is similar to a simpler, single stream sonar in that it shoots a wave of sound down to the seafloor, waits for it to bounce back up to the ship and then calculates the distance the wave traveled based on the time and the speed of sound through the water, which depends on temperature. The advantage to using the multibeam is that it shoots out 200 beams of sound at once instead of just one. This means that with each ‘ping’, or burst of sound energy, we know the depth at many points under the ship instead of just one. Considering that the multibeam pings at a rate of 2 Hertz to 0.5 Herts, which is once every 0.5 seconds to 2 seconds, that’s a lot of information about the sea floor contour!
This is what the nautical chart for Cashes Ledge looks like. The numbers represent depth in fathoms. The light blue lines are contour lines. The places where they are close together represent steep cliffs. The red line represents the Bigelow’s track. You can see where we trawled as a short jag between the L and the E in the word Ledge
The stations that we sample are randomly selected by a computer program that was written by one of the scientists in the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, who happens to be on board this trip. Just by chance, station number 381 was on Cashes Ledge, which is an underwater geographical feature that includes jagged cliffs and underwater mountains. The area has been fished very little because all of the bottom features present many hazards for trawl nets. In fact, it is currently a protected area, which means the commercial fishing isn’t allowed there. As a research vessel, we have permission to sample there because we are working to collect data that will provide useful information for stock assessments.
My watch came on duty at noon, at which time the Bigelowwas scouting out the bottom and looking for a spot to sample within 1 nautical mile of the latitude and longitude of station 381. Shortly before 1pm, the CTD dropped and then the net went in the water. By 1:30, the net was coming back on board the ship, and there was a buzz going around about how big the catch was predicted to be. As it turns out, the catch was huge! Once on board, the net empties into the checker, which is usually plenty big enough to hold everything. This time though, it was overflowing with big, beautiful cod, pollock and haddock. You can see that one of the deck crew is using a shovel to fill the orange baskets with fish so that they can be taken into the lab and sorted!
You can see the crew working to handling all of the fish we caught at Cashes Ledge. How many different kinds of fish can you see? Photo by fellow volunteer Joe Warren
At this point, I was standing at the conveyor belt, grabbing slippery fish as quickly as I could and sorting them into baskets. Big haddock, little haddock, big cod, little cod, pollock, pollock, pollock. As fast as I could sort, the fish kept coming! Every basket in the lab was full and everyone was working at top speed to process fish so that we could empty the baskets and fill them up with more fish! One of the things that was interesting to notice was the variation within each species. When you see pictures of fish, or just a few fish at a time, they don’t look that different. But looking at so many all at once, I really saw how some have brighter colors, or fatter bodies or bigger spots. But only for a moment, because the fish just kept coming and coming and coming!
Finally, the fish were sorted and I headed to my station, where TK, the cutter that I have been working with, had already started processing some of the huge pollock that we had caught. I helped him maneuver them up onto the lengthing board so that he could measure them and take samples, and we fell into a fish-measuring groove that lasted for two hours. Grab a fish, take the length, print a label and put it on an envelope, slip the otolith into the envelope, examine the stomach contents, repeat.
Cod, pollock and haddock in baskets waiting to get counted and measured. Photo by Watch Chief Adam Poquette.
Some of you have asked about the fish that we have seen and so here is a list of the species that we saw at just this one site:
Pollock
Haddock
Atlantic wolffish
Cod
Goosefish
Herring
Mackerel
Alewife
Acadian redfish
Alligator fish
White hake
Red hake
American plaice
Little skate
American lobster
Sea raven
Thorny skate
Red deepsea crab
Atlantic Herring
Goosefish. Does this remind you of anyone you know?
Mackerel. Possibly the best looking fish in the sea.
I think it’s human nature to try to draw conclusions about what we see and do. If all we knew about the state of our fish populations was based on the data from this one catch, then we might conclude that there are tons of healthy fish stocks in the sea. However, I know that this is just one small data point in a literal sea of data points and it cannot be considered independently of the others. Just because this is data that I was able to see, touch and smell doesn’t give it any more validity than other data that I can only see as a point on a map or numbers on a screen. Eventually, every measurement and sample will be compiled into reports, and it’s that big picture over a long period of time that will really allow give us a better understanding of the state of affairs in the ocean.
Sunset from the deck of the Henry B. Bigelow
Personal Log
Lunges are a bit more challenging on the rocking deck of a ship!
It seems like time is passing faster and faster on board the Bigelow. I have been getting up each morning and doing a Hero’s Journey workout up on the flying bridge. One of my shipmates let me borrow a book that is about all of the people who have died trying to climb Mount Washington. Today I did laundry, and to quote Olaf, putting on my warm and clean sweatshirt fresh out of the dryer was like a warm hug! I am getting to know the crew and learning how they all ended up here, working on a NOAA ship. It’s tough to believe but a week from today, I will be wrapping up and getting ready to go back to school!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Emily Whalen Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow April 27 – May 10, 2015
Mission: Spring Bottom Trawl Survey, Leg IV
Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Maine Date: April 29, 2015
Weather Data: GPS location: 42○51.770’N, 070○43.695’W
Sky condition: Cloudy
Wind: 10 kts NNW
Wave height: 1-2 feet
Water temperature: 6.2○ C
Air temperature: 8.1○ C
Science and Technology Log:
On board the Henry B. Bigelow we are working to complete the fourth and final leg of the spring bottom trawl survey. Since 1948, NOAA has sent ships along the east coast from Cape Hatteras to the Scotian Shelf to catch, identify, measure and collect the fish and invertebrates from the sea floor. Scientists and fishermen use this data to assess the health of the ocean and make management decisions about fish stocks.
This is the area that we will be trawling. Each blue circle represents one of the sites that we will sample. We are covering a LOT of ground! Image courtesy of NOAA.
Today I am going to give you a rundown of the small role that I play in this process. I am on the noon to midnight watch with a crew of six other scientists, which means that we are responsible for processing everything caught in the giant trawl net on board during those hours. During the first three legs of the survey, the Bigelow has sampled over 300 sites. We are working to finish the survey by completing the remaining sites, which are scattered throughout Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine. The data collected on this trip will be added to data from similar trips that NOAA has taken each spring for almost 60 years. These huge sets of data allow scientists to track species that are dwindling, recovering, thriving or shifting habitats.
The CTD ready to deploy.
At each sampling station, the ship first drops a man-sized piece of equipment called a CTD to the sea floor. The CTD measures conductivity, temperature and depth, hence its name. Using the conductivity measurement, the CTD software also calculates salinity, which is the amount of dissolved salt in the water. It also has light sensors that are used to measure how much light is penetrating through the water.
While the CTD is in the water, the deck crew prepares the trawl net and streams it from the back of the ship. The net is towed by a set of hydraulic winches that are controlled by a sophisticated autotrawl system. The system senses the tension on each trawl warp and will pay out or reel in cable to ensure that the net is fishing properly.
Once deployed, the net sinks to the bottom and the ship tows it for twenty minutes, which is a little more than one nautical mile. The mouth of the net is rectangular so that it can open up wide and catch the most fish. The bottom edge of the mouth has something called a rockhopper sweep on it, which is made of a series of heavy disks that roll along the rocky bottom instead of getting hung up or tangled. The top edge of the net has floats along it to hold it wide open. There are sensors positioned throughout the net that send data back to the ship about the shape of the net’s mouth, the water temperature on the bottom, the amount of contact with the bottom, the speed of water through the net and the direction that the water is flowing through the net. It is important that each tow is standardized like this so that the fish populations in the sample areas aren’t misrepresented by the catch. For example, if the net was twisted or didn’t open properly, the catch might be very small, even in an area that is teaming with fish.
This is what the net looks like when it is coming back on board. The deck hands are guiding the trawl warps onto the big black spools. The whole process is powered by two hydraulic winches.
After twenty minutes, the net is hauled back onto the boat using heavy-duty winches. The science crew changes into brightly colored foul weather gear and heads to the wet lab, where we wait to see what we’ve caught in the net. The watch chief turns the music up and everyone goes to their station along a conveyor belt the transports the fish from outside on the deck to inside the lab. We sort the catch by species into baskets and buckets, working at a slow, comfortable pace when the catch is small, or at a rapid fire, breakneck speed when the catch is large.
This is the conveyor belt that transports the catch from the deck into the wetlab. The crew works to sort things into buckets. Do you know what these chunky yellow blobs that we caught this time are?
After that, the species and weight of each container is recorded into the Fisheries Scientific Computing System (FSCS), which is an amazing software system that allows our team of seven people to collect an enormous amount of data very quickly. Then we work in teams of two to process each fish at work stations using a barcode scanner, magnetic lengthing board, digital scale, fillet knives, tweezers, two touch screen monitors, a freshwater hose, scannable stickers, envelopes, baggies, jars and finally a conveyor belt that leads to a chute that returns the catch back to the ocean. To picture what this looks like, imagine a grocery store checkout line crossed with an arcade crossed with a water park crossed with an operating room. Add in some music playing from an ipod and it’s a pretty raucous scene!
The data that we collect for each fish varies. At a bare minimum, we will measure the length of the fish, which is electronically transmitted into FSCS. For some fish, we also record the weight, sex and stage of maturity. This also often includes taking tissue samples and packaging them up so that they can be studied back at the lab. Fortunately, for each fish, the FSCS screen automatically prompts us about which measurements need to be taken and samples need to be kept. For some fish, we cut out and label a small piece of gonad or some scales. We collect the otoliths, or ear bones from many fish.
These are the work stations in the wet lab. The cutters stand on the left processing the fish, and the recorders stand on the right.These bones can be used to determine the age of each fish because they are made of rings of calcium carbonate that accumulate over time.
Most of the samples will got back to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center where they will be processed by NOAA scientists. Some of them will go to other scientists from universities and other labs who have requested special sampling from the Bigelow. It’s like we are working on a dozen different research projects all at once!
Something to Think About:
Below are two pictures that I took from the flying bridge as we departed from the Coast Guard Station in Boston. They were taken just moments apart from each other. Why do you think that the area in the first picture has been built up with beautiful skyscrapers while the area in the second picture is filled with shipping containers and industry? Which area do you think is more important to the city? Post your thoughts in the comment section below.
Rows of shipping containers. What do you think is inside them?Downtown Boston. Just a mile from the shipping containers. Why do you think this area is so different from the previous picture?
Personal Log
Believe it or not, I actually feel very relaxed on board the Bigelow! The food is excellent, my stateroom is comfortable and all I have to do is follow the instructions of the crew and the FSCS. The internet is fast enough to occasionally check my email, but not fast enough to stream music or obsessively read articles I find on Twitter. The gentle rocking of the boat is relaxing, and there is a constant supply of coffee and yogurt. I have already read one whole book (Paper Towns by John Greene) and later tonight I will go to the onboard library and choose another. That said, I do miss my family and my dog and I’m sure that in a few days I will start to miss my students too!
If the description above doesn’t make you want to consider volunteering on a NOAA cruise, maybe the radical outfits will. On the left, you can see me trying on my Mustang Suit, which is designed to keep me safe in the unlikely event that the ship sinks. On the right, you can see me in my stylish yellow foul weather pants. They look even better when they are covered in sparkling fish scales!
Banana Yellow Pants: SO 2015! Photo taken by fellow volunteer Megan Plourde.This is a Mustang Suit. If you owned one of these, where would you most like to wear it? Photo taken by IT Specialist Heidi Marotta.
That’s it for now! What topics would you like to hear more about? If you post your questions in the comment section below, I will try to answer them in my next blog post.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Janelle Harrier-Wilson Onboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow September 23 – October 3
Mission: Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey Leg II Geographical area of cruise: Atlantic Ocean from the Mid-Atlantic Coast to S New England Date: October 2, 2014
Weather Data from the Bridge Lat: 41° 16.5′ N Lon: 071° 06.3′ W
Present Weather: Cloudy
Visibility: 6-8 nm
Wind: 020 at 28 knts
Sea Level Pressure: 1017.4 mb
Sea Wave Height: 2-3 ft
Temperature Sea Water: 18.4 C
Temperature Air: 14 C
Science and Technology Log
The Henry Bigelow before we left port last week.
Have you been wondering how we fish? I know I have shared a lot about sorting the catch, measuring the length and weight of the fish, and taking other data from the fish, but I haven’t shared a lot of details about how we fish. It’s a pretty cool process that involves a lot of science and engineering to get to a place where we have fish coming down the belt in order for us to sort. Let’s take a look at what happens.
Before the season begins, points are randomly predetermined where we will fish. Each of these points is called a station. The captain and the chief scientist work together to plan out which stations will be visited on each leg of the trip and in what order. We are currently on Leg II of the Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey. There are usually four legs each year.
Once we arrive on station, the ship’s officer scouts for the best place to release the nets. The nets need a relatively flat bottom of the ocean floor with no obstacles like rocks that the net could get caught up on. How does the scouting take place? The ship is equipped with both single beam and mutli-beam sonar. The multi-beam sonar is used to create a three-dimensional map of the ocean floor. This map is used to find the best place for us to trawl.
Next, we take data about that particular spot of the ocean. We either send down the CTD, which measures conductivity, temperature, and density of the water, or we do a bongo. The bongo is a set of nets that streams off the ship to collect plankton from the area of the ocean on station. The survey techs are in charge of conducting these tests and collecting the data from them. Before the cruise began, the stations that would have CTDs or bongos were predetermined.
Once the CTD or bongo test has been conducted, we are ready to set out the nets. The nets are set out by the deck crew and involve a complex series of machinery and computers. Our chief scientist, Jakub Kircun shares this about the system and sensors: “Autotrawl System and Scanmar Sensors: Autotrawl is specifically designed to keep the tensions between port and starboard towing wires equal, therefore keeping the net from fishing crooked. Autotrawl will also be able to assist with hangs as it will automatically release wire during a tension spike. The (Scanmar) sensors on the net are used to check the geometry of the net, however that data is not directly tied with Autotrawl. Instead we monitor the sensors to check on a variety of net mensuration parameters, such as wing-spread, door-spread, headrope-height, headrope-depth, bottom-contact, and water-speed-through-trawl. All those parameters are analyzed by a computer program after each tow called TOGA (Tow Operation Gear Acquisition). If all the parameters are within the per-determined tolerances the tow is considered a representative tow. However if the values are outside of these tolerances then the tow would fail the validation and would need to be retowed.”
Once the net is in the water, we begin streaming. While we are streaming, we are moving slowly in the water, dragging the net behind us. We stream for 20 minutes. We can check the progress of the trawl by watching the sensor readouts. There are sensors in the net that send back live data to the ship.
After we have streamed for 20 minutes, we then haul back the nets. This is the reverse process of when we set the nets out. The net slowly comes back in and begins to be wrapped up and stored. The deck crew puts ropes around the part of the net where the fish are and attaches the net to a crane. The crane moves the net over to the checker.
Once the net is over the checker, the net is opened and the fish are dropped into the checker.
From that point, the watch chief looks through the checker and decides what we will run. This means we don’t collect these things off the conveyor belt instead letting them collect at the end. This is done for the things we caught in large quantities.
From that point, the fish from the checker are loaded onto the conveyor belt and up into the wet lab for us to sort through and process. While we are sorting and processing the fish, the ship is on its way to the next station. The distance between stations varies. We’ve had some that were just over a mile away and others that have been 20 or more miles away. Yesterday, we had a long steam (travel) between stations because the next station was 52 miles away. It took us several hours to steam to that station.
CTD being placed in the water.
Removing the bongo from the water.
The nets ready to go on the Bigelow
Back Deck of the Bigelow. Nets enter the water from here.
Nets rolling out for the trawl.
Moving the net to the checker using the crane.
Emptying the net into the checker.
Inspecting the catch in the checker.
Personal Log
Are you wondering what it’s like to live on a ship? It’s actually pretty cool. I mentioned before that we are on 12-hour watches. While we are on watch, we pack up what we will need for the day in backpacks or other bags. Why? Well, we share rooms with people on the night watch. My stateroom has four bunks. Two of us are on day watch and two of us are on night watch. While the day watch is working, the night watch is sleeping. We don’t want to disturb them so they can get good “night” of rest, so we do not go back to the state room while the night watch is off duty. When we are off duty, they do not come back to the room, either. While we are on watch, we can be really busy sorting and working up a catch. However, depending on how many times we fish during a watch, we may have some free time as well. We have some down time while we are steaming to the next station, during the CTD and bongo tests, and while we are streaming. We jump to work once we start hauling back the nets. We had one day where we were really busy because we visited seven stations during our watch. Sometimes, we have more free time between steams. During that time we can read, have a snack, work on blog posts like I am doing, or sometimes watch a movie. We also have time to eat our meals on watch.
The galley cooks up three meals a day for us. I have only made it in time for breakfast the first day before we started our 12-hour watches. We eat lunch before our watch starts and we eat dinner during our watch. The food is amazing. Dennis Carey is our head steward and chief chef, and he prepares awesome meals for us with his assistant, Luke. However, the galley is open all day, even when a meal is not being served. There are always snacks available like goldfish crackers, Chex mix, cereal, fresh fruit, and ice cream. Plus, there is bread, peanut butter, and jelly to make sandwiches. Sometimes there are pastries, cookies, or other desserts available, too. As you can see, we don’t have to worry about going hungry on the Henry Bigelow!
There is a lounge on board with six recliners and a television set. We can watch satellite TV and movies while we are here. There is also a television in the mess deck. It’s a tradition to watch The Price is Right during lunch time, for instance! We also have an exercise room that has weights, a treadmill, and a bicycle. I haven’t used the gym, but I have worked out with some of the other scientists on board. We can also do laundry, which is pretty important. We pack lightly since we don’t have a lot of room in our staterooms. As you can imagine, our clothes get a little smelly from working with fish all day, so it is nice to be able to do our laundry on board!
Careers at Sea
Ensign Estela Gomez shows volunteer Eric Smith how he plots the ship’s course on the chart.
Have you ever considered a career as a commissioned officer? Did you know that the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps is one of the seven branches of the U.S. uniformed services? We have several officers on board including our commanding officer (the ship’s captain) and the executive officer. I had a chance to visit the bridge the other day, and Ensign Erick Estela Gomez shared what it is like to be part of NOAA’s Commissioned Officer Corps. Most of the officers have a background in science or math that aligns with NOAA’s scientific vision and purpose. To be part of the Corps, you have to have a science or math degree and apply to the program. If you are accepted, you go to training with the Coast Guard. Usually, there are 60 people as part of each training class, 40 from the Coast Guard and 20 from NOAA. The training is like boot camp and includes learning about how to be an officer as well as the science aspects of NOAA. One interesting thing Ensign Estela Gomez shared is that only about 10% of Coast Guard officers actually go out to sea. If you want to be out at sea and be a part of science, the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corp might be for you. Officers move through the ranks starting at ensign. Once an officer has passed training and certification, they can become an Officer On Deck (OOD), which means they can be on watch running the ship on their own.
Lt. Kuzirian takes the oath to accept his new rank as Lt. Commander.
As an officer on the bridge, there is a lot to do in terms of monitoring the different gauges and screens. There are radar monitors, engine and generator monitors, ship’s location, and mulitbeam sonar screens just to name a few. Also, the officer on deck has to watch the horizon for other ships and fishing gear in the water. Although there are computer systems to monitor the ship’s track and location, the ship’s location is still plotted on a paper chart. This is a backup in case of computer errors or other problems.
Yesterday, we had the opportunity to watch one of the officers, Lt. Stephen Kuzirian be promoted to Lt. Commander. This does not happen on board ship every day, so it was really cool to be a part of this ceremony. Lt. Commander Kuzirian has a background in oceanography. He currently works in Washington, D.C., but he joined us on this trip for a chance to be at sea and to assist the Henry Bigelow.
Toro’s Tour
Toro won the votes to make the trip on the Henry Bigelow. He thought you might like a tour of the some of the areas on board the ship. As he was working up the tour, the Captain was worried that Toro was a stowaway since he has not fulfilled any science duties while aboard ship!
Toro is checking out the ship tracker to see where we are headed next.
Toro is investigating the CTD on the deck.
Toro is checking the scientists’ gear in the ready room.
Toro thinks the way we store our gloves is interesting. We reuse the gloves and dry them out between tows.
Toro noticed that the seas were rough.
Toro wanted to take a look at the back deck and checker.
Toro tried on a PFD and hard hat, but this wasn’t his size!
Toro analyzing the catch via the checker cam.
Toro watching the squid bucket move along the conveyor belt.
After a sort, Toro is ready to check out the dinner menu.
Toro can’t wait to fix up his dinner plate.
Did You Know?
The Atlantic Torpedo is an electric ray. It is the largest growing electric ray, and can deliver a shock up to 220 volts!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Janelle Harrier-Wilson Onboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow September 23 – October 3
Mission: Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey Leg II Geographical area of cruise: Atlantic Ocean from the Mid-Atlantic Coast to S New England Date: September 29, 2014
Weather Data from the Bridge Lat: 39° 34.6′ N Lon: 072° 14.9′ W
Present Weather: cloudy
Visibility: 7-9 nm
Wind: 140 at 17 knts
Sea Level Pressure: 1010.9 mb
Sea Wave Height: 3-4 ft
Temperature Sea Water: 22.6 C
Temperature Air: 20.8 C
Science and Technology Log
Processing fish as the cutter
We are continuing to trawl different areas of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Southern New England area. I have graduated from recorder to cutter. This means that when we process the fish and other sea life that we catch, I get to cut fish open to examine them. I am working with Christine Kircun, and we trade off now almost every other tow taking turns to be the cutter and recorder. Christine has been an awesome teacher helping me learn how to properly cut into the fish, identify the sex and maturity of the fish, examine the contents of the fish’s stomach, and find the otoliths. Otoliths are small hard parts of a fish’s inner ear. They are found in cavities near the fish’s brain. The otoliths are collected and sent back to the lab to be analyzed. As the fish grows, the otolith gets different colored (clearer and white) growth rings on it similar to a tree. Counting these can tell the age of the fish. Some fish have otoliths that are really easy to find and remove. Other types of fish are more difficult to find and remove, like windowpane flounder. For more information about how otoliths are used for age and growth, click here.
In my last post, I mentioned that there are left and right-eyed flounder. Summer flounder are left eyed, and winter flounder are right eyed. In a catch the other day, we had winter flounder. As we were working up the winter flounder, we discovered a left-eyed winter flounder! That was pretty cool to see since this is a more rare occurrence.
Winter flounder – a rare left-eyed winter flounderWinter flounder – a right eyed flounder
Before I left for my cruise, I received a CD with information on it including how to identify many of the common fish we catch at sea. I looked through that presentation several times, and I thought I was ready to identify the fish. However, I didn’t get really good at identifying fish until I saw them in person. For instance, there are several kinds of hake. So far, we have caught spotted hake, red hake, silver hake, and offshore hake. Each one looks slightly different, although the offshore and silver hake are the most similar. Red hake have a slight reddish appearance to their scales, and spotted hake have spots down their side. Now that I have seen each one in person, it is much easier to identify the different types of fish. Fish that seemed really similar in the presentation take on new meaning to you when you are holding them in your hand. It’s reminded me once again that when we are learning new things, the most important thing to do is dig in and try things out. You will learn so much more by doing things like experiments in chemistry and building things in engineering than you would by just reading about it or looking at pictures. I have also learned about the anatomy of fish by watching Christine first do the processing and now doing it myself. It’s really cool to see the insides of the fish and the different stages of growth and development. It’s also really cool to push the contents of the fish’s stomach out onto the board to examine what they have eaten!
Sorting the catch
Sorting the catch
Octupus
Shrimp
Windowpane flounder
Northern Puffers – notice the difference between mostly puffed (filled with water) and unpuffed
Spotted Hake – notice the line of spots down the lateral line.
Fistularia also known as Cornetfish
I thought you might like to see a short video of the process of sorting the fish off the conveyor belt. You can see the fish coming up the conveyor belt from the checker and pouring onto the conveyor belt in the wet lab for sorting.
Careers at Sea
I have learned something really interesting about working at sea. The scientists onboard this cruise do not spend their entire time out at sea. In fact, most of the scientists go out once or twice in the spring and once or twice in the fall. Just like we are doing an autumn bottom trawl survey, there is also a spring bottom trawl survey. During the rest of the time, they work at the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Lab in Woods Hole, MA. It seems like a really cool balance between doing science in the lab with a pretty normal daily routine most of the year but then having the chance to go out to sea a couple of times a year in order to do field work and be part of an adventure. I did not know that opportunities like this existed. If you love to do science but don’t want to spend all of your time in the lab, a career like this might be really interesting to you. Most of the scientists have degrees in marine science/biology, biology, or other related fields.
Personal Log
After just a few short days, I have settled in to my routine here on the Henry Bigelow. It’s an exciting life because you never know what’s going to come up on the next trawl or what other cool things you will see out at sea. Sometimes, we have been really close to the shore, and you can see the lights of the cities off in the distance. Now, we are offshore, but even out here you aren’t alone. There are ships passing by most of the time, and at night you can see the lights from the other ships off in the distance.
One of my favorite things to do is to head up to the flying bridge to watch the sunset. The past few nights have had beautiful sun sets, and we have had time to enjoy them in between sorting and working up the fish. The flying bridge is the highest part of the ship. It’s above the main bridge where the ship is controlled from. When it’s clear, you can see for miles in every direction. There is also a picnic bench up there, so it’s a great place to sit and read a book while waiting for the next trawl to come in.
After my watch finishes at midnight, I also like to head up to the flying bridge. It’s one of the darker places on the ship at night. As your eyes adjust to the night, the stars begin to appear before you. Out here, the sky kisses the sea, and the stars rise out of the inky black of the ocean. I watched the constellation Orion rise up out of the Atlantic. It was inspiring. There are so many stars. It’s not like the light polluted skies of the Atlanta area. Even with the ship’s lights, you can still make out the bands of the Milky Way. I also saw two meteors streak through the sky the other night.
Ship in the distance
Coastline in the distance
Sunset
Sunset
Sunset
Did You Know?
The goosefish is an angler fish that lives on the ocean floor on the continental shelf and slope. It uses its angler to attract prey. It has a huge mouth compared to its body. It’s also called poor man’s lobster because the meaty tail of the fish resembles the taste of lobster.
GoosefishGoosefish mouth
Challenge Yourself
Think you have what it takes to figure out the age of a fish using otoliths? Try this interactive, and share how you did in the comments.
