buoy – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

July 25, 2019

Catherine Fuller: National Mooring Day, July 11, 2019

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Catherine Fuller

Aboard R/V Sikuliaq

June 29 – July 18, 2019

Mission: Northern Gulf of Alaska (NGA) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Northern Gulf of Alaska

Date: July 11, 2019

Weather Data from the Bridge

Latitude: 59° 00.823 N
Longitude: 148° 40.079 W
Wave Height: 1 ft, ground swell 3-4 ft
Wind Speed: 5.4 knots
Wind Direction: 241 degrees
Visibility: 5 nm
Air Temperature: 13.3 °C
Barometric Pressure: 1014.6 mb
Sky: Overcast

Science and Technology Log

At home, I regularly check information from the buoys that literally surround our islands. They give me real time, relevant data on ocean conditions and weather so that I am informed about storm or surf events. We also have buoys that track tsunami data, and the accuracy and timeliness of their data can save lives. Deploying and monitoring these buoys is a job that requires knowledge of ocean conditions, electronics, rigging and computer programming.

preparing buoy system — Pete (foreground) and Seth set up the buoy system in preparation for deployment

buoy anchors — The anchors for the buoys were made of train wheels

Pete Shipton is onboard as the mooring technician from UAF’s Seward Marine Center. This morning, he, Dr. Danielson and the crew deployed three moorings near oceanographic station GAK6i (about 60 miles offshore in the Northern Gulf of Alaska) at a depth of 230 meters. The search for the right depth required that R/V Sikuliaq do an acoustic survey of the area last night to find a kilometer-long area of the right depth and bottom slope. The three moorings will be situated close enough to each other that for all purposes they are collecting a co-located set of readings representative of this site, yet far enough apart, with small watch circles, that they don’t overlap and foul each other. The set of three is designed to have one surface buoy on either side with sensors at the surface and through the water column and a third buoy in the middle with sensors also distributed across all depths.

The first buoy, GEO-1, gives information on physics, optics, nutrient
chemistry and has a profiling instrument that will “walk” up and down the mooring wire from about 25 m above the seafloor to 25 m below the surface, collecting profiles four times a day. The mooring has many of the sensors that the ship’s CTD has, including an ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler), a weather station with a GPS that measures wind speed, relative humidity, sea level pressure, and air temperature. The buoy system was designed to withstand and operate in 8 m waves; in larger waves the surface buoy is expected to become submerged. At one meter of depth, GEO-1 measures the temperature, salinity, chlorophyll fluorescence and photosynthetically available radiation.

On GEO-2 (the center buoy), similar data is recorded at 22 m below the surface. There will also be a sediment trap, mammal acoustics recorder, particle camera, and an AZFP (acoustic zooplankton fish profiler), which has four frequencies that can detect sea life from the size of fish down to the size of zooplankton. It records sound reflections from all sizes of creatures and can see fish migrations during day or night within a range of 100m (from 100m depth to the surface).

Buoy GEO-3 is the primary “guard” buoy, or marker for the whole set. It also has a real-time transmitting weather station and near-surface measurements.

Linking the mooring lines and the anchors are acoustic releases,
which are remotely controlled tethers whole sole function to listen for a “release” command that will tell them to let go of the anchor. Since the limiting factor on the instruments is the life of the batteries, they will be picked up in a year and the acoustic release will allow the instruments to be brought back aboard Sikuliaq. These buoys will be providing real time information for groups such as the Alaska Ocean Observing System (www.aoos.org) about weather and ocean conditions, while also collecting
information about sea life in the area.

Pete and Seth on buoy — Pete (left) and Seth (right) test the stability of the buoy

Deploying the buoys was a lengthy process that required careful
coordination of parts, lines, chains and personnel. Luckily everything
went off perfectly! As the anchor weights for the two surface buoys deployed, they briefly pulled the buoys under, causing a bit of joking about whether the line length was calculated correctly. The brief “dunk test” was an excellent first trial for submergence during this coming winter’s storm conditions.

The second buoy briefly scares us by going under!

MarTechs:

There are opportunities for careers at sea in a wide variety of positions on board a research vessel. One of the most interesting is the MarTech (Marine Technician), because of their dual role during a scientific cruise.

The Marine Technicians are technically assigned to the science team although they are a part of the ship’s crew. Bern and Ethan are the MarTechs on this cruise and both work specifically with R/V Sikuliaq. They are considered a part of whatever science team is on board at the time. The MarTechs are on 12-hour shifts, from 8:00 to 8:00. Ethan is on at night, and Bern is on during the day, although there is some overlap. The two men help to deploy and recover instruments for the science team and as well as helping the crew with any deck operations. They also are responsible for the computer lab and overseeing the data displays and production from the various sensors, as well as maintaining the instruments on the ship that provide information. Although they are always at hand to help when we need it, you will often find them also repairing and upgrading ship’s equipment and helping with engineering tasks.

Bern sets up camera — Bern setting up one of his cameras.

Bern has been a MarTech on R/V Sikuliaq since 2013, and had previous experience on other research vessels, both American and international. Bern is also the ship’s unofficial documentation guy; he has a number of small cameras that he regularly uses to capture the action on board, whether from the vantage point of one of the cranes or on top of his own helmet. You can find examples of Bern’s camera work on R/V Sikuliaq’s Instagram site (@rvsikuliaq).

Ethan and Ana — Ethan helps Ana with the iron fish.

Like Bern, Ethan has also worked on other research vessels but has been on R/V Sikuliaq since it was built. This is the only ship he’s been a MarTech on. His interest in oceanography, especially marine acoustics, led him to this career. Marine acoustics is more than just listening for large species such as whales. There are acoustic sensors that “listen” to the ship and help ensure that it is functioning normally. Other acoustic sensors, such as the ones based in the open keel of the ship use sound technology to map the ocean floor as we progress on our path. Ethan was kind enough to show me the keel and explain the instrumentation. In addition, there are instruments that constantly record salinity, temperature, current strength, solar radiation and other measurements along the path we travel to provide a more complete picture of the environmental conditions existing at every point.

The ship’s acoustic instruments are mounted in the open keel; it’s open to the sea!

The marine technicians manage the computer lab when they are not needed for operations. This lab is the nerve center of the ship and allows the science team to work closely with the bridge to coordinate the movement of instruments and the speed of the vessel through the water to achieve optimum results. You can find information on meteorology, navigation, engine performance, depth sounders, closed circuit monitors, ship acoustics and deck winch statistics by looking at specific screens. In addition, the staterooms have monitors that also allow viewing of certain screens.

By far the two displays that are followed most closely are the CTD cast screens and the AIS screen. The AIS screen gives our course on a map, and shows our progress as well as future waypoints. It also shows our speed and bearing to our next point as well as ocean depth and wind speed and direction. The CTD screen shows real-time results in a number of categories such as salinity, oxygen, chlorophyll, temperature, nitrates and light as the CTD descends and ascends through the water column. Based on the results of the down cast, the teams determine the depths from which they’d like water samples collected as the CTD rises.

The CTD screen looks like spaghetti until you understand the color code for each line.

The Bridge:

The equipment on the bridge represents the pinnacle of technology as far as ship operations go. The captain’s chair has been described by some members of the science team as the “Battlestar Galactica” or “Star Trek” chair, and it really does look like it fits in a science fiction movie. Displays on the bridge show performance of the engines, radar returns and our bearing and range from them, and any other pertinent information to vessel performance. Ship movement and waypoints are hand plotted by the second mate, who also oversees ship movement along with the captain, chief mate and third mate. The ship’s officers work the bridge on a rotating watch schedule. One of the cool features of this ship is that it operates two Z-drives, similar to what is used on tugboats. These are propellers that can move independently of each other and turn in any direction. They allow the ship to be maneuvered precisely, which is a great help when we need to stay on a station through multiple operations. Various views of the bridge and the navigational instruments used by the ship’s crew are shown in the gallery below.

View of the bridge
View of the bridge
View out the bridge
The Captain’s Chair

Captain Eric Piper shows off his new jacket

Personal Log

Happy Mooring Day! It’s our self-declared “national holiday”! Because the process of deploying the moorings and buoys took up all of the morning and a part of the afternoon, most of the rest of the science team took the morning off and slept in. So many of them ran on the treadmill that running might become a part of our “holiday” tradition. My roommate even took bacon back to her room to eat in bed. Gwenn brought out her Twizzlers…somewhat appropriate because they look like steel cable (even though the moorings did not use cable). It was a nice breather for the science team, who have been working very hard to collect samples and run experiments. Somewhere along the line, the idea of making Mooring Day a “holiday” caught on, and it’s become a bit of a joke amongst the team. We’re down to a week to go, and everyone is beginning to think about what happens when we get in and when we all go home. But… we’re not quite there yet, and there’s a lot of work left to do.

Animals Seen Today

We apparently have a stowaway…a small finch-like bird that flits about the ship. It must have joined us when we were near land, and now we ARE the land.

August 19, 2018

Tom Savage: What is Life Like aboard the Fairweather? August 17, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Tom Savage

Aboard NOAA Ship Fairweather

August 6 – 23, 2018

Mission: Arctic Access Hydrographic Survey

Geographic Area of Cruise: Point Hope, northwest Alaska

Date: August 17, 2018

Weather Data from the Bridge

Latitude 64 42.8 N
Longitude – 171 16.8 W
Air temperature: 6.2 C
Dry bulb 6.2 C
Wet bulb 6.1 C
Visibility: 0 Nautical Miles
Wind speed: 26 knots
Wind direction: east
Barometer: 1000.4 millibars
Cloud Height: 0 K feet
Waves: 4 feet

Sunrise: 6:33 am
Sunset: 11:45 pm

Personal Log

I was asked yesterday by one of my students what life is like aboard the NOAA Ship Fairweather? So I thought I would dedicate this entry to address this and some of the other commonly asked questions from my students.

Life on board the ship is best described as a working village and everyone on board has many specific jobs to ensure the success of its mission; check my “Meet the Crew” blog. The ship operates in a twenty four hour schedule with the officers rotating shifts and responsibilities. When the ship is collecting ocean floor data, the hydrographers will work rotating shifts 24 hours a day. With so much happening at once on a working research vessel, prevention of incidents is priority which leads to the ship’s success. A safety department head meeting is held daily by the XO (executive officer of the ship) to review any safety issues.

During times when the weather is not conducive for data collection, special training sessions are held. For instance, a few days ago, the officers conducted man over board drills. Here, NOAA Officers practice navigating the ship and coordinating with deck hands to successfully rescue the victim; in this case it’s the ship’s mascot, “Oscar.”

(Fun fact: at sea, ships use signal flags to communicate messages back and forth [obviously, this was more prevalent before the advent of radio]. For example: the “A” or “Alpha” flag means divers are working under the surface; the “B” or “Bravo” flag means I am taking on dangerous cargo [i.e. fueling]; and the “O” flag means I have a man overboard. The phonetic name for “O” is, you guessed it, “Oscar” … hence the name. You can read about other messages here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_maritime_signal_flags).

Precision and speed is the goal and it is not easy when the officer is maneuvering 1,591 tons of steel; the best time was 6:24. This takes a lot skill, practice and the ability to communicate effectively to the many crew members on the bridge, stern (back of boat), and the breezeways on both port and starboard sides of the ship. Navigating the ship becomes even more challenging when fog rolls in as the officers rely on their navigation instruments. Training can also come in the form of good entertainment. With expired rescue flares and smoke grenades, the whole crew practiced firing flares and activating the smoke canisters. These devices are used to send distress signals in the event of a major ship emergency. I had the opportunity of firing one of the flares !

Flares — Practicing the release of emergency smoke canisters ~ photo by Tom Savage

What are the working conditions like on board?

At sea, the working environment constantly changes due to the weather and the current state of the seas. Being flexible and adaptive is important and jobs and tasks for the day often change Yesterday, we experienced the first rough day at sea with wave heights close to ten feet. Walking up a flight of stairs takes a bit more dexterity and getting used to. At times the floor beneath will become not trustworthy, and the walls become your support in preventing accidents.

NavigatingFog — View from the Bridge in fog. ~ photo by Tom Savage

Where do you sleep?

Each crew member is assigned a stateroom and some are shared quarters. Each stateroom has the comforts from home a bed, desk, head (bathroom & shower) sink and a port hole (window) in most cases. The most challenging component of sleeping is sunlight, it does not set until 11:30 pm. No worries, the “port holes” have a metal plate that can be lowered. It is definitely interesting looking through the window when the seas are rough and watching the waves spin by. Seabirds will occasionally fly by late at night and I wonder why are they so far out to sea ?

Generally, when sharing a stateroom, roommates will have different working shifts.

Meals are served in the galley and it is amazing! It is prepared daily by our Chief Steward Tyrone; he worked for the Navy for 20 years and comes with a lot of skills and talents ! When asking the crew what they enjoy the most on board the ship, a lot of them mention the great food and not having to cook.

Fairweather's Galley — Fairweather’s Galley ~ photo by Tom

Are there any activities?

Keeping in good physical shape aboard any vessel out at sea is important. The Fairweather has a gym that can be used 24 hours a day. The gym has treadmills, elliptical, weights and a stair climber.

ExerciseRoom — The exercise room – photo by Tom

There is the lounge where movies are shown in the evening. Interestingly, the seats glide with the motions of the waves. Meetings are also held here daily, mostly safety briefings.

What are the working hours like?

During any cruise with NOAA, there is always things that come up that were not planned, staff and schedules are adjusted accordingly. On this leg of the trip during our transit back to Kodiak Island, we stopped by Nome, Alaska, to pick up a scientist from NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab PMEL office. One of their research buoys separated from its mooring and went adrift in the Bering Sea (it drifted over 100 miles before we were able to catch up to it. The Fairweather was dispatched to collect and store the buoy aboard, after which it will eventually be returned to PMEL’s lab in Seattle Washington.

Buoy Retrieval — Retrieval of NOAA’s PMEL (Pacific Marine Environmental Lab) buoy. photo by NOAA

The place with the most noise is definitely the engine room. Here, two sixteen piston engines built by General Motors powers the ship; the same engine power in one train engine ! It is extremely difficult to navigate in the engine room as there is so many valves, pipes, pumps, switches and wires. Did I mention that it is very warm in the room; according to the chief engineer, Tommy, to maintain a healthy engine is to ensure that the engine is constantly warm even during times when the ship is docked.

Tom in Engine Room — Navigating the engine room …… I did not push any buttons, promise! Photo by Kyle

Until next time, happy sailing !

~ Tom

August 13, 2018

Roy Moffitt: Moorings All Day, August 12, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Roy Moffitt

Aboard USCGC Healy

August 7 – 25, 2018

Mission: Healy 1801 – Arctic Distributed Biological Observatory

Geographic Area: Arctic Ocean (Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Beaufort Sea)

Date: August 12, 2018

Current location/conditions: mid day August 12 Northwest of Icy Point Alaska

Air temp 34F, sea depth 43 m , surface sea water temp 43F

Moorings all day

Moorings are essentially anything left tied to an anchor at sea. In this case, moorings hold many different types of scientific instruments that have been anchored at sea for a year. We are only here in the Arctic for a couple weeks. In order to monitor the ocean when people are not here, many different kinds of underwater instruments that have been designed to record ocean conditions are left under the ocean attached to moorings. To service these moorings they must be retrieved. This is one of the main tasks of this trip. When we arrive at a mooring station, one would not know it as the mooring is underneath the ocean, hidden from sight. A audio signal is sent to the underwater release and a buoy (a large yellow float) is deployed. Then, the Coast Guard steps into action. This picture below shows a Coast Guard crew fishing for a buoy in a not-so-calm sea. When they hook the buoy they will tie it to a rope that is hooked into the Healy‘s on board winch. The winch will pull in the buoy as the rope is wrapped around a turning spool.

Moffitt_Mooring Retrieval_small — The Coast Guard crew fish for a buoy in a not-so-calm sea

When the buoys and attached instruments come out of the ocean they can be covered with sea life, such as barnacles which you may be able to see as small white shell looking creatures in the picture below. The buoy in the picture is mostly covered in bryozoans. Although it looks like seaweed, bryozoans are not plants, but tiny sea filtering animals chained together. Either way it has got to go. This was my job today. I washed all the buoys and cleaned the instruments. For the sensitive parts on the instruments, this meant using a sponge and toothbrush. For the rest of the instrument, I used a power washer.

Mooring retrieved from the ocean — A mooring retrieved from the ocean, covered in marine life – mainly bryozoans.

cleaned instrument — A close-up of the mooring instrument, post-cleaning

Once this instrument is in the science lab, the sound recorder (as mentioned in the August 8th blog post) was taken apart and thoroughly cleaned. It will be reused at another station during this trip if all is functioning well. In the next picture, this equipment is now shown cleaned and sitting in the lab. Much of the cleaning was done with toothbrushes and a wire brush. So another important role for a scientist is spending a lot of time cleaning equipment! Not exactly glorious!

The Mustang Suit

In my life, I have power washed many things, but aboard the Healy in the Arctic, for safety reasons, I have to wear a Mustang suit. Essentially the Mustang is an oversized orange snowsuit designed to save a life if anyone falls overboard into the near freezing Arctic waters. It has a light beacon and a whistle attached for rescuers to find you and it is designed to keep body heat in for a longer amount of time than plain clothes. This is to try to keep anyone from immediately getting hypothermia and hopefully provide the additional few minutes it would take to rescue a man overboard. I prefer to call the Mustang a big fluffy orange sweat suit– even though it was 34 degrees out I was sweating in it!

NH dudes — Teacher at Sea Roy Moffitt (left) and UNH researcher Anthony Lyons (right) wearing Mustang Suits

Here I am, in this picture, looking like an orange Pillsbury doughboy with fellow New Hampshire resident Anthony Lyons. Anthony is from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) and is a Research Professor at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering. Anthony is retrieving and deploying moorings with passive acoustic devices that record animal sounds and rain from under the ice. The instruments also measure the density of plankton and fish in the water, both food sources for marine animals. With data over time, changes in density of these populations with changes of ice cover can be found.

Today’s Wildlife Sightings

Sometimes life clings on to the moorings. These basking starfish were attached to a mooring we pulled in yesterday. Then, the next picture is an Anemone curled up in a ball that was also attached to another mooring.

Basking Starfish

Anemone

Now and Looking Forward

Air temperature has dropped to 34 degrees F, and although the surface sea temperature is 43, lower in the water column the temperatures are actually near or below freezing. It looks like we may see some pieces of ice as soon as next mooring stations tomorrow. Those changing conditions will have to be monitored for mooring retrieval, as a buoy cannot pop up through ice!

August 3, 2017August 15, 2017

Samantha Adams: Day 8 – My, What a Fabulous Smell You’ve Discovered, July 31, 2017

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Samantha Adams

Aboard Hi’ialakai

July 25 – August 3, 2017

Mission: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station deployment (WHOTS-14)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Hawaii, Pacific Ocean

Date: Monday, 31 July 2017

Weather Data from the Bridge:

Latitude & Longitude: 22^o45’N, 157^o45’ ^oW. Ship speed: 0.8 knots. Air temperature: 27.9^oC. Sea temperature: 27.3^oC. Humidity: 72%.Wind speed: 11.2 knots. Wind direction: 93 degrees. Sky cover: Few.

Science and Technology Log:

blog.5.Day8.image1 — The WHOTS-13 buoy after a year at sea. These three red-footed boobies will lose their perch soon!

It’s deja vu all over again! The WHOTS-14 buoy is stable and transmitting data, and all the in situ measurements necessary to verify the accuracy of that data have been taken. Now it’s time to go get the WHOTS-13 buoy, and bring it home.

WHOTS-13 Buoy Diagram — Diagram of the WHOTS-13 mooring. Image courtesy of the University of Hawaii.

The process of retrieving the WHOTS-13 buoy is essentially the same as deploying the WHOTS-14 buoy — except in reverse, and a lot more slimy. Take a look at the diagram of the WHOTS-13 buoy (to the left), and you’ll notice that it looks almost identical to the WHOTS-14 buoy. Aside from a few minor changes from year to year, the configuration of the buoys remains essentially the same… so the three and a half miles of stuff that went into the ocean on Thursday? The same amount has all got to come back up.

At 6:38AM HAST, a signal was sent from the ship to the acoustic releases on the WHOTS-13 buoy’s anchor. After a year under three miles of water, the mooring line is on its way back to the surface!

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From the time the signal was sent to the acoustic releases on the anchor to last instrument coming back on board, recovering the WHOTS-13 buoy took 9 hours and 53 minutes.

Personal Log:

Now that I have witnessed (and participated in, however briefly) both a buoy deployment and retrieval, one of the things that impressed me the most was how well coordinated everything was, and how smoothly everything went. Both deployment and retrieval were reviewed multiple times, from short overviews at daily briefings (an afternoon meeting involving the ship’s officers, crew and the science team) to extensive hour long “walk throughs” the day before the main event. Consequently, everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing, and where and when they were supposed to be doing it — which lead to minimal discussion, confusion and (I assume) stress. Each operation ran like a well choreographed dance; even when something unexpected happened (like the glass ball exploding on deck during deployment of the WHOTS-14 buoy), since everybody knew what the next step was supposed to be, there was always space to pause and work through the problem. Communication is most definitely key!

The other thing that really made an impression was how much emphasis was placed on taking breaks and drinking enough water. It was hot, humid and sunny during both deployment and recovery, and since Hi’ialakai had to be pointed directly into the wind during the operations, there was virtually no wind on the working deck at all. I’ve always thought as the ocean as a place you go to cool off, but, at least for these few days, it’s been anything but! With apologies to Coleridge: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any place to swim!”

Did You Know?

blog.5.Day8.image17 — A tangled mess of anything can be called a wuzzle. For example: “I don’t know how my headphones got into such a wuzzle.” The mess of glass balls on the deck is most definitely a wuzzle.

July 29, 2017August 15, 2017

Samantha Adams: Day 6 – Testing… 1 – 2 – 3, July 29, 2017

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Samantha Adams

Aboard NOAA Ship Hi’ialakai

July 25 – August 3, 2017

Mission: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station deployment (WHOTS-14)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Hawaii, Pacific Ocean

Date: Saturday, 29 July 2017

Weather Data from the Bridge:

Latitude & Longitude: 22^o45’N, 157^o56’W. Ship speed: 1.3 knots. Air temperature: 27.8^oC. Sea temperature: 27.0^oC. Humidity: 72%.Wind speed: 14 knots. Wind direction: 107 degrees. Sky cover: Few.

Science and Technology Log:

The most difficult part of Thursday’s buoy deployment was making sure the anchor was dropped on target. Throughout the day, shifting winds and currents kept pushing the ship away from the anchor’s target location. There was constant communication between the ship’s crew and the science team, correcting for this, but while everyone thought we were close when the anchor was dropped, nobody knew for sure until the anchor’s actual location had been surveyed.

blog.4.Day6.image1 — Triangulation of the WHOTS-14 buoy’s anchor location. Look at how close the ‘Anchor at Depth’ location is to the ‘Target’ location — only 177.7 meters apart! Also notice that all three circles intersect at one point, meaning that the triangulated location of the anchor is quite accurate.

To survey the anchor site, the ship “pinged” (sent a signal to) the acoustic releases on the buoy’s mooring line from three separate locations around the area where the anchor was dropped. This determines the distance from the ship to the anchor — or, more accurately, the distance from the ship to the acoustic releases. When all three distances are plotted (see the map above), the exact location of the buoy’s anchor can be determined. Success! The buoy’s anchor is 177.7 meters away from the target location — closer to the intended target than any other WHOTS deployment has gotten.

After deployment on Thursday, and all day Friday, the Hi’ialakai stayed “on station” about a quarter of a nautical mile downwind of the WHOTS-14 buoy, in order to verify that the instruments on the buoy were making accurate measurements. Because both meteorological and oceanographic measurements are being made, the buoy’s data must be verified by two different methods.

Weather data from the buoy (air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, etc.) is verified using measurements from the Hi’ialakai’s own weather station and a separate set of instruments from NOAA’s Environmental Sciences Research Laboratory. This process is relatively simple, only requiring a few quick mouse clicks (to download the data), a flashdrive (to transfer the data), and a “please” and “thank you”.

blog.4.Day6.image2 — July 28, 2017, 5:58PM HAST. Preparing the rosette for a CDT cast. Notice that the grey sampling bottles are open. If you look closely, you can see clear plastic “wire” running from the top of the sampling bottles to the center of the rosette. The wires are fastened on hooks which, when triggered by the computer in the lab, flip up, releasing the wire and closing the sampling bottle.

Salinity, temperature and depth measurements (from the MicroCats on the mooring line), on the other hand, are much more difficult to verify. In order to get the necessary “in situ” oceanographic data (from measurements made close to the buoy), the water must be sampled directly. This is done buy doing something called a CTD cast — in this case, a specific type called a yo-yo.

The contraption in the picture to the left is called a rosette. It consists of a PCV pipe frame, several grey sampling bottles around the outside of the frame, and multiple sets of instruments in the center (one primary and one backup) for each measurement being made.

blog.4.Day6.image3 — July 28, 2017, 6:21PM HAST. On station at WHOTS-14, about halfway through a CDT cast (which typically take an hour). The cable that raises and lowers the rosette is running through the pulley in the upper right hand corner of the photo. The buoy is just visible in the distance, under the yellow arm.

The rosette is hooked to a stainless steel cable, hoisted over the side of the ship, and lowered into the water. Cable is cast (run out) until the rosette reaches a certain depth — which can be anything, really, depending on what measurements need to be made. For most of the verification measurements, this depth has been 250 meters. Then, the rosette is hauled up to the surface. And lowered back down. And raised up to the surface. And lowered back down. It’s easy to see why it’s called a yo-yo! (CDT casts that go deeper — thousands of meters instead of hundreds — only go down and up once.)

For the verification process, the rosette is raised and lowered five times, with the instruments continuously measuring temperature, salinity and depth. On the final trip back to the surface, the sampling bottles are closed remotely, one at a time, at specific depths, by a computer in the ship’s lab. (The sampling depths are determined during the cast, by identifying points of interest in the data. Typically, water is sampled at the lowest point of the cast and five meters below the surface, as well as where the salinity and oxygen content of the water is at its lowest.) Then, the rosette is hauled back on board, and water from the sampling bottles is emptied into smaller glass bottles, to be taken back to shore and more closely analyzed.

On this research cruise, the yo-yos are being done by scientists and student researchers from the University of Hawaii, who routinely work at the ALOHA site (where the WHOTS buoys are anchored). The yoyos are done at regular intervals throughout the day, with the first cast beginning at about 6AM HAST and the final one wrapping up at about midnight.

blog.4.Day6.image4 — July 29, 2017, 9:43AM HAST. On station at WHOTS-13. One CDT cast has already been completed; another is scheduled to begin in about 15 minutes.

After the final yo-yo was complete at the WHOTS-14 buoy early Saturday morning, the Hi’ialakai traveled to the WHOTS-13 buoy. Today and tomorrow (Sunday), more in situ meteorological and oceanographic verification measurements will be made at the WHOTS-13 site. All of this — the meteorological measurements, the yo-yos, the days rocking back and forth on the ocean swell — must happen in order to make sure that the data being recorded is consistent from one buoy to the next. If this is the case, then it’s a good bet that any trends or changes in the data are real — caused by the environmental conditions — rather than differences in the instruments themselves.

Personal Log:

blog.4.Day6.image5 — The *Hi’ialakai*’s dry lab. Everyone is wearing either a sweatshirt or a jacket… are we sure this is Hawaii?

Most of the science team’s time is divided between the Hi’ialakai’s deck and the labs (there are two; one wet, and one dry). The wet lab contains stainless steel sinks, countertops, and an industrial freezer; on research cruises that focus on marine biology, samples can be stored there. Since the only samples being collected on this cruise are water, which don’t need to be frozen, the freezer was turned off before we left port, and turned into additional storage space. The dry lab (shown in the picture above) is essentially open office space, in use nearly 24 hours a day. The labs, like most living areas on the ship, are quite well air conditioned. It may be hot and humid outside, but inside, hoodies and hot coffee are both at a premium!

Did You Know?

The acronym “CTD” stands for conductivity, temperature and depth. But the MicroCats on the buoy mooring lines and the CTD casts are supposed to measure salinity, temperature and depth… so where does conductivity come in? It turns out that the salinity of the water can’t be measured directly — but conductivity of the water can.

When salt is dissolved into water, it breaks into ions, which have positive and negative charges. In order to determine salinity, an instrument measuring conductivity will pass a small electrical current between two electrodes (conductors), and the voltage on either side of the electrodes is measured. Ions facilitate the flow of the electrical current through the water. Therefore conductivity, with the temperature of the water taken into account, can be used to determine the salinity.

July 26, 2017August 15, 2017

Samantha Adams: Day 1 – Things You Never Think About, July 24, 2017

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Samantha Adams

Aboard NOAA Ship Hi’ialakai

July 25 – August 3, 2017

Mission: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Hawaii Ocean Time-series Station deployment (WHOTS-14)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Hawaii, Pacific Ocean

Date: Monday 24 July 2017

Weather Data from the Bridge:

Latitude & Longitude: 21^o22’N, 157^o57’ W. Ship speed: 0 knots. Air temperature: 82^oF. Humidity: 74%.Wind speed: 8 knots. Wind direction: East-South-East. Sky cover: Broken.

Science and Technology Log:

One of the first things you learn to do as a teacher is to plan for things to go wrong. When you put a lesson together, you try to identify potential problem areas, and then try to figure out how you could address those problems when they do arise, or try to avoid them altogether. One of the next things that you learn is that the biggest problem is invariably going to be something you never anticipated being a problem at all. Deploying a research buoy, it turns out, works essentially the same way.

Bird Wire

WHOTS stations are massive, self-contained buoys, designed to stay at sea for up to eighteen months, collecting data the entire time. There are redundant systems on top of redundant systems. Multiple meteorological instruments, measuring exactly the same thing, sprout from the buoy’s tower like misshapen mushrooms. If one instrument fails, there is always another — to ensure that, no matter what, the data is collected. And surrounding it all, like the spines of a porcupine, is the bird wire.

Anything that floats on the ocean winds can be a perch for birds, and the WHOTS buoys are no exception. I’ve been told that after a year at sea, the buoy is absolutely disgusting. I’ve seen some of the mess New York City pigeons can create, and I’m willing to bet that what I’m imagining cannot even come close. I’ll find out for myself later this week, when we retrieve the WHOTS buoy that was deployed last year!

Ick factor aside, birds (and their waste products) pose a real danger to the instruments on the buoy’s tower. If something is pecked or perched on or — use your imagination — otherwise damaged, the instruments may record corrupted data, or no data at all. Which is why there are redundant systems, and why Monday morning was spent making the buoy look like a porcupine. But wait! There’s more! It turns out all bird wire is not created equal. All of the spikes are made of stainless steel, but the spikes can be mounted on different things. Bird wire with a stainless steel base is more effective at repelling birds (because the spikes are closer together)… but the spikes have to be welded into the base, which magnetizes the bird wire. And if this wire is placed the instruments, it can affect their internal compasses and, in turn affect the data the bird wire is intended to protect! Bird wire with a plastic base is less effective (because the spikes are further apart), but much safer for the buoy’s instruments.

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Cayenne Pepper, Copper and Things Covered in Tape

The tower of the WHOTS buoy isn’t the only thing that is absolutely disgusting after spending a year at sea. Everything that spends the year below the surface of the ocean (which will be described in a post later this week) comes back absolutely disgusting, too. And it’s not as though it can all just be thrown away. Of particular importance are the instruments attached under the buoy and about every 10 meters (down to 150 meters) along the buoy’s mooring line. All of these instruments must be returned to the manufacturer for calibration (to make sure they were working properly). But there’s a catch — they must be returned clean! Which means that everything that has been growing on them while they’ve been under water must be scrubbed, scraped or peeled off. To make the job easier, the search is always on for ways to keep things from growing on the instruments in the first place. This is called antifouling.

One antifouling method is painting. There are specialized antifouling paints available, but they can be toxic. So the paint that covers the exterior of the buoy contains cayenne pepper (!), which has proven to be as effective as specialized paint, but is much safer. Another antifouling method used on many of the instruments under the buoy involves replacing some stainless steel components with specially made copper ones, as copper also naturally impedes growth. And a third method that’s very popular is simply to cover the instruments with a layer of electrical tape, which can just be peeled off — no scrubbing or scraping involved!

blog.2.Day1.image4 — MicroCats covered in black electrical tape. Notice the bracket on the top of each instrument — they are custom-made, out of copper, to make the cleaning process that much easier when the buoy is retrieved next summer.

blog.2.Day1.image5 — Instruments on the bottom of the buoy. Once deployed, these instruments will be approximately three feet under water, which is why so much copper is used.

Personal Log:

blog.2.Day1.image3 — “You’re lucky you weren’t here when we had to load for three months!”

Throughout the day, refrigerated trucks pulled up on the dock next to the Hi’ialakai. They were not full of delicate scientific instrumentation, but something just as vitally important to the cruise — food! The same crane that had been used to hoist instruments on board was also used to carry pallets of food from the dock to the deck of the ship. Then it was passed from hand to hand (by members of the ship’s crew, the science team, the ship’s officers, and the Teacher at Sea) all the way down to the galley’s refrigerators and freezers. The ice cream was handled with particular care — no surprise there!

Did You Know?

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s acronym — WHOI — has a pronunciation! You can say it like “hooey”. Or “whoo-ey!” It means the same thing either way!

May 18, 2015August 21, 2021

DJ Kast, Pre-Cruise, May 18, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Dieuwertje “DJ” Kast
Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow
May 19 – June 3, 2015

Mission: Ecosystem Monitoring Survey
Geographical area of cruise: East Coast
Date: May 18, 2015 (Pre-cruise)

Personal Log

Chris Melrose picked me up from the hotel and really helped me get a grasp of life aboard a research vessel. I learned all about Narragansett Bay and the lab here in Rhode Island.

I then met Jerry Prezioso, the Chief Scientist for the voyage, who gave me a great tour of the Narragansett Bay Lab. I learned what an XBT (expendable bathythermograph) was and how it measures temperature at various depths.

XBT Photo by: DJ Kast — XBT
Photo by: DJ Kast

I learned how a Niskin bottle works and how many Niskin bottles lined up in a circle to make a piece of equipment called a rosette. The Niskin bottle is like a hollow tube with a mechanism that closes the tube at a specific depth that will then bring a water sample indicative of that depth. They apparently cost $400 each. I am already making plans on how to make a DYI one for the classroom.

Niskin Bottle Photo by: DJ Kast — Niskin Bottle
Photo by: DJ Kast

This is a Rosette with 12 niskin bottles. Photo by: DJ Kast

With Jerry, I also met Ruth Briggs who works for the Narragansett Bay Apex Predators division and she showed me the shark tags that she has citizen scientists put onto sharks on the base of their dorsal (top) fin that they catch. When the sharks are caught again, the information she requests is sent back to her and includes species, size, sex, location to shore, and weight. She even let me borrow a decommissioned tag to show to my students in California.

Decommissioned shark tag from the Narragansett Bay Apex Predators Division Photo by: DJ Kast — Decommissioned shark tag from the Narragansett Bay Apex Predators Division
Photo by: DJ Kast

I saw a drifter buoy that I will be decorating with all of my programs (USC, JEP, YSP and NAI) logos.

Jerry also sent me the map of all the stations that we will be visiting on our ship and at each station we are projected to measure salinity, depth, temperature, nutrients and plankton! I am so excited! We are expected to go as far south as North Carolina and as far north as the Bay of Fundy in Canada (International Waters!!!).

TAS and the NOAA Ship Arrival

My stateroom is amazing! My roommate and I even have our own head (bathroom) in our room with sink, shower and all. There are two beds in a bunk bed format, and since I showed up about 6 hours before the other scientists I chose the bottom bunk and the cabinet I wanted for my stuff. I unpacked (and gladly didn’t over pack) and managed to fit it all in the closet that was given to us. I feel so fortunate to have such amazing accommodations like this.

Important People who Keep the Ship Afloat and on Course

Today I met the Operations Officer, Laura, who showed me the ropes and introduced me to people on the ship at dinner at the bowling alley on the naval base here in Newport, RI. She also showed me the buoy yard filled with lots of different buoys that indicate different paths of travel and safe/unsafe waters for ships coming into port.

I entered a yard of buoys on the Newport Naval Base and here I am for a size comparison. They are HUGE!

Here is a look at what happens when a buoy is freshly painted and when its being fouled by marine organisms and algae (RUST!) Photo by: DJ Kast

Important Ship Personnel
CO: Commanding Officer
XO: Executive Officer
CME: Chief Marine Officer
OO or Ops: Operations Officer= Laura
NO: Navigational Officer or Nav= Eric
CB: Chief Boson or Deck Boss= Adrian
AB: Able Seaman or a Deckhand = Roger

Meal Schedule
I also learned about food times (Very important).
7AM- 8 AM or 0700-0800 hours= Breakfast
11- 12 PM or 1100-1200 hours= Lunch
5- 6 PM or 1700-1800 hours = Dinner

Roommate in Stateroom 2-22

DJ Kast on the Gateway Photo by: DJ Kast — DJ Kast on the Gangway
Photo by: DJ Kast

Here I am boarding the NOAA Henry B. Bigelow Photo by: DJ Kast — Here I am boarding the NOAA Henry B. Bigelow
Photo by: DJ Kast

I met my amazing roommate Megan and she is a master’s student at the University of Maine. We will sadly have opposite schedules for most of the trip because I will be on the 12 PM- 12 AM shift and she will be on the 12 AM- 12 PM shift. We have a lot of things in common including our love of the ocean, geology and Harry Potter. She will be looking at dissolved nutrients in the water and she will be monitoring the instruments that measure conductivity, temperature and depth or (CTD) and requesting water samples while at various stations.

September 4, 2014April 28, 2021

Sue Zupko, Getting Ready: Is it a Go? September 4, 2014

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Sue Zupko
(soon to be) Aboard NOAA Ship Henry Bigelow
September 7-19, 2014

Mission: Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey Leg I
Geographical area of cruise: Cape May, NJ to Cape Hatteras, NC
Date: September 4, 2014

Personal Log

I am a teacher of the Gifted and Talented at Weatherly Heights Elementary School in Huntsville, AL. I am so very humbled by the opportunity I have been given to conduct research aboard the Henry B. Bigelow with NOAA scientists. This is my second NOAA cruise. I studied deep-water corals aboard the Pisces in 2011 and thought it was my only chance to do something like that. They told me if I did all my homework, and did all my projects well, that good things would come my way. I say that to my students and this is an example of why one should do one’s homework and try hard. You’d better believe that I did my best. I love to learn so a NOAA research cruise and projects with my students are a perfect fit.

Sue in sweatshirt looking up from microscope. Diego in the background. — Me on the Pisces, It was cold in this lab.

In preparing for my first entry I asked my students for advice on what to include. They insisted that I include a “shout out” to them and tell how fabulous our school is.

Here are a few highlights. Weatherly has been recycling aluminum cans to help pay for our outdoor classroom since 1998 when I helped write a grant to get a trailer to collect cans and take them to the recycling center. We have made thousands of dollars through the years and have an Alabama Certified Outdoor Classroom now. Students, parents, faculty, and community volunteers help with it and enjoy learning there. We have raised Monarch butterfly larvae, viewed Ladybug larvae under a microscope from the Tulip Poplar tree, grown melons, touched plants in the sensory garden, and myriad other activities.

We piloted a recycling program for our district. Every classroom has a bin to collect clean paper and plastic. It is collected weekly and tons of items have been recycled as a result.

We participate in a plastic bottle cap recycling program. This is an annual contest city-wide and Weatherly counts and recycles thousands of caps to be made into paint buckets rather than taking up room in the landfill. For many years we recycled phone books and were one of the top three recyclers.

In addition to helping the environment, we are a No Place for Hate school. We also study about the ocean. A lot. I am the faculty advisor for our morning announcements. Our quotes of the week this year are about the ocean and we highlight an ocean literacy principle every day. We now know that marine biologist Sylvia Earle pointed out that “With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere is generated by the sea.”

On my upcoming voyage with NOAA, I will launch two drifters. In order to be selected for this drifter project, a teacher must have an international partner to share lessons with to learn about the ocean. After an extensive search I found the perfect match. Sarah Hills at the TED Istanbul College teaches English. Her students will be studying map reading starting in September when they return to school. We have already decided that our students will plot the course of the drifters and hypothesize where they will be at specific times based on the ocean currents and winds which will carry them.

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These drifters measure ocean salinity, surface water temperature, velocities (speeds) of the current, and air pressure and are important for understanding more about our weather and the ocean. I can’t wait to get our students communicating. Weatherly’s school theme is “A Village of Learners and Leaders.” Outside my classroom on the bulletin board are some wonderful items from Turkey provided by Mrs. Hills and it says, “A Global Village of Learners and Leaders.” In preparation for tracking our drifters, we are currently tracking former hurricanes and researching how the ocean changes our planet. On their exit ticket today, my 5th graders commented that they liked tracking the hurricanes since they will use the same technique to track my journey and the drifters.

I am so excited. I have spoken with the Chief Scientist, John Galbraith, and understand that I will be working side-by-side with scientists on this fisheries cruise. We will drop a trawl net behind our 209 foot long ship and catch marine creatures. Our job will be to sort the fish (and other marine animals) and learn more about them using measurements and other means such as dissection. Computers play a role in our study and my first assignment will be to collect data in the computer. Wonder what program I will use, and is it similar to Excel which we use a lot?

I asked my fourth graders if they thought I might see a whale. They all responded yes in that group. What do you think?

Teachers at Sea need to be flexible, have fortitude, and follow orders. Let me explain. Right now I am waiting to see if my ship will even sail. The engineers have found a problem and are working to make the ship seaworthy for our voyage. Already our cruise date has changed twice. I must be flexible and be ready to leave on a moment’s notice. There are always some changes, it seems, when dealing with the ocean. On my last cruise a tropical depression (storm) formed over us and we couldn’t begin our research for an extra day.

Sailing is not for the faint of heart. I must be able to work long hours in uncomfortable conditions (they say this is having fortitude). They do supply my “foul weather” gear. Wonder if I will smell like fish at the end of my shift.

One handy piece of equipment I will take is ear plugs. The engines are loud and that helps when it is time to sleep. My shift will be either from midnight to noon or noon to midnight. That’s a long time to work. If we have a good catch, we will be working a lot. That is good for weight loss, as long as I don’t overdo with the fabulous food prepared by the stewards (cooks) in the galley (kitchen).

I was in the U.S. Army years ago and learned to follow orders, the third of the 3Fs. There are NOAA officers whose orders I must follow for my safety and the safety of the other scientists. I also must follow the orders of the NOAA Teacher at Sea directors and my chief scientist. Add to that my principal and superintendent in my district. That’s a lot of bosses giving orders.

Lastly, my students requested that I tell everyone our school motto. “We are Weatherly Heights and we…GO THE EXTRA MILE.” Well, pretty soon I can say, “We are the crew and scientists aboard the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow and we…GO THE EXTRA NAUTICAL MILE.” Can’t wait to see what treasures we will uncover in the ocean.

April 27, 2013August 11, 2021

Rita Salisbury: Popika, April 27, 2013

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Rita Salisbury
Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette
April 14–29, 2013

Mission: Hawaii Bottomfish Survey
Geographical Area of Cruise: Hawaiian Islands
Date: April 26, 2013

Weather Data from the Bridge:
Wind: NE 3KT
Pressure: 1017.1 mb
Air Temperature: 74 F (23C)
Water Temperature: 78 F (25 C)

Science and Technology Log

Jamie Barlow and Bo Alexander getting ready to deploy the BotCams

I was extremely fortunate to be invited to ride along on a day-long BotCam deployment aboard the Huki Pono along with IT Scott Wong. Dr. Kobayashi got approval for it and before I knew it I was descending down a rope ladder and on my way in a small boat to rendezvous with the Huki Pono to work with scientists Jamie Barton, Chris Demarke, and Bo Alexander.

The BotCams are designed to descend to the sea floor, attract fish with bait, and video record the fish that are in range of the camera. The BotCam is then retrieved, the video uploaded, and then the BotCam is deployed again until the mission is completed. The videos are saved and someone then reviews them and classifies the fish by species and counts how many there are of them. The results are added to a multi-year study of the fisheries in the area.

The BotCams are heavy and deploying and retrieving them takes a lot of skill, so I stayed out of the way while that was going on. However, there were things I was able to do, and the three scientists walked me through them.

Throwing the grappling hook to catch the buoy line

The first thing I got to do was to throw the grappling hook to retrieve the buoys for a BotCam. Captain Al of the Huki Pono skillfully brought the boat up next to the buoys at a good angle and I was able to snag the buoy line with my first throw every time. Then I got out of the way so the hundreds of meters of line that attached the buoys to the BotCam was pulled on board. Once the BotCam was pulled to the surface, a cable from the winch on the back of the ship was attached to it and the BotCam was pulled to the back work area and pulled on board. The video was retrieved, the bait renewed, and the BotCam was ready for deployment again. On this day, the crew was working with two BotCams, but they had a third one on board that they also use, depending on the requirements of the day. (The Bluejay is my school mascot and came along for the ride.)

Setting the buoys to mark the location of the BotCam. Uli Uli Manu is along for the ride.

Slinging line as the BotCam drops to the sea floor

Once re-baited, and with new video plugs, the BotCam was ready to be dropped at a pre-determined spot. The dropsites have already been entered into a GPS unit so the captain navigates from one site to the next using a handheld GPS. The depth of the new location determined how much line would be attached. When the captain said it was time, the scientists triple-checked everything, including each other’s work, and swung the BotCam off the deck and into the water. The line that attaches the BotCam to the buoy is quickly fed out after the weighted BotCam and then the buoys are tossed out last, which are the other two jobs I was able to do. Then it’s time to go the next location and either retrieve or deploy another BotCam. This went on all day long, without any breaks. Lunch was eaten while traveling from one BotCam location to another.

While I was onboard the Huki Pono, the Sette deployed the AUV for a lengthy mission. I was able to see some of the video footage when I returned to the Sette and the clarity was amazing! The AUV’s path was blocked by a large outcropping for a while and it was really interesting to watch the video while the AUV worked its way free of the rock.

An AUV capture of almaco jack, a type of kahala. Photo courtesy of Dr. Don Kobayashi

The AUV was deployed again yesterday, and it is just as exciting to watch now as it was for the first mission. I know that it has a few failsafe procedures built into it, such as dropping the weights that help keep it down and aborting the mission, but it is still thrilling to watch the last line removed that tethers it to the ship and see it descend on its own power. The bright yellow skin makes it visible for many meters under the surface, but eventually it goes so deep that it cannot be seen any longer. The scientists monitoring the acoustics can “see” where the AUV is in relation to the position of the ship. They have named the AUV “Popoki” which is Hawaiian for cat.

Second Assistant Engineer (2AE) Megan keeping an eye on the control readout

The Chief Scientist, Dr. Don Kobayashi, arranged a tour of the engineering department of the ship. Chief Engineer Harry Crane met us in the forward mess and explained what we would be seeing. After handing out earplugs to protect our hearing from the 115 decibel environment, we were off. We were able to see the 600 amp 600 volt motor for the bow thruster used to maneuver in tight quarters or to make minor adjustments of the ship’s position. Then we were shown the sewage system next to the laundry room. The waste is collected and then cleaned by running electrical current through it before it is discharged. It holds about 6,000 gallons of waste, which is roughly what a tractor-trailer tanker holds. The giant Caterpillar diesel engines spin generators to provide electric power to run the propulsion motors, making the Sette a hybrid of diesel electric power. The water that is used to cool the engines is the same water that is used, as waste energy, to help run the evaporators that create the ‘fresh’ water needed for the ship. We also saw the halon and CO2 fire suppressant system, the main control room, and the shafts the turn the propellers (or screws), and the hydraulic system used to turn the rudder. One of the things that struck me the most about the whole tour was how very clean all of the areas were. Anyone who works around machinery knows it can be a messy environment with leaks and spills, but the Oscar Elton Sette was clean as a whistle.

Chief Engineer Harry Crane, Chief Scientist Don Kobayashi, Jessica Chen, and me touring the engineering department of the ship

Personal Log

This ship is like a large, extended family in many ways. The mess and the kitchen are central to the community with 3 wonderful meals served every day. But just like home, the kitchen is always open for anyone to make a snack. The other evening, one of the stewards, Allen Smith, stayed late to help me find the ingredients I needed to make a cake as a thank you to everyone on board. It was served as desert the next evening and the medical officer, “Doc” Tran, who really enjoys cooking, asked for my recipe and said that anytime they serve it from now on, they will call it the Rita Cake. Like I said before, everyone on this ship is very nice and they go out of their way to make me comfortable.

Did You Know?

GPS stands for Global Positioning System. A GPS device is an electronic unit that determines a location within a few feet, displaying coordinates in latitude and longitude. The handheld GPS receives signals from geosynchronous satellites. It only needs signals from 3 satellites to calculate a location, but a signal from a fourth satellite can fix the altitude of the location and the exact time. The more signals that are received from satellites, the more accurate the reading.

One of my duties has been to find out information about everyone on board for blog entry. The Chief Sci and I talked about it and decided to borrow an ice-breaker that we use at my school from time to time called “Two Truths and a Lie.” It has been interesting, to say the least, to start to gather the statements from different people on board. I cannot wait until I have enough data to publish it, but the best thing has been getting to know people even better.

Additional Section

I finally saw a humpback whale breaching while I was on the Huki Pono! It was about a quarter of a mile away, so I didn’t get any good pictures, but it was still exciting.

I also was able to see some kawakawa (False Albacore) off the bow of the ship. They are quite lovely fish, with a brilliant blue hue and a streamlined appearance. There were about a dozen of them and they would race in one direction and then change course, often breaking through the surface of the water to appear as if they were flying. I was disappointed when they finally wandered off.

One thing I have wondered about is the lack of seagulls around here. I just assumed that anywhere there was salt water, there would be seagulls. Jamie Barlow said they simply are not part of the ecosystem here. There might be an occasional one that shows up on its way somewhere else, but they don’t stick around. That surprises me, especially when you consider the Taape, or Bluelined Snapper. They are an introduced species that was introduced in the mid-1950s because Hawaii did not have a shallow water snapper. The species has flourished in these Hawaiian waters so why doesn’t the seagull show up and start competing in a niche?

November 21, 2011March 26, 2021

Jacquelyn Hams: 12 November 2011

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Jackie Hams
Aboard R/V Roger Revelle
November 6 — December 10, 2011

Mission: Project DYNAMO
Geographical area of cruise: Leg 3, Eastern Indian Ocean
Date: November 12, 2011

Weather Data from the R/V Revelle Meteorological Stations

Time: 1045
Wind Direction: 2580
Wind Speed (m/s): 2.8
Air Temperature (C): 28
Relative Humidity: 67.6%
Dew Point: (C): 21.4
Precipitation (mm): 40.3

PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) (microeinsteins): 2274.5
Long Wave Radiation (w/m2): 429
Short Wave Radiation (w/m2): 659

Surface Water Temperature (C): 29.7
Sound Velocity: 1545.1
Salinity (ppm): 35.2
Fluorometer (micrograms/l): 65.5
Dissolved Oxygen (mg/l): 3.3
Water Depth (m): 4640

Wave Data from WAMOS Xband radar

Wave Height (m) 1.7
Wave Period (s): 12.8
Wavelength (m): 226
Wave Direction: 195⁰

Science and Technology Log

The Revelle is now on station and will remain in this location for approximately 28 days to conduct measurements of surface fluxes, wind profiles, C-band radar, atmospheric soundings, aerosols, sonar- based ocean profiling and profiling of ocean structure including turbulence. Please note that the exact position and course of the ship will not be posted in this blog until Leg 3 has been completed and the ship is back in port in Phuket, Thailand. Although piracy is not anticipated at the station location, it has been a problem in other parts of the Indian Ocean and the policy is not to publicize the coordinates of the ship.

Surface Fluxes

The Surface Fluxes group measures the amount of radiation and heat into and out of the ocean. There are several dome instruments on the Revelle to measure atmospheric radiation, acoustic and propeller sensors to measure winds and a “sea snake” to measure the sea surface temperature. The term flux is defined as a transfer or exchange of heat. The sum of the terms in the equation below indicates how much radiation is in the ocean. If the sum >0, the ocean is warming. If the sum is <0, the ocean is cooling. Below each term is a photograph of the ship-board instrument used to measure it.

Ocean Mixing

Today I deployed the Los Angeles Valley College drifting buoy. Before leaving Los Angeles, the students in my introductory Physical Geology and Oceanography classes signed NOAA stickers that I placed on the buoy before releasing it into the Indian Ocean. A drifting buoy floats in the ocean water and is powered by batteries located in the dome. The drifting buoys last approximately 400 days unless they collide with land or the batteries fail. The buoy collects sea surface temperature and GPS data that are sent to a satellite and then to a land station where the data can be accessed. Drifting buoys are useful in tracking current direction and speed. Approximately 12 drifting buoys will be deployed from the Revelle during Leg 3 of the Project DYNAMO cruise.

Personal Log

Can you have pirates before a pirate drill?

After we arrived on station, a science meeting was held to provide instructions regarding safety and emergency procedures for mandatory drills such as fire safety, abandon ship, and pirate drills. Drills are typically scheduled once a week and we have already assembled for a fire drill. A pirate drill was scheduled for the following week.

I began my orientation working with the Oregon State University Ocean Mixing Group. My role on the research team is to assist with the operation of the “Chameleon”, a specially designed ocean profiling instrument that is continuously lowered and raised to the surface taking measurements while on station. My job is to rotate between operating the winch (used to lower and raise the instrument) and the computer station. The computer station operator is in constant communication with the winch operator and tells the operator when to raise and lower Chameleon. In addition, the computer operator logs the critical start and end times of each run and keeps track of the depth of the instrument.

Jackie operates the winch. My goal is to keep the instrument safe and have a perfect wind.

I was just beginning to learn to operate the winch when an alarm sounded followed by the words “Go to your pirate stations, this is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill”. I must admit I was a bit stressed. When I came on this trip, I knew there was a remote risk, but I thought it was extremely remote. Everyone assembled in the designated area and it turns out that a fishing boat was approaching the ship and the Revelle does not take chances if the boat appears to be approaching boarding distance to the ship. There have been two instances where we have assembled for safety following the alarm and the words “This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill.” In both cases, fishing boats were too close for comfort. As I began operating the winch, I watched a fishing boat off in the distance for a few days and became more comfortable knowing that the ship is taking extreme caution to protect all on board. All this excitement and before we even had a pirate drill!

But all is well somewhere out here on the equator and the Indian Ocean provides many opportunities for photographing amazing sunrises and sunsets.

Sunrise on the Indian Ocean (photo by Jackie Hams)

Sunset on the Indian Ocean (Photo by Jackie Hams)