hake – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

August 27, 2018September 2, 2018

Martha Loizeaux: Salp Confidence, August 24, 2018

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Martha Loizeaux

Aboard NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter

August 22-31, 2018

Mission: Summer Ecosystem Monitoring Survey

Geographic Area of Cruise: Northeast Atlantic Ocean

Date: August 24, 2018

Weather Data from the Bridge

Latitude: 40.15 N

Longitude: 68.71 W

Wind direction: NE

Wind speed: 14 knots

Water temperature: 23.8 degrees C

Air pressure: 1023 millibars

Air temperature: 24.2 degrees C

Water depth: 165 meters

Science and Technology Log

What an exciting first full day out at sea! I have been so grateful that our science team has allowed me to be completely hands-on and take responsibility for some of the science happening on the ship. In addition to checking the Imaging Flow Cytobot (IFCB) periodically, I am very much involved in the data collection at each of our stations.

There are specific stations along our course where scientists need to collect data. The crew announces when we are close to the station. At that time, along with another volunteer on watch, I don my foul weather gear to head out to the deck. We get pretty splashed as we are working with the equipment so the gear is a good idea. We help the crew as they lower “bongo nets” into the water using a cable and pulley system. Can you guess why they are called bongo nets? These nets have a very fine mesh that helps collect, you guessed it, PLANKTON!

bongos on deck — *bongo nets waiting on the deck to be deployed*

bongos in water — *The bongo net and the “baby” bongo net being deployed.*

We also help raise the bongo nets after several minutes dragging them through the water. We rinse all of the plankton down to the bottom of the net and then open up the end of the net to allow all of the plankton into a sieve where we will collect it. I have been surprised by the amount of jelly-like animals that have shown up in the nets!

Then it’s time to use special liquids (ethanol or formalin) and water to wash the plankton into collection jars. These chemicals will preserve the plankton so scientists can study it back in the lab!

It has been so much fun working with this equipment, asking the scientists questions about the plankton, and being a part of it all.

Harvey, our chief scientist, explained to me that many scientists can use the plankton samples for all different studies. Some of the samples can be used to study larval fish (baby fish) otoliths, the tiny ear bones that can verify the identification of larval hake using genetics. Knowing this, scientists can do research to determine where the larval fish were born! What a great example of the beginning of a scientific

Hake larvae — *Some examples of larval hake. Photo courtesy of Harvey Walsh*

experiment!:

Question – Where are most larval red hake fish born in the Northeast Atlantic Ocean?

Research – Scientists might research currents in the area, wind patterns, and other things that would push plankton from place to place. They also would research what other scientists have already learned about larval red hake.

Hypothesis – Most larval red hake fish are born in the Southern New England and Georges Bank regions in the northeast US shelf.

Didn’t I tell you plankton were amazing?

At some of the stations, we also lower Niskin bottles and CTD instruments into the water to collect a lot more data! More on that to come!

Martha and bongos — *Here I am getting ready to deploy the bongo nets.*

rinsing nets — *Jessica and I rinsing the bongo nets.*

plankton on sieve — *Plankton looks tiny when we filter it into a sieve.*

*Our plankton samples after being rinsed into the jars.*

NOAA Corps Corner

Today I spoke with Lola Ajilore, Officer with NOAA Corps, and asked her a few questions about her important work. A pod of humpback whales off the bow stole the show! Here’s what we got in before the exciting interruption…

Me – Tell me more about your roles on the ship.

Lola – I am the Navigation Officer, Medical Officer, Environmental Officer, Ship Store Officer, and Morale Officer. As you can see, we all have multiple roles on the ship. As Navigation Officer, for example, I plot charts, track directions, and coordinate with the Operations Officer and Commanding Officer on track lines and routes that are requested by the scientists.

Me – Where do you do most of your work?

Lola – I am always with NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter. The ship’s home port is in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Our missions often take place in the Gulf of Mexico but we also run these Northeast Shelf cruises for Ecosystem Monitoring every year.

Me – What kind of training is needed for your line of work?

Lola – We undergo an application process that includes several interview steps. We then train at the Coast Guard Academy. Much of our training parallels that of the Coast Guard, but we also do our own NOAA Corps training as well.

Me – What tool do you use in your work that you could not live without?

Lola – Radar! [Radar aids navigation by detecting things that are far away such as an island or another ship]

Nav officer — *Lola as Navigation Officer.*

humpback from afar — *Can you see the little black dot in the middle of the picture? It’s a humpback whale! It looked a lot closer in real life.*

Personal Log

sunset view — *Sunset on NOAA ship Gordon Gunter*

I cannot believe the amazing views that we have on this ship 24 hrs. a day! The water has been super calm and the sunrise, sunset, breaching whales, and pods of dolphins have taken my breath away.

Yesterday was emergency drill day! Libby, our Operations Officer, had given us directions on how to respond to emergencies prior to leaving the

*Mustering on the deck during the emergency fire drill.*

dock. There are emergency drills for a fire (just like at school!), abandon ship (in the case that we had to immediately leave the ship in an emergency), and man overboard.

We practiced a fire drill and an abandon ship drill. The Officers on the ship sounded the alarm, using a different number and duration of blast based on the type of emergency. For a fire, we all “mustered” (got together in one place) in assigned areas. All of the science team members mustered together. For abandon ship, we all mustered near the life boats along with our life jackets and immersion suits (suits that can help you survive if you end up in the water).

Martha in immersion suit — *Here I am in my immersion suit!*

The fun part of the abandon ship drill was donning our immersion suits in one minute or less! This was a great thing to practice so if there ever was a real emergency, we would know how to put on the suit. I thought I looked pretty cool in my immersion suit.

Did You Know?

Salps are barrel-shaped planktonic tunicates. Our plankton bongo nets always contain some jelly-like salps. Where I live in the Florida Keys, we see mangrove tunicates growing on mangrove roots. Here in the open ocean, salps stick together in long colonies and drift! Sometimes there are so many salps in our nets, we have to filter them out with sieves and put them back in the water.

salps from web — *An example of a colony of salps. Photo courtesy of NOAA*

Something to Think About

We have been finding up to 4,000 phytoplankton in 5 mL of water. A gallon of water is equal to about 3785 mL. There is about 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of water in the Atlantic Ocean. How much plankton is in the Atlantic? You do the math.

plankton from web — *This is what some plankton look like under the microscope. Photo courtesy of NOAA*

August 21, 2017

Christine Webb: August 18, 2017

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Christine Webb

Aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada

August 11 – 26, 2017

Mission: Summer Hake Survey Leg IV

Geographic Area of Cruise: Pacific Ocean from Newport, OR to Port Angeles, WA

Date: 8/18/2017

Latitude: 48.19 N

Longitude: 125.29 W

Wind Speed: 7.9 knots

Barometric Pressure: 1021.70 mBars

Air Temperature: 55.4 F

Weather Observations: Foggy

Science and Technology Log:

I am learning an unbelievable amount about marine biology! Today I will focus on hake because that is the main type of fish we are surveying on this voyage. Pacific hake are found in great abundance out here off the west coast of North America and Canada. Let me tell you a little bit about what we do.

The first thing we have to do before trawling for hake is find a good aggregation of them based on our acoustics. There is always a scientist in the acoustics lab watching the monitor outputs. The monitors show the acoustics from different frequencies: 18, 38, and 120 KHz. They can “see” when there are things between us and the ocean floor (see picture below). Based on the response of the acoustics to the objects in the water, the scientists make an educated guess about when we are over a hake aggregation. I’ve been learning a lot about how to read these monitors and how to see if we’re over rockfish, phytoplankton, or hake. I think it would be pretty cool to see something giant like a whale go underneath us, but that hasn’t happened. That’s probably for the best – I can’t imagine it’s super safe to have a whale under your ship.

IMG_20170816_090024430_BURST000_COVER_TOP — Acoustic data from the acoustics lab.

Once the acoustic scientists decide we’re over hake, they radio up to the bridge to tell them it’s time to go fishing. The fishermen start getting the nets ready, and the scientists (that’s me!) go up for marine mammal watch. We have to make sure there aren’t any whales or dolphins nearby that might get caught in our nets. I really like marine mammal watch. I get super excited to see whales and dolphins, even though I guess that’s kind of bad because we might have to postpone our trawl. Seeing mammals when we’re not fishing is the most exciting. Today we saw two orcas by the side of our boat – now THAT is cool!

IMG_20170817_103950017_HDR — Me on marine mammal watch

Once the net is fully deployed and well below the surface, the marine mammal watch ends. Then they fish through the sign they saw on the acoustics and bring the net up when they believe they caught an adequate sample. Then it’s time to process the trawl! What we want to see is a majority of hake, but that doesn’t always happen. We’ve had trawls with hundreds of hake, and we’ve had trawls with only seventeen. We sometimes catch a bunch of other stuff too, and we do different things with those creatures (I’ll save that for a different post).

Processing the trawl is pretty intensive. First we have to weigh all of them to get the mass of the entire trawl. Then we sex them to sort into male and female baskets. It’s tricky to tell the difference between males and females. We have to dissect them and find the gonads to be able to tell. Near as I can tell, the male gonads look like ramen noodles and the females look like peach jello. I think of it as, “I wonder what my husband is eating while I’m gone? Probably ramen noodles. Okay, ramen noodles means male.”

IMG_20170818_153044071 — Getting ready to sort hake!

Once we have them all sorted, we take length measurements and start extracting the parts we need. The scientists are collecting and preserving the otoliths, gonads, stomachs, livers, and fin clips. We have a LOT of tubes of fish guts in our lab. I’m not entirely sure what scientists will be doing with all of this data, but perhaps I’ll interview our chief scientist about this and put it in a future post.

Personal Log:

Everyone I’ve met on this ship has been so friendly! One of my favorite things about it is that these people seem so passionate about whatever they’re doing. You should have seen my friend Hilarie’s face today when we pulled up a trawl full of pyrosomes (that’s what she studies). Tracie showed me some of the phytoplankton she’s studying, and it was like she was a little kid at Christmas. Personally I’ve never been super interested in phytoplankton, but now I am. She makes it sound like it’s the most exciting subject on earth, and looking at her slides makes me believe her.

IMG_20170817_081818382 — Tracie studying phytoplankton

It’s not only the scientists who are passionate about their work. The chief steward, Larry, was so excited about his cauliflower soup today that he seemed personally offended when I didn’t take any. “Take some soup!” he said. “Seriously – it’s really good soup. You’re going to like it.” I took some just to be nice, but after one bite I said, “Larry, will this be out at dinner? Can this please be out at dinner? I LOVE IT.” It was seriously good. I need to learn how to make that.

Our chief scientist takes her job as chief very seriously too. She’s like the momma duck who takes care of all of us (thanks, Julia!). Also, she plans fun and goofy games every day where we can win prizes out of her “bag of goodies.” I haven’t won yet, but I hope I will before this is over. Today Hilarie won some awesome coral reef socks. I’m not sure how I’ve gotten this far in life without owning marine biology socks! It’s great to have Julia around because she makes time for all of us even though her own research is very absorbing and important. She’s a rock star.

IMG_20170818_181046070_HDR — Hilarie choosing her prize

Stay tuned for more info from Leg 4 – bye for now!

August 18, 2011April 28, 2021

Caitlin Thompson: Bottom Trawl, August 11, 2011

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Caitlin Thompson
Aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada
August 1 — 14, 2011

Mission: Pacific Hake Survey
Geographical Area: Pacific Ocean off the Oregon and Washington Coasts
Date: August 12, 2011

Weather Data from the Bridge

Lat. 48 degrees 07.0 N
Long. 125 degrees 13.7 W
Present weather: partly cloudy 6/8
Visibility: 10 n.m.
Wind direction: 335
Speed 10 kts
Sea wave height: 2-3 feet
Swell waves – direction: —
Swell waves – height: —
Sea water temperature: 15.0 degrees C
Sea level pressure: 1017.3 mb
Temperature – dry bulb: 15.8 degrees C
Temperature – wet bulb: 13.2 degrees C

Science and Technology Log

The Third Wire FS70 provides an image of the net, shown as half circle, and the fish around it.

The big news is that we’re headed to port a day early. There was a electrical component failure in the engine system that converts the diesel power to electricity which powers the electrical motors that turn the propeller shaft. This reduced the Shimada to running on about half power. I can’t believe the cruise is ending!

Yesterday we did a bottom trawl, the first bottom trawl ever conducted on the Shimada. Using the sonars, the scientists on the sonar team saw an interesting aggregation of fish. They couldn’t use the usual mid-water net, which is relatively easy to damage, because the fish were very close to the bottom. Besides, the bottom appeared hard and rocky. I was excited when they decided to test the new net. Unlike the mid-water trawls, which usually bring up a mostly “clean” haul of hake, a bottom trawl tends to bring up a wide array of species. I wanted to learn some new names.

The ITI shows the distance of the bottom of the ocean from the net. Where the pink lines are highest, the net is lowest.

Deploying the bottom net proved educational. The mid-water net is sent down with the FS70 attached, which provides an image of the objects near and in the net. On the screen shot of the FS70 above and to the right, look for the half-circle, which shows the open net, the silver blue line under the net, which is the bottom of the ocean, and some dots inside the net that are most likely fish already caught in the net. The images are sent through a wire. It would be too easy to damage the wire in a bottom trawl, so the scientists use the ITI instead.

Larry was in charge of fishing today and was disatisfied with the image the ITI System produced of the bottom trawl. The ITI does not produce as good an image of the bottom trawl as the FS 70 did on the midwater trawl. This made it more difficult to decide how much was being caught and how long to fish. The scientists began planning how to get a better system for the ship.

The bottom trawl disappointed the scientists because it brought up fewer hake than they had hoped, but I was happy to see so many new kinds of fish, and to learn to identify many so that I could help sort. This is the list of everything we pulled up:

Ratfish — This spotted ratfish has a venomous spine on its dorsel fin!

Aspot prawn, full of eggs — A spot prawn, full of eggs

Arrowtooth flounder
Brown cat shark egg case
Cloud sponges
Darkblotched rockfish
Dover sole
Greenstriped rockfish
Hermit crab unident.
Lanternfish unident.
Long honred decorator crab
Longnose skate
Pacific hake
Pacific ocean perch
Pom pom anemonome
Redbanded rockfish
Rex sole
Rosethorn rockfish
Sablefish
Sea cucumber unident.
Sea urchins and sand dollars unident.
Sharpchin rockfish
Shortspine thornyhead
Skate egg case ulnident.
Slender sole
Snail unident.
Spot prawn
Spotted ratfish
Wattled eelpout

Personal Log

Last night, some of us went up to the fly bridge in hopes of seeing the Perseid Meteor Shower. The sky was miraculously clear but the nearly full moon and bright lights on the ship blocked out most of the stars. Still, we saw some truly magnificent shooting stars before the clouds rolled in. I had brought my sleeping bag for warmth and fell fast asleep to the soothing voices of my shipmates. When they woke me up, I dropped by the chemistry lab to see how the nighttime zooplankton sampling was going and discovered that a mallard had arrived on deck. Mallards are not sea birds and are not equipped to be so far out to sea, so we were highly surprised to see her some fifty nautical miles off land. We named her Myrtle. We gave Myrtle food and water and hoped she would stay with the ship until we were close to land, but after a long nap, she took off. I hope she makes it to land.

In cribbage news, I won the semi-finals but lost the championship game. I had such a great time playing.

August 17, 2011April 28, 2021

Caitlin Thompson: A Calm Day at Sea, August 9, 2011

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Caitlin Thompson
Aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada
August 1 — 14, 2011

Mission: Pacific Hake Survey
Geographical Area: Pacific Ocean off the Oregon and Washington Coasts
Date: August 9, 2011

Weather Data from the Bridge

Lat. 47 degrees 42.4 N
Long. 125 degrees 51.3
Present weather: cloudy
Visibility: 10 n.m.
Wind direction: 322
Speed 18 kts
Sea wave height: 3-4 feet
Swell waves – direction: 320
Swell waves – height: 4-5 feet
Sea water temperature: 16.7 degrees C
Sea level pressure: 1019.7 mb
Temperature – dry bulb: 14.9 degrees C
Temperature – wet bulb: 13.2 degrees C

Science and Technology Log

Today the ocean was crystal clear and the sky partly clear. I saw amazing creatures floating on the still surface of the water — salps, mola mola, and jellies. Mola mola, also called sun fish, are flat and float on the surface of the water, seeming to sun themselves, eating jellyfish. The water was speckled with salps, identifiable by their small, jelly-like bodies and dark center. When Jennifer saw the salps, she groaned, explaining that their presence suggests a relaxation in the winds that drive upwelling. Less upwelling means fewer nutrients for the whole marine system. I spent the whole day trying to wrap my head around the fact that the slight winds I feel every day drive such an enormous system as coastal upwelling, and that one peaceful day could cause so many salps to be floating on the surface.

Black-footed albatross, like the one I saw

Usually there are enormous black-footed albatross all around the ship. Albatross, one of the biggest birds in the world, spend most of their lives at sea, coming to shore only to breed. The albatross I see may be nesting on remote Pacific islands, traveling many days to gorge themselves on fish off the West Coast before returning to their nests. They come to our waters because of all the fish here due to upwelling. An albatross can be away from the nest as many as seven days, returning to regurgitate fish from its stomach, which the chicks will eat. Like many seabirds, albatross fly extremely efficiently. They rise and sink repeatedly as they fly to use the energy from the wind. They also use the rising air that comes off of waves for more lift. I see them soaring without moving their wings, so close to the water that they disappear from view behind small waves. Before flapping, they seem to tilt upward, and even so, their wings appear to skim the water. A windless day like today is a hard day for an albatross to fly, so they stay on the water. I saw very few, all in grounded groups.

Instead of albatross, I saw many small diving birds, especially when we came close to the beautiful, jagged coast of the Quillayutte River and La Push, Washington. I saw tufted puffins in bright breeding plumage, surfacing on the water for a few minutes before bobbing back under for surprisingly long times. The day before we set sail, Shelby and I visited the Newport Aquarium, where we saw tufted puffins in the arboretum. We saw the puffins swim through the water in the arboretum, wings flapping as if they were flying. We told a volunteer we were headed to sea. She said to look for single puffins close to shore. This time of year, puffins are nesting in pairs, making nests in burrows in cliff faces this time of year. While one puffin stays in the nest, its mate goes to sea, eats its fill of fish, stuffs about another seven fish in its beak, and returns to feed its chicks. The puffins I saw certainly looked like they were hard at work hunting for fish.

Today I helped deploy two sonar devices that I haven’t seen before, a sub-bottom profiler called a tow fish, and an Expendable Bathythermograph (XBT). The tow fish is a sub-bottom profiler, meaning that it sends a signal to map the bottom of the ocean. The scientists on the acoustics team are using it to look for fish. We backtracked over a section where we fished yesterday and dragged the tow fish alongside the ship. The data from the tow fish will be analyzed later, and proofed against the information from the haul and the other sonars. As usual, the goal is to be able to use the data to identify specifies with more and more accuracy.

The XBT is a probe that measures the temperature of the water. Falling at a known rate, it sends the temperature back through two small copper wires, which can be graphed as a function of temperature vs. depth in order to find the temperature profile of the water. Because the XBT looks vaguely like a gun, Larry left earplugs and a mask out for me, warning me about the explosion I was about to make. However, Alicia was in charge. She said, “There’s a hazing that happens with the XBT. I’m a bad liar. You don’t need this stuff.” So I went out on deck in just a life jacket and hardhat, which are required when doing any operation on deck. Once the technology tech radioed that the XBT had fallen to the necessary depth, I broke the copper wires. They were so thin I could cut them by rubbing them between my fingers.

Shelby, my roommate and a student Western Washington University, showed me her work measuring harmful algal blooms (HAB). While algae and other phytoplankton are essential to marine ecosystem because as primary producers, some algae produce domoic acid. Domoic acid is toxic to marine life and humans. Using surface water collected outside the boat and pumped into a hose in the chemistry lab, Shelby filters the water and saves the filter paper for further analysis of domoic acid and chlorophyll. A NOAA scientist will compile her data in an effort to map HAB along the West Coast. Shelby is a volunteer, one of four college students who each collect the data for one leg of the journey.

Personal Log

Fish Prints — Rebecca teaching me to make fish prints from the yellow-tails we had caught

Life aboard the Shimada seems to suit me very well. Every time I ask a question, which is often, I learn something new, and every time I look outside, I see something I never saw before. Yesterday, I ran into Rebecca in a hallway. Excited, she said, “There’s a P3 about to launch a sonobuoy!” I asked her to repeat. She said, “There’s a P3 about to launch a sonobuoy!” I stared at her. She said, “A plane is dropping stuff. Go outside and watch.” We both had to laugh about that one. Outside, I quickly learned that a marine ship had called the bridge to ask if we would help with a mission to drop a sonobuoy. A sonobuoy is a listening device. With a parachute attached, it drifts into the ocean, where it floats, using passive sonar to report the location of objects like submarines. The day was shockingly beautiful, so a number of us stood on the very top deck of the ship, called the fly bridge or, jokingly, the beach. We watched the airplane circling us and watched the drifting clouds and diving birds. Several people declared it the flattest water they had ever seen in these parts.

I am happy to say that, with beginner’s luck, I won the first match of cribbage, placing me in semi-finals, and have started staying up in the evenings playing cards with other people on board.

August 11, 2011April 28, 2021

Caitlin Thompson: Zooplankton, Ocean Currents, and Wave Gliders, August 7, 2011

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Caitlin Thompson
Aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada
August 1 — 14, 2011

Mission: Pacific Hake Survey
Geographical Area: Pacific Ocean off the Oregon and Washington Coasts
Date: August 7, 2011

Weather Data from the Bridge
Lat. 47 degrees, 00.8N
Long. 124 degrees, 29.8W
Present weather: Cldy 8/8
Visibility: 10 n.m.
Wind direction: 323
Wind speed: 08 kts
Sea wave height: 1 feet
Swell waves – direction: —
Swell waves – height: —
Sea water temperature: 13.7 degrees C
Sea level pressure: 1018.8 mb
Temperature – dry bulb: 15.8 degrees C
Temperature – wet bulb: 14.7 degrees C

Science and Technology Log

On the fish deck in my work clothes

The Shimada conducts research around the clock, with crew members working twelve-hour shifts. So far, I have worked with the acoustics team studying hake during the day, when the hake school together and are easy to fish. Last night I branched out, staying up with Steve Pierce, the oceanographer studying ocean currents, Jennifer Fisher, a faculty assistant at Oregon State University (OSU) who is studying zooplankton, and her intern, Angie Johnson, a graduate student at OSU. All the different research on this trip complements each other, and I learned more about the acoustic team’s work from the night people.

Gray's Harbor Transects

The map at right shows the transects we follow and the stations that the night team takes samples, which Steve chooses. Just like the acoustics team, he only chooses sites on the east-west transects. The night team usually works one transect ahead of the day team, and must have the ship back where they started by sun-up. Steve is mapping small currents because, he says, surprisingly little is known about ocean currents, even though they have a tremendous impact on ocean life.

He is especially interested in the polar undercurrent that brings nutrient-rich water from the south up along the west coast. A small current, it is nonetheless important because of the nutrients it carries, which come to the surface through upwelling. He uses an acoustic device, the Acoustic Doppler Current Profile (ADCP), to find the velocity of the water at various depths. The data from the ADCP is skewed by many factors, especially the velocity of the ship. Later, Steve will use trigonometry to calculate the true velocity. He also uses the Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) meter, lowered into the water at every station during the night. The CTD gives much more information than its name would suggest, including salinity, density, and oxygen. It is deployed with a high-speed camera and holds bottles to capture water samples. I was impressed by the amount of work – and math! – that Steve does in between cruises. When he has down time on this cruise, he told me, he is calculating work from two years ago.

Jennifer divides a sample in the Folsom plankton splitter

Jennifer and Angie are studying plankton, the organisms at the very bottom of the food web. Immediately, I recognized euphausiids, or krill, from the contents of hake stomachs. Actually I recognized their small black eyes, which always reminded me of poppy seeds when I saw them in hake stomachs. Jennifer is conducting this work through her group Northwest Fisheries Science Center, which, as she describes it, gives her a wonderful freedom to research different projects related to ocean conditions, especially salmon returns. In this project, they measuring phytoplankton, tiny, photosynthetic organisms, by measuring chlorophyll and nutrients. They are also looking at zooplankton, like euphausiids, salps, and crab larvae, which we examined other the microscope. To help the acoustics team refine their ability to use sonar to identify zooplankton, Jennifer and Angie record certain species. The acoustics team will match up the acoustics data that is continuously generated on this ship with the samples.

Angie takes water samples from the CTD.

Today, the second catch of the day was aborted because of whales too close to the ship. However, the NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), had asked the Shimada to investigate its waveglider. A waveglider is type of robot called an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Programmed to travel and record data, it does not need an operator. The PMEL folks were concerned, however, that its AUV might have a problem.The bridge set the course for the AUV, described as a yellow surfboard, and I headed up to the flying deck, the highest deck and an ideal spot for observation, to watch for it. Immediately we saw a humpback whale, just starboard of the ship, spout and roll through the water, its tail raised in the air. Soon the AUV appeared. We saw nothing wrong with it but communicated our observations, photographs, and video tape of it to PMEL. The PMEL’s system of wavegliders monitor carbon dioxide levels and use the kinetic energy of ocean waves to recharge the batteries. The acoustics team hopes to get their own waveglider next year to collect acoustic data in between transects. As I was peering over the edge of the boat, examining the surfboard-like robot below, I heard a loud splash. A bout ten Dall’s porpoises were playing around the bow of our boat, rippling in and out of the water. Dall’s porpoises are tremendously playful creatures, and will often play around ships. But our ship was barely moving, and the porpoises soon lost interest and swam away.

Wave Glider, seen from above

Personal Log

I’m getting a little of everything on this cruise. I would have stayed up two nights ago for the deploymentof the CTD and zooplankton samples, but the propeller developed a loud enough whamming sound to suspend all operations indefinitely. I woke up at 4:00 AM yesterday because the boat was swaying back and forth violently. (Violently by my standards, that is; more experienced mariners insist the swell is nothing.) Since our bunks go port to starboard, I could feel my weight sliding from hip to head to hip to head as I was rocked back and forth in bed. Meanwhile a discarded lightbulb in a metal shelf was rolling back and forth steadily – rattle-rattle-WACK! rattle-rattle-WACK! – until Shelby Herber, a student at Western University and my roommate, got up, found the culprit, and wrapped it in a shirt. When I woke again, it was eleven hours after the discovery of the problem with the prop and well past breakfast, and I started to get up until Shelby told me we were off transect, headed to shore because of the propeller.

Wave Glider from beneath the water, taken from PMEL's website

So we took our time getting up. But when I finally arrived in the acoustics lab, Rebecca was running up the hall, saying, “Caitlin, I was looking for you! There’s a great big shark outside, and we’re pulling up the ROV!” The ROV is the remotely controlled vehicle, a robot like the AUV, but one that requires an operator to make it move. Unfortunately, out on the fish deck, the ROV was being put away and the shark gone off on his fishy business. To console me, John had the videotaped footage from the ROV and the dorsal fin of the shark, and showed me both. The ROV revealed no damage and I was invited down to the winch room, where the bang-bang-bang coming from the propeller was unnerving.

Puzzled birds approach the ROV

Everyone was in an uproar trying to decide what to do, an uproar made all the more dramatic by the steady lurching and swaying of the ship, which throughout the day has sent most of the scientists to their room for at least a few hours and most of the deck hands to tell stories of unhappy tourists who couldn’t find their sea legs. Finally, the engine guys decided the warped propeller would not prevent us from getting to Port Angeles, and Rebecca decided it would not interfere with the acoustics, and we got back on transect.

ROV

I’m getting a little bit of everything on this cruise. I’ve seen sharks and marines mammals, calm seas and rockier seas, an impressively well-functioning ship and a number of technological problems. I’ve interviewed scientists, NOAA Corps officers who command the ship, and crew members who recount endless adventures at sea. I’m even signed up for the cribbage tournament, which I’m not entirely thrilled about since I don’t know how to play bridge. I’ve been impressed by how much time and information everyone seems to have for me. I am constantly thinking how I can bring this experience back to my students. Some ideas are to have a science and math career day, collect weather data like the data the bridge collects, dissect hake, and examine zooplankton under a microscope. Various people on board have volunteered to help with all my ideas.

August 8, 2011April 28, 2021

Caitlin Thompson: Going Fishing! August 4, 2011

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Caitlin Thompson
Aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada
August 1 — 14, 2011

Mission: Pacific Hake Survey
Geographical Area: Pacific Ocean off the Oregon and Washington Coasts
Date: August 4, 2011

Weather Data from the Bridge
Lat. 46 degrees 22.4 N
Long. 124 degrees 41.1
Present weather: cloudy
Visibility: 10 n.m.
Wind direction: 330
Speed 11 kts
Sea wave height: 2-3 feet
Swell waves – direction: 310
Swell waves – height: 3-4 feet
Sea level pressure: 197.3 mb
Temperature – dry bulb: 17.0 degrees C
Temperature – wet bulb: 15.0 degrees C

Science and Technology Log

Yesterday, I saw, sexed, and measured my first hake. And my second hake, and hundredth hake, and two hundredth hake. Most of the time, the scientists on the acoustics team watch computer monitors that show acoustic data as colors to represent life under the ship. Twice today, however, they identified large populations of hake and decided to fish for them in order to get more accurate data.

Pressure Housing — The pressure housing, held together by electrical tape and sponges, holds the battery and data storage for the light, lasers, and camera attached to the net.

Both times, the ship went into immediate action. Upstairs in the bridge, or command room, the NOAA officers slowed and repositioned the ship. Two scientists watched for marine mammals. If mammals were too close, we would have to abort the operation entirely. On the fish deck, John Pohl, on the acoustics team, taught me to assemble the pressure housing and attach it to the net. Objects attached to the net include the video camera, which will film anything passing by the mouth of the net, a four-beam laser to judge the length of the images that are filmed, a light to illuminate the water, batteries for power, and another camera for storing the data. The crew began lowering the net.

Hake — Josh Gunter, survey technician, operates a hatch to let hake onto the flow cale, which will find the mass of the whole haul.

For me, the real excitement began once the fish began pouring onto a conveyor belt into the fish lab. First, we sorted the fish by species. In the first haul, the fish were mostly hake, as intended, but we also caught three yellow-tail rockfish and three eulachons, a type of smelt. In the second haul, there was largely yellow-tail rockfish and hake, with several Pacific Ocean perch and widow rockfish. The rockfish were difficult to sort: they have dangerous spines and fight hard. Alicia Billings, a fisheries biologist on the acoustics team, taught me how to pick them up with one hand over their eyes and the other firmly grasping their tails. Even so, we both had a few close calls. We threw most of the fish right back into the ocean but kept about three hundred hake to sex and scale. With another fifty hake, we put then stomachs in individual bags so that the lab on shore can determine what the hake were eating. We also stored the otolith, or ear bones, in order to determine the age of the hake. Just like the rings of a tree, otoliths show growth rings every year.

Finally, we cleaned up and settled back in the acoustics lab to watch for the next batch of fish.

The monitors use echosounders, which are exactly how they sound: Signals (sound waves) are emitted from beneath the ship and echo back once they hit something. The computer records the distance of an object by how long it takes for the signal to return. For example, suppose a fish were right at the surface. The signal would hit it and return in very little time.

On the other hand, in deep water the signal would take much longer to hit the bottom of the ocean and return. See the thick red line on the graph to the left? That’s the ocean floor. Notice how it curves down on the right at the edge of the continental shelf. The flat line at the top of the graph is the surface of the ocean. The scattered dots in between are most likely fish. The scientists can guess the kind of fish and the number of fish by the pattern and color of dots. All the color below the ocean floor is meaningless noise. Look to the upper left-hand corner of the graph to find the frequency of the signal, measured in kilohertz (KHz). The lower frequencies (20 kHz and 38 kHz) tend to measure larger objects and to go deeper in the water. These frequencies are perfect for finding hake. The higher frequencies (120 kHz and 200 kHz) measure smaller objects. For example, shortly before we started the first haul, we saw a large number of plankton, which showed up bright blue on the 120 kHz and 200 kHz frequencies but barely showed at all on the lower frequencies.

You can follow the progress of the Shimada at shiptracker. We’re headed for Port Angeles on August 14, making East-West transects along the way.

Chief Scientist Larry Hufnagle in the acoustics room

Personal Log

I am so happy to be at sea. The journey was delayed an entire day because of a problem with a valve, and we finally set sail yesterday. The skies are blue and the ocean calm, and I am constantly learning new stuff. I’ve had to learn to lift my feet when stepping through a doorway (I forgot once and went sprawling!) and to memorize the complicated series of halls and ladders to get from the fly deck to the bridge to the mess room to my stateroom. I’ve had to memorize thirty-some names. The scientists have been incredibly patient, explaining each part of their work while I take copious notes. Working in the fish lab is my favorite part so far. It’s fascinating and satisfying work.

I am impressed by the sense of camaraderie on this ship. The scientists on the acoustics team – also known as the hake people – keep up a constant, teasing banter, which only turns serious when discussing science. With science, they all have a different opinions. Before fishing today, Chief Scientist Larry Hufnagle worried that there were too few fish shown on the monitor. He said, “I don’t even know how you would fish on this stuff.” Dr. Rebecca Thomas, a research fishery biologist on the acoustics team, seemed to think there were plenty of fish, but suggested leaving the net in for a longer amount of time for a larger sample. After much more discussion, the team decided on a strategy and put in the net. I’m impressed how often they disagree and how carefully they listen to one another’s ideas.

June 20, 2010April 15, 2021

Tanya Scott, June 20, 2010

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Tanya Scott
Onboard NOAA Ship Miller Freeman
June 16 – 21, 2010

Mission: Ecology of Juvenile Fishes
Geographical Area: Central Oregon/Washington Coast
Current Location: 35 miles offshore, steaming to Seattle, WA
Date: Sunday, June 20, 2010

Today is my last full day aboard the Miller Freeman. It is currently 4:00 pm and I have just woken up! I find that being on a ship rocks me to sleep. Or, could it be that I was up until 6:00 am this morning? Either way, I am fully rested and ready to rinse and store all of the scientific equipment in preparation for our departure tomorrow morning. We are currently steaming towards Seattle, Washington where we will depart the ship.

Our work on Saturday turned out to be very interesting. While pulling the midwater trawl, a small pod of Pacific Whitesided dolphin became interested in our tow. They swam very close to the net for a time and had everyone worried that they may become entangled. Luckily, they lost interest and swam away. If they had become entangled in the net there are many protocols that would have been implemented. The marine mammal stranding unit in Washington would have been called, a representative would have been sent to meet the ship, and many photographs taken as documentation. It is always a concern that marine mammals may become entangled in nets but fortunately, this time was not one of those cases.

scott_log3 — Krill brought in from the midwater trawl.

The catches from our midwater trawl brought up the familiar species of krill, purple lanternfish, rockfish, and hake. Since the depth of this trawl does not target adult fish, we have been dealing almost exclusively with juvenile and larvae fish. Our last haul produced more larvae rockfish than usual, which is good for the scientists conducting this survey. They are, however, trying to determine where the largest concentrations of juvenile rockfish are during the season. Rockfish are an important species in the Pacific Northwest. It would be easy for you to think of how important flounder are in our area. Rockfish are harvested for sale in fish markets and therefore are threatened by over harvesting. It is important to monitor their movement and habitat in order to determine when and where Pacific Hake regulations should be put in place. Another commercially important species is the Pacific Hake. This fish is deboned and sold as fish sticks in the grocery store. I’m sure that most of you have eaten a Pacific Hake and didn’t even know. These fish are commonly caught by fisherman and, just as the rockfish, their populations are threatened by over harvesting. When Pacific Hake are caught in the midwater trawl, their length is measured, recorded, and the fish are returned to the ocean. All of the data collected by the scientist involved in this study will help to ensure the survival of these commercially viable species. More importantly, keeping their populations stable will mean that the food web remains intact. Just as we have discussed in class many times, everything on earth has its place. Something else always depends on it for food, shelter, survival, and well being.

Since today is the last full day on board we will be preparing the equipment for transport back to Newport, Oregon. It is important that everything is rinsed with freshwater to prevent corrosion. After being rinsed and dried, we will package everything in boxes. Our bunks will be stripped, our lockers emptied, and staterooms cleaned. Although my time on board is coming to an end, I know that I will have many memories and experiences to share with you when I return.

Tanya Scott

June 13, 2010March 12, 2021

Anne Byford: June 13 2010

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Anne Byford
Aboard R/V Hugh R. Sharp
June 8 – 15, 2010

Mission: Sea Scallop Survey
Geographic Location: off the coast of New England
June 13, 2010

Aboard: R/V Hugh R. Sharp
Weather Data at 1:30pm EDT: Pouring, 13.7˚C
Location at 1:30pm EDT: Lat: 4043.37 N Long: 6753.12 WWater Depth: 69.6 m

6^th Day at Sea

What kinds of things are you going to catch?What lives with the scallops? These questions were also quite common before I boarded the Hugh R. Sharp. I’d like to introduce you to some of the species that are included in the dredge with the scallops (or sometimes, instead of the scallops). All of these are termed “bycatch” and are counted and/or measured and then thrown back.As before, pictures of most of the species will be added when I am back on land. In this log, I will talk about the fishes that are often in the dredge. Most of this information came from Bigelow and Schroeder’s Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, edited by Collette and Klein-MacPhee, 3^rd Edition (2002).

Flounder – Flounder are a flat fish with both eyes on the same side of the fish when they are adult. As young, they eyes are on both sides, as in most fish, but as they mature, one eye migrates to the opposite side and the fish lays flat. In general, they are a mottled brown to blend in with the ocean bottom.

Fourspot Flounder (Paralichthys oblongus) – have four distinct spots on the dorsal side: 2 near the tail and 2 in the middle, above and below the lateral line. They eat cephalopods (squid and octopus), crustaceans, and other fish. Predators include spiny dogfish, goosefish (see below), silver hake (see below), and other flounder.

Windowpane Flounder (Scopthalmus aquosus) – more round than other flounder. They can reach a maximum size of 51cm and weigh more than 1 kg, but average between 25-30 cm in length. They eat decapods (shrimp) and other fishes. Predators include sharks, skates (see below), cod, and dogfish. Windowpane flounder are not considered commercially important, but have been used as an indicator species in Long Island Sound.

Summer Flounder (Paralichthys dentatus) – have highly variable color patterns that they can actually alter for camouflage. They don’t replicate the ocean floor underneath, but change their patterning to blend in with the substrate. Males can reach 61cm and 2.6 kg while females can reach 94 cm and 13.4 kg. They average 40-56 cm and 1-2.3 kg with females generally being larger and heavier for their age than males. Summer flounder eat other fishes (including other flounder), cephalopods, and crustaceans. Predators include sharks, skates, cod, goosefish, silver hake, etc. Commercially, summer flounder are one of the most important flat fish in the north Atlantic. Commercial aquaculture of summer flounder began in 1996.

Yellowtail Flounder (Limanda ferruginea) – more evenly pigmented than other flounders and have yellow streaks on the ventral edges near the tail. Males reach an average size of 40 cm and females reach 46 cm. They eat cnidarians, crabs, bivalve mollusks, echinoderms, and other flounder. Their predators include spiny dogfish, skates, goosefish, hakes, halibut, and four spot flounder. Yellowtail founder are one of the most commercially import flat fish in the area. By the late 1990s, they were considered to be fully exploited and rebuilding local stocks.

Goosefish or Monk fish (Lophius americanus) – is a type of angler fish. Angler fish use a lure to attract prey fish nearer the mouth of the predator. Goosefish have a mouth that is enormous for the size of the fish and which opens upward. The teeth are plentiful and all point back into the mouth so that in trying to escape, the prey simply impales itself more tightly onto the teeth. It also has spines on the dorsal side of the head. There are confirmed incidences of goosefish eating diving birds, but stories of them eating geese are probably apocryphal. Goosefish can reach 120 cm in length and 27 kg in weight. They eat bony fishes, cephalopods, elasmobranchs, and occasionally birds. Not much eats goosefish, though smaller ones are eaten by larger goosefish, sharks, and swordfish. . There is a commercial market for monkfish, Julia Childs is often credited with making it popular with a recipe she did on one of her shows.

Red Hake (Urophycis chuss) – are silvery fish with a reddish tint on the head, very similar to the picture below. They can grow to 50 cm and 2 kg with the females being generally larger than the males. They eat decapods, polychaetes (sea mice), crustaceans, and other fishes. Their predators include dogfish, cod, goosefish, and silver hake. Commercially, they are used in animal feed and larger ones are used for human consumption. They are considered underexploited.

Silver Hake (Merluccius blinearis) – are silvery fish that are generally a darker grey than the red hake. They can be larger than the red hake, up to 76 cm and 2.3 kg. They eat other silver hake, crustaceans, and other fishes. Many other fishes as well as harbor porpoises consider the silver hake to be prey. Commercially, they are used as fresh fish, canned pet food, fertilizer, and fish meal. They are unsuited to freezing. Silver hake are considered fully exploited.

Little Skate (Leucoraja erinacea) – are trapezoidal, purplish brown and spotted on the dorsal side. They also have thorns present on the dorsal side. Little skate females release a single, fertilized egg in a distinctively shaped egg case. They reach a maximum length of 54 cm and eat fish and invertebrates, including gastropods, bivalve mollusks, crabs, etc. They are eaten by sharks, other skates, goosefish, and seals. Commercially, little skates are used to bait lobster traps.

Barndoor Skate (Dipturus laevis) – are one of the largest skates in the area. They can reach 180 cm and over 10 kg. They eat invertebrates and fishes, including gastropods, crabs, lobsters, and polychaetes. They do not have many predators, though they are probably eaten by sharks.

Ocean Pout (Zoarces americanus) – look much like an eel with fins just behind the head. They are a yellow-green/brown with patterning on the dorsal side. They can grow to 118 cm long and more than 6 kg in weight, though the average is 40-71 cm and 0.45-1.8 kg. They eat shelled mollusks, echinoderms, and some fishes. Predators of the pout include dogfish, skates, cod, hakes, and sea ravens. Commercially, the pout was heavily marketed during World War 2. This ended when there was an outbreak of a parasitic infection in the pout resulting in an embargo on human consumption of the pout. By the late 1990s, the population was considered to be overexploited and to have low biomass.

Longhorn Sculpin (Myoxocephalus octodecemspinosus) – are greenish brown with distinct markings. They almost look armored. Large fins extend from just behind the head. Their maximum size is 45 cm but the average size is 25-35 cm. Longhorn sculpin eat shrimp, crabs, worms, mussels, mollusks, squid, fishes, etc. They are eaten by cod, spiny dogfish, skates, sea ravens, goosefish, and other sculpin. There is not currently any commercial importance.

Personal Log

Again, we were sorting and counting in the rain today. There was less wind with this storm than the last, for which I am grateful. I have also finally learned some of the tricks to shucking scallops more efficiently. Since my raingear is cuffed at both the sleeves and the pants, I have to remember to empty the water out of the cuffs before going back inside to take the gear off. During the shift, gear is left with the pants down around the boots so it is easy to get in and out of for each tow, up to 12 or more times per shift. The science crew works noon to midnight or midnight to noon while the ship’s crew works from six to six. Because of the different schedules, traditional foods for particular meals don’t happen. I am on the noon to midnight shift (day watch) and so start the day by eating lunch. Our lunch is ship’s dinner (steaks last night) and our dinner is leftovers from the kitchen, which are quite good. There are always several types of salads and one or, sometimes, two choices for a main course. Additionally, there is the candy drawer and the ice cream freezer! No one will starve out here.

June 13, 2010March 12, 2021

Anne Byford: June 11, 2010

NOAA Teacher at Sea: Anne Byford
Aboard: R/V Hugh R. Sharp

Mission: Sea Scallop Surveys
Location: Off the Coast of New England
Date: June 11, 2010

Weather Data at 1:35pm EDT:
Clear, 14.4˚C
Location at 1:35pm EDT: Lat: 40 30.07 N Long: 69 08.66 W
Water Depth: 77.5 m

4^th Day at Sea

Why Count Sea Scallops?

That had to be the most common question I got asked before coming on this trip. Much of the information below is from the NOAA FishWatch website (www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/atl_sea_scallop.htm).

Economically, sea scallops are an important species; in 2008 the scallop harvest was about 53.5 million pounds and was worth about $370 million. The population is not currently considered to be overfished and has been above minimum sustainable levels since 2001. Formal management began in 1982 with the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fisheries Management Plan. The management plan includes limiting new permits, restrictions on gear and on the number of crew on a boat. Since about 2000, the biomass of scallops has been increasing. Biomass is estimated by using the weight of scallops per tow on cruises like this one. Combinations of biomass estimates and estimates of the commercial catch are used to update and adjust the management plan.

Sea Scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) are filter feeders. They can live up to 20 years and begin reproducing at about 2 years, with maximum fertility reached at 4 years. A single female scallop can produce up to 270 million eggs in her life. This high reproductive capacity has helped the scallop population recover relatively quickly. Gender can be determined by the color of the gonad; females are orange while the male gonad is white. Adult scallops average between 6 and 7 inches from hinge to tip (called height) but can be as big as 9 inches. Age can be estimated by counting the rings on the shell. Scallops can “swim” by opening and closing the two shells. This is a useful adaptation for escaping from predators, including flounder, cod, lobsters, crabs, and sea stars. Scallops are harvested for the adductor muscle (the one that opens and closes the shell). There is no commercial aquaculture of scallops in the US as of August 2009.

Personal Log

A storm moved through beginning on Wed. evening (day 2) and stayed with us most of Thursday. By the end of shift on Wednesday, we were working on deck in full foul weather gear and life jackets. Thursday we had an 8 hour steam between dredge sites and by the end of shift on Thursday, the seas had begun to smooth out. Friday was quite nice, weather-wise.

I am learning to shuck scallops, though I am about half the speed of many on the boat. I am also learning to tell the various types of flounder and other fish apart as well. It’s not always obvious which type of flounder or hake is which.

New Species

Goose fish (aka monk fish), several more varieties of flounder, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, eel pout, some very large skates, 3 types of sea stars and 1 type of brittle star.

September 23, 2008April 2, 2021

Marilyn Frydrych, September 23, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Marilyn Frydrych
Onboard NOAA Ship Delaware II
September 15-25, 2008

Mission: Atlantic Herring Hydroacoustic Survey
Geographical area of cruise: New England Coastal Waters
Date: September 23, 2008

Weather Data from the Bridge
42.42 degrees N, 67.39 degrees W
Cloudy with wind out of the N at 32 knots
Dry Bulb Temperature: 15.5 degrees Celsius
Wet Bulb Temperature: 11.6 degrees Celsius
Waves: 6 feet
Visibility: 10 miles

Science and Technology Log

Yesterday we were fairly busy doing CTD casts and trawls. Today we woke to find the night crew just starting to record the lengths and weights of their large catch. We grabbed some cereal and took over from them at 5:45 a.m. They had collected and sorted all the fish. Jacquie and I took about two hours measuring, weighing, and examining the innards of the half basket of herring they left us. Our chief scientist, Dr. Mike Jech, summarized his findings so far in a short report to everyone including those back at Woods Hole: “Trawl catches in the deeper water near Georges Bank have been nearly 100% herring with some silver hake. Trawl catches in shallow water (<75 m) have occasionally caught herring, but mostly small silver hake, redfish, butterfish, and red hake.

A night haul of herring. Notice the brilliant blue stripe on the top of the herring. The camera’s flash is spotlighted in the reflective tape on the life vests.

Small being less than 5-6 cm in length. We caught one haddock this entire trip. Trawl catches north of Georges Bank have been a mix of redfish and silver hake, with a few herring mixed in.” This afternoon the Officer of the Deck, LT(jg) Mark Frydrych, gave me a run down of many of the instruments on the bridge. I spotted a white blob on the northeastern horizon and pointed it out. He showed me where it was on the SIMRAD FS900, a specialized radar. The SIMRAD FS900is often able to identify a ship and its name. This time it couldn’t. Looking through binoculars we could see it was a large container vessel. Then we looked at a different radar and saw both the ship’s absolute trajectory and its trajectory relative to the Delaware 2. It was on a path parallel to the Delaware2 so Mark didn’t worry about it intersecting our path. We also noticed another ship off to the west and north of us on the radar, but we couldn’t yet see it on the horizon. It too was projected on a path parallel to us.

Then Mark pointed out an area on the SIMRAD FS900 outlined in red. It’s an area where ships can voluntarily slow to 10 knots in an effort to avoid collisions with whales. It seems that sleeping right whales don’t respond to approaching noises made by ships. There are only about 350 to 500 of them left and they are often killed by passing ships. The Delaware 2 was steaming at about 7 knots because in the 6 ft waves it couldn’t go any faster. However the container ship was steaming at 15.5 knots. Few ships slow down in the red zone.

Mark showed me how to fill out the weather report for that hour. I typed in all my info into a program on a monitor which assembled all my weather data into the format the weather service uses. I first recorded our position from an instrument displaying the latitude and longitude right there above the plotting table. I read the pressure, the wet bulb temperature and the dry bulb temperature from an instrument which had a readout in a room off to the starboard of the bridge. The ship has two anemometers so I averaged these to get the wind speed and direction. We looked at the waves and tried to imagine standing in the trough of one and looking up. I figured the wave would be over my head and so estimated about 6 feet. We also looked at the white foam from a breaking wave and counted the seconds from when it appeared until it rode the next wave. The period of the wave we watched was four seconds. Next we looked out the window to search out any clouds. It was clear in front of us but quite cloudy all behind us. I estimated the height of the clouds. I typed all this information into the appropriate boxes on the monitor. It was all so much easier than my college days when we had to gather the information manually then switch it by hand into the code appropriate for the weather service. The OOD sent this information to NOAA Weather Service on the hour, every hour operations permitting.

Personal Log

Though my son was instrumental in persuading me to apply for the Teacher-at-Sea position I haven’t seen much of him thus far. He’s standing the 1 to 4 shift both afternoon and night. When I’m free he seems to be sleeping. We don’t even eat meals together. That’s why I made a special trip to the bridge today to meet up with him during his watch.