hawaiian islands – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

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Gail Tang: HARPs and Hearts, August 25, 2023

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Gail Tang

Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette

August 4, 2023 – September 1, 2023

Mission: Hawaiian Islands Cetacean and Ecosystem Assessment Survey (HICEAS)

Geographic Area of Cruise: Hawaiian archipelago

Date: Aug 25, 2023

Science and Technology Log

Visually surveying for marine mammals has its limitations because they spend so much time underwater. To account for these limitations, a number of acoustic techniques are used to study cetaceans (whales and dolphins). There are four main passive acoustic instruments used by the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center’s Cetacean Research Program during ship surveys: towed arrays, drifting acoustic spar buoy recorders (DASBR), high-frequency acoustic recording packages (HARP), and sonobouys. Each instrument has its pros and cons so the data from each instrument provide a fuller picture of what’s under the sea.

On board the ship, every morning just before sunrise the acousticians deploy the towed array of hydrophones, which streams 300 m behind the ship. The towed array provides real-time information on calls and clicks of the whales and dolphins. Each section of the towed array has three hydrophones and a depth sensor (see picture below). The design comes from the National Marine Fisheries Service and are all built by Lead Acoustician Jennifer McCullough (to read more about Jennifer, see my previous post). While the towed array can pick up sounds from the cetaceans around the ship in real-time, it also picks up the sounds of the ship, thus obfuscating other calls. As such, autonomous recorders (DASBRs, HARPs, and sonobouys) are used to collect more data, as well as match species data collected from the towed arrays.

view of the array resting on deck - it looks like curled up plastic tubing (with some purple sections) connected to a cable — A section of the towed array with three hydrophones (seen in purple). Photo credit: NOAA Fisheries/Gail Tang

on deck, Jennifer stands at a large spool in the center while Alexa leans over a coiled pile of cable attached to the plastic tubing that contains the hydrophones. Erik stands near the railing to help guide the array to the water. — Acoustician team Jennifer McCullough, Alexa Gonzalez, and Erik Norris deploy the towed array. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Gail Tang

illustration of the ship at the surface of the water (depicted by a horizontal line) with the array towed behind at a depth of about 10 meters. an inset box shows a larger illustration of the two arrays - one "end array" and one "inline array" with 20 m baseline cable in between. the three hydrophones in each array are spaced 1 m apart from each other. — A depiction of array towed behind a ship. Photo Credit: Barkley et al. (2021 p. 1122)

The HARP is a long-term acoustic recorder that sits on the seafloor at depths of 650-900 m depending on the site. Developed by the Whale Acoustics Lab at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, they are site-specific and sit out for one to two years. The one we retrieved during Leg 2 was deployed August 2022. The HARPs provide 1) time-series data that help with understanding seasonal occurrence of cetaceans and other marine life, 2) periodic data on the presence of animals that pass through the site, and 3) ocean noise reference points. The latter is important in measuring the potential impact of ship and construction noise on marine mammal behavior. For example, slowly over time, blue whales are shifting their call types to a lower frequency to compensate for the rise of ocean noise in their natural call range (Rice at al., 2022).

Matt, wearing a blue hard hat, a life vest, and gloves, stands on deck, tethered to something on deck by a yellow strap hooked into the back of his life vest. We are looking down at him as he faces away from the camera, hands raised in the air to guide a large yellow piece of equipment as a crane lifts it back on deck. Matt grasps a line (rope) connected to the crane's hook with his left and uses the right to steady the equipment. — Matt Benes (Able-bodied Seaman) retrieves HARP. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Suzanne Yin

DASBRs are floating acoustic recorders deployed from the ship and retrieved sometime between 1-30 days later depending on their location from the ship. The DASBR collects acoustic data away from the ship and at a depth deeper in the water column than the towed array (about 150 m from the surface). This means there’s no noise from the ship that may disturb the animals and no surface noise from crashing waves or rain. A clear advantage of the DASBR is its ability to record beaked whale vocalizations, super high-frequency echolocation clicks. Beaked whales are only vocal during the lower portions of their foraging dives, which last for about 60-90 mins. On the ship with the towed array, we don’t spend enough time to capture their vocalizations. The DASBR on the other hand has time to capture an entire dive cycle of a beaked whale. Depending on the frequency and amplitude of the animal, the distance at which the DASBR can detect animals (or detection range) varies by species. For example, Kogia (pygmy and dwarf sperm whales) need to be near the sensor and facing it to pick up their calls, while the baleen whales have a larger detection range. To give you an idea of the overall advantages of the DASBR, it can pick up about 10 times more cetaceans than the towed array and help us learn more about their vocalizations and study their habitat range.

Matt, wearing a hard hat, life vest, gloves, and a harness, tethered by a yellow strap to something on deck for safety, looks away from the camera, into the dark of the ocean at night. a spotlight extending from an upper deck highlights the location of the DASBR in glowing blue light. — With grapple hook in hand and eyes on the DASBR, Matt Benes (Able-bodied Seaman) prepares for retrieval. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Marie Hill

screenshot from Google Earth of the Hawaiian Islands showing segmented lines outlining a path north of the islands. some segments are labeled with dates from Aug 26 to Sept 1 (back at Honolulu). a short yellow arrow and a green parabola show the locations of DASBR 4 and 3 respectively. — This map shows the tracklines where we surveyed, as well as the DASBR paths. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Marie Hill

There are many recorded calls for which there is no visual match, so sonobouys are deployed after the visual team identifies a particular baleen whale species. Because the ship masks the very low frequency sounds made by most baleen whales, sonobouys are deployed to evaluate their call types. The hydrophones in the sonobouys are set at 90 ft from the ocean’s surface and they collect data for up to 8 hours.

I like the idea that these four instruments work in concert towards a shared goal, each with its strengths and weaknesses.

Career Log

The information above was provided by the acoustics team. I will focus on a couple in particular, Yvonne Barkley (Cruise Lead in Training) and Erik Norris (Acoustician), who met on NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette 13 years ago!

Eirk and Yvonne on deck; Yvonne is seated in an observation chair and Erik is holding his right arm out to take the selfie — Erik Norris (Acoustician) and Yvonne Barkley (Cruise Lead-in-Training)

view over Yvonne's shoulder as she types on a laptop at a desk — Yvonne Barkley (Cruise Lead-in-Trainging) working in R

view over Erik's shoulder as he works on a control box for a piece of acoustic equipment - he is wearing a hard hat and a life vest — Yvonne Barkley (Cruise Lead-in-Trainging) working in R

Yvonne Barkley first went to University of California, San Diego and then transferred to Santa Barbara City College for a pipeline into University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). At UCSB, she studied aquatic biology. A friend told her about a temporary job as an acoustic analyst for a local research firm invested in mitigating the impact of oil companies on the bowhead whale migration through the Beaufort Sea. It is at that job that she received her first acoustic training. On a path towards marine mammals, Yvonne’s cousin alerted her to an internship at the US Navy’s Marine Mammal Program in Pt. Loma, California prepping dolphin food, cleaning, etc. The program itself trained bottlenose dolphins to be swimmer detectors and California sea lions to be sea mine detectors! For example, bottlenose dolphins are used at different naval bases and combat zones to detect anomalous scuba divers. Yvonne was accepted into the internship where a seminar given by a NOAA Fisheries representative piqued her interest about marine mammal research. She found an acoustic analyst internship at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center (one of NOAA’s six science centers). There, she learned about field projects to collect cetacean data at sea for months at a time. In contact with Erin Oleson (HICEAS 2023 Chief Scientist), she embarked on her first mission from Hawaii to Guam in 2010 on the very ship we are currently on! That cruise brought Yvonne and Erik together, but more on that later.

After collecting data that weren’t intended to be used in stock assessments, like a true scientist, Yvonne began to wonder, “How can we use these data?” This curiosity, the advancement of acoustic data collection methods, and the drive to uncover data gaps in the literature converged into a puzzle for Yvonne to solve. I listened in awe as Yvonne described the three main chapters of her doctoral thesis. The first one involved species classification for false killer whales (a priority species for HICEAS). Her research used whistle data to distinguish the whales acoustically at the population level. She found that the classification machine learning model yielded low accuracy rates. Access the paper here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2019.00645/full

The next chapter focused on improving localizing methods for deep diving whales using sperm whale acoustic data. I was drawn to the research of this chapter because of the modeling components. Probabilistic models are used to estimate the location of cetaceans. An ambiguity volume is an example of such a probabilistic indicator. It is computed from source location estimates that are most accurate to the actual measured locations. As the number of different detections for the same whale at different positions from the ship increases, the ambiguity volume decreases, thereby narrowing down the possible location of the whale. The increased location accuracy is depicted in the figure below through the progression of subfigures a) – f); subfigure a) has fewer detections for the same whale than subfigure f). As we move to subfigure f), we can see that the margins of location estimates are much smaller, giving us a more accurate location estimate for the whale. https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article-pdf/150/2/1120/15349527/1120_1_online.pdf

Six subfigures showing three dimensionsal plots. the Y axis shows depth, from zero to -3000 m below sea surface. the x and z axes are West-East km and North-South km. caption reads: "Fig 2. Cumulative ambiguity volumes [(a)-(f)] for detections of simulated echolocation clicks from a stationary whale located 1.2 km directly below the transect line (denoted by a white asterisk.) The product of all volumes results in a volume representing all possible location estimates for the whale (f). The color scale represents the ambiguity volume values ranging from 0 (white) as low probability to 1 (black) as high probability. The dotted lines (white or black) indicate the trackline traveling in the direction of the arrow." — Progression of ambiguity volumes as detection data points increase. Photo Credit: Barkley et al. (2022, p. 1122)

The final chapter used the ambiguity volumes for location estimates from the previous chapter and available environmental data from remotely sensed satellite data sets that lined up with those locations to learn about the habitat preferences of sperm whales. Check out the paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frsen.2022.940186/full

Erik Norris got his Bachelor’s degree at James Madison University in integrated science and technology. He was initially working with energy production and city planning, dredging company shipping channels up and down the east coast. He left and traveled for a while. When I asked him to share one of his fondest memories, he mentioned his time in a small fishing village called Nomozaki, Japan. What struck him most about this village was the community-oriented nature of the villagers. At the end of the day, local fishermen took a portion of their catch of the day and shared it with the entire village. The whole community came out to have a big party together, enjoying the catch and the company. The expression of an economy focused on people rather than on profits really speaks to me. I am reminded of a couple of quotes from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer:

“A gift comes to you through no action of your own…the more something is shared, the greater its value becomes. This is hard to grasp for society is steeped in notions of private property, where others are by definition excluded from sharing.”
(Kimmerer, 2013, p. 23 and 27, respectively)

While Erik worked on a boatyard, he saw people working on the escort vessel for the Hōkūle’a, a wa’a (voyaging canoe) that uses traditional Polynesian wayfinding techniques (no technology, not even a watch) to navigate the ocean. (The Hōkūle’a is currently on its 15th voyage. Follow along here: https://hokulea.com/moananuiakea/). He approached the crew and volunteered to work on the escort vessel in-port. When the vessels were ready to commence their voyage, Erik had become so familiar with that vessel that they asked him to join, which turned into a 6-month journey. When I inquired about Erik’s attraction to the maritime industry, he quipped that he’s Moana from the Disney movie. For the sake of research, I had the ship’s movie DJ, Octavio De Menas (General Vessel Assistant), put on the movie. From what I gathered, this quote from Moana’s song “How Far I’ll Go” must represent his draw to the ocean:

“See the line where the sky meets the sea, it calls me.”
Moana

Through conversations with others on the ship, it seems like the ocean has a similar allure for many. Having been out here for three weeks, I get it. We first saw land last week and it felt like an intrusion. Enough about me, back to Erik!

Later, while talking to his friend’s dad who was a NOAA Corps Officer about his passion for the ocean, he joined the NOAA Corps himself. He met Yvonne as an Ensign on the Sette. He went on to become Lieutenant Junior Grade, and then “retired” from NOAA Corps as a Lieutenant because he was about to rotate from his land billet at Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) to another land billet which would have taken him away from Hawaii. He found a civilian job in Hawaii with PIFSC as a vessel operations coordinator in charge of small boats, fabrication and design, field logistics, and HARPs. He attributes his entry into the world of acoustics to Yvonne and HARPs. His current interests include using autonomous vehicles (e.g. sea glider) for a range of oceanographic environment missions.

I asked Yvonne and Erik the same questions separately and we laughed about the different approaches they took in their answers. Erik first noticed Yvonne because she was moving equipment and he was in charge of the equipment on the ship. Yvonne first noticed Erik’s sense of humor juxtaposed with her expectations from someone in the uniformed services. On their time at sea, they shared conversations over meals. Erik was captivated by the way Yvonne talked about her oma’s (grandmother’s) Indo-Dutch cooking. For more on Erik and Yvonne’s food connection, visit the Food Log below. Once in Guam, Yvonne was struck by Erik’s thoughtfulness in preceding her on a hike in the jungle so he could clear off all the spider webs; his distaste for spiders elevated Yvonne’s appreciation for his sacrifice. This is not the only time Erik put Yvonne before himself. Yvonne was really sick in Bali and ended up in a hospital in Malaysia. Erik took leave from work and (according to him) flew to comfort her and accompany her home. According to others, he rescued her. With a ring attached to the keyring on his swimming trunks, under a rainbow and surrounded by sea turtles, Erik proposed to Yvonne while surfing. They have been married since 2016. They currently live in their house, Gertrude, with their dog Sweetpea.

Personal Log with Career Highlight

I started teaching this week. Classes are going well! Shout out to my Abstract Algebra students who never cease to amaze me with their curiosity and courage. Brave Space–IYKYK! I told them our picture below looks like the Brady Bunch, which they did not understand so they have additional homework to watch the opening credits.

a screenshot of a zoom meeting between Gail (on the ship) and 9 students (two sharing a window), creating a 3 x 3 collage — University of La Verne’s Fall 2023 Abstract Algebra class!

Everyday, I try to do one thing I didn’t do the day before. I had two memorable events from this week. The first was during drills. We have weekly fire and abandon ship drills, so this week a few of us practiced the fire hose off the bow. Below you can see Yvonne assisting me as I cycled through the different spraying options.

view from an upper deck over the bow as Gail sprays the firehose over the railing and Yvonne help steady the hose — Gail Tang (Teacher at Sea) and Yvonne Barkley (Cruise Lead-in-Training) test out the fire hose during weekly drills. Photo Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Ernesto Vásquez

The second non-routine thing I enjoyed was helping Joe Roessler (Electronic Technician–ET) install a cable to the outdoor wifi antenna. Our work is the reason I can compose this blog post on the boat deck in my outdoor office, wind whipping my hair to the sounds of the ships’ wake. We worked in the trawl house to solder connector pins to cable ends. Joe’s approach to teaching is familiar. In my classrooms, I provide the tools for students to solve problems with very little instruction. If they need some, I am there to help answer questions. Joe set up the soldering station, provided the leatherman, rubber tape, the connectors, the cable and we went to work. There were many parallels in his methods and mine. We first attempted a connection to the cable, but the pins were not sitting right. Joe evaluated the situation and quickly thought of a different approach to connect the cables. Trying a solution and then pivoting when it doesn’t work out is a skill we try to develop in my classes!

close up view of a cable gripped between thumb and forefingers; the deck, out of focus, is visible in the background — Attempt 1 of cable connection

view down at Joe, surrounded y electronics equipment and control panels, connecting cables to one another — Attempt 1 of cable connection

Joe got his amateur radio license at 13! At that time, kids were particularly into shortwave radio because of the US human moon landing. As a young adult he went to the Navy for naval aviation aircraft maintenance. After he was discharged from active duty, Joe continued working in the Naval Reserve and also at private sector companies where he tested robotic equipment. Later, he joined the Civil Service as an aircraft electrician at a naval air rework facility in San Diego. He then transferred to the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah where he returned to the position of an ET. Joe worked with a biological integrated detection system for weapons of mass destruction, in biological warfare defense, with instrumentation and testing equipment and research development. He took a short 4-year detour a businessman and realized it was not what he wanted to do. NOAA had openings in Seattle so he applied and was hired! His first season was on NOAA Ship Rainier in Alaska. Having had enough of the cold weather, he asked for a relocation to Hawaii. He worked on our very ship, the Sette, installing equipment before its very first mission! He met his wife in Samoa and has been working for NOAA 22 years!

Joe, wearing a hard hat and sunglasses, stands for a photo in the middle of his office, surrounded by electrical boxes and wires. He is wearing a t-shirt that reads: Don't fear the beard. He has a beard. — Joe Roessler (Electronic Technician) in his office! Photo Credit: Gail Tang

Food Log

This week Chef Chris Williams [see previous blog post for more about Chris] made some yummy meals, my favorite pictured below!

photo of plated meal — Lambchops, fish, avocado, gnocchi, wild rice, brussell sprouts

When Erik first mentioned Yvonne’s Oma’s Dutch-Indo cooking, I was intrigued because I haven’t had much of either, let alone their fusion. Though Erik insisted that all of Yvonne’s dishes are his favorite dish, after much encouragement he narrowed it down to Oma’s croquette recipe. It’s a fried potato dish with meat inside, best when served with Chinese or Dijon mustard. Yvonne’s favorite dish is her oma’s lemper ayam. The moment she mentioned that it’s sticky rice stuffed with chicken inside I asked if it’s wrapped in any type of leaf. After researching some recipes, I found that it’s traditionally wrapped with banana leaves.

photo of sticky rice stuffed with chicken wrapped in banana leaves — Lemper. Photo Credit: Wikipedia

I am going to search for lemper when I get home because I have a certain fondness for food wrapped in leaves. I am particularly tickled by the similarities in leaf-wrapped food across different cultures. For example, there’s law mai gai (wrapped in lotus leaf with Chinese origins), zong (wrapped in bamboo leaf also with Chinese origins), dolmas (wrapped in grape leaves with origins in the Levant), tamale (wrapped in corn husk with Aztec origins), and cochinita pibil (wrapped in banana leaves with Mayan origins). This may be a stretch, but I also like onigirazu/handrolls/onigiri (wrapped in seaweed with Japanese origins) and gimbap (wrapped in seaweed with Korean origins).

close-up photo of law mai gai wrapped in lotus leaves — Law Mai Gai. Photo Credit: Gail Tang

close-up of unwrapped zong — Law Mai Gai. Photo Credit: Gail Tang

There is even a Hawaiian version of a leaf-wrapped food called lau lau! It was the second thing I tried when I landed in Honolulu. Usually lau lau consists of pork and salted butterfish first wrapped in kalo (taro) leaves, which are edible, and then in ki (ti) leaves, which are not edible. Finally, traditionally it is steamed in an imu pit (underground pit). It can be found in restaurants and served at luaus. Though it was new to me, it felt so wonderfully familiar.

plated meal — Wrapped Lau Lau with a side of Kalua Pork from Shiro’s Saimin Heaven. Photo Credit: Gail Tang

While searching for the history of lau lau, I found a beautifully written memory that describes lau lau as an embodiment of the beach, the valleys, and the mountains through the ingredients of butterfish, kalo/ki, and pig. Not only does the final product connect these landscapes, but the preparation connects families and friends.

“Early Hawaiians lived in valleys that provided them protection and food. Villages were organized by families and by land divisions, which, in old Hawaii, were divided from the beach to the mountains. That meant that each village and family had complete accessibility to the beach and the mountains and all their offerings. Lau Lau represents these familial land divisions because its ingredients come from the beach, the valleys, and the mountains. The preparation was always my favorite part, because we’d be together for hours sharing stories, laughing, and having fun. Wrapping Lau Laus was where we all became familiar with who we were.”
Chad Schumacher, https://www.familysearch.org/en/blog/family-recipes-lau-lau

Did you know?

The Big Dipper points to the North Star and the angle of elevation from the horizon to the North star is your latitude! This tip was brought to you by Erik Norris, himself.

July 26, 2017January 19, 2024

Staci DeSchryver: Boobies, Wedgies, and the Neurolinguistic Re-Programming of a TAS, July 21, 2017

NOAA Teacher At Sea

Staci DeSchryver

Aboard Oscar Elton Sette

July 6 – August 2, 2017

Mission: HICEAS Cetacean Study

Geographic Area: French Frigate Shoals, Northwest Hawaiian Islands

Date: July 21, 2017

Weather Data from the Bridge:

Science and Personal Log

I’m putting both the science and personal log together this time around for a very special reason.

See, I have a confession to make. Many of my friends from home know this about me, but I have a secret I’ve kept under wraps for the vast majority of this trip, and it’s time to officially reveal it now, because it just seems to fit so well. Ready? True confessions from a Teacher At Sea:

I have an irrational fear of birds.

There. I said it. It stems from a wayward trip to London in the Study Abroad program and involves me, innocently consuming an over-priced deli sandwich on a bench outside of the Museum of Natural History when I was suddenly accosted by a one-footed pigeon who made away with my lunch – but not before attacking my face full-force with every wing, beak, and claw it had. My lunch then became a free sidewalk hoagie, available for all nearby pigeons (you know, like every pigeon from London to France) to feast upon as I sat helplessly watching the gnashing of beaks and flyings of feathers in a ruthless battle to the end for over-processed deli ham and havarti on rye. I was mortified. From that moment forth, I was certain every bird wanted a piece of my soul and I was darned if I was going to let them have it.

After many years of active bird-avoidance, my first Teacher At Sea experience allowed me to remove Puffin from the exhaustive list of these ruthless prehistoric killers. After all, Puffins are not much more than flying footballs, and generally only consume food of the underwater persuasion, so I felt relatively sheltered from their wrath. Plus they’re kind of cute. The following year, a Great Horned Owl met its demise by colliding face-first into one of our tall glass windows at the school. When the Biology teachers brought him inside, I felt oddly curious about this beast who hunts with stunning accuracy in the black of night, and yet couldn’t manage to drive himself around a window. I felt myself incongruously empathetic at the sight of him – he was such a majestic creature, his lifeless body frozen in time from the moment he met his untimely ending. I couldn’t help but wish him alive again; if not for his ability to hunt rodents, but simply because nothing that beautiful should have to meet its maker in such a ridiculous manner. And so, I cautiously removed Owls from the list, so long as I didn’t have to look much at their claws.

This has suited me well over the years – fear all birds except for Puffin and Owl, and as a side note Penguin, too, since they can’t do much damage without being able to fly and all. Plus, you know, Antarctica. But when I found out that the cetacean study also happened to have bird observers on the trip, I felt momentarily paralyzed by the whole ordeal. I had (incorrectly) assumed that we wouldn’t see birds on this trip. I mean, what kind of bird makes its way to the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Well, it turns out there are a lot that do, and it’s birders Dawn and Chris who are responsible for sighting and cataloging them alongside the efforts of the marine mammal observers. I promise I’ll come back to my story on bird fear, but for now, let’s take a look at how our birders do their job.

DES_4224 — NOAA bird observer Dawn scans the horizon from her seat on the flying bridge

The birders follow a similar protocol to the marine mammal observers. Each birder takes a two-hour shift in a front seat on the flying bridge. While the marine mammal observers use big eyes to see out as far as they possibly can out onto the horizon, the birders only watch and catalog birds that come within 300m of the ship.

DES_4623 — You can find the distance a bird is from the ship using a basic pencil with lines marked on the side. Each line is mathematically calculated using your height, the ship’s height, and the distance to the horizon.

How do they know how far away the 300m mark is? Over the years they just become great visual judges of the distance, but they also have a handy “range finder” that they use. The range finder is just a plain, unsharpened pencil with marks ticked off at 100m intervals. By holding the pencil up to the horizon and looking past it, they can easily find the distance the bird is from the ship. They divide this 300m range into “zones” – the 200-300m zone, the 100-200m zone, and the less than 100m zone from the bow of the ship. Anything further than 300m or outside of the zero to 90 degree field of vision can still be catalogued if it is an uncommon species, or a flock of birds. (More on flocks in a moment.)

They choose which side of the ship has the best visibility, either the port or starboard side, and like the mammal observers, birders take only the directional space from zero (directly in front of the ship) to 90 degrees on the side of their choosing. If the visibility switches in quality from one side to the other during a shift, he or she can change sides without issue.

DES_4579 — A sooty tern soars high above the ship. We’ve seen many sooty terns this trip!

The bird team also records information such as wind speed and direction (with respect to the ship), the Beaufort Sea State, visibility, observation conditions, and the ship’s course. Observation conditions are a critical component of the birder’s tool bag. They mark the observation conditions on a five-point scale, with 1 being extremely bad conditions and 5 being very good conditions. What defines good conditions for a birder? The best way to make an observation about the conditions is to think about what size and species of smaller birds an observer might not be able to see in the outermost range. Therefore, the condition is based on species and distance from the ship. Some birds are larger than others, and could be easier to spot farther out from the ship. The smallest birds (like petrels) might not be observable in even slightly less than ideal conditions. Therefore, if a birder records that the conditions are not favorable for small birds at a distance of 200m (in other words, they wouldn’t be able to see a small bird 200m away), the data processing team can vary the density estimates for smaller birds when observers are in poor visibility.

DES_4568 — White terns look like they belong on holiday cards! A new favorite of mine.

If a bird flies into the designated “zone”, the species is identified and recorded on a computer program that will place a time stamp on the GPS location of the sighting. These data are stored on the ship for review at a later time. Ever wonder where the maps of migration patterns for birds originate? It is from this collected data. Up until this point, I had always taken most of these kinds of maps for granted, never thinking that in order to figure out where a particular animal lives let alone its migratory pattern must come from someone actually going out and observing those animals in those particular areas.

DES_4703 — An albatross glides behind the ship, looking for fish.

The birder will record other information about the bird sighting like age, sex (if able to identify by sight) and what the lil’ fella or gal is up to when observed. Birds on the open ocean do a lot more than just fly, and their behaviors are important to document for studies on bird behavior. There are 9 different codes for these behaviors, ranging from things like directional flight (think, it has a place to go and it’s trying to get there), sitting on the water, or “ship attracted.” There are certain species like juvenile Red-Footed and Brown boobies and Tropic Birds that are known to be “ship attracted.” In other words, it could be out flying along a particular path until it sees this super cool giant white thing floating on the water, and decides to go and check it out. This is how I wound up with that fun photo of the Booby on the bridge wing, and the other snapshot of the juvenile that hung out on the jackstaff for two full days. These birds would not normally have otherwise come into the range to be detected and recorded, so their density estimates can be skewed if they are counted the same way as all other birds.

DES_4491 — This Brown Booby wants in on the food action near the ship. Boobies are ship attracted, and we’ve had a few hang out with us while they take a rest on the mast. This is not the exact booby that made me change my bird ways, but he’s a close cousin (at least genetically speaking) of the one who did.

Any groups of five or more birds within one “reticle” (a measuring tool on the glass of the big eyes seen when looking through them) can be flagged by the marine mammal observers for the birders. While many flocks are found miles away and might be difficult to see in the big eyes by species, the birders know the flight and feeding behaviors of the birds, and can usually identify the different species within the flock. They have a special designation in their computer program to catalog flocks and their behavior, as well.

I sat with Dawn on a few different occasions to learn how she quickly identifies and catalogs each bird species. At first, it seems like all the birds look fairly similar, but after a few hours of identification practice, I can’t imagine that any of them look the same. The first bird Dawn taught me to identify was a Wedge-Tailed White Shearwater, more affectionately known as a “Wedgie White.” To me, they were much more easily characterized by behavior than anything else. Shearwaters are called “Shearwaters” because they…you guessed it… shear the water! They are easy to spot as they glide effortlessly just above the water’s surface, almost dipping their wings in the cool blue Pacific.

I then continued my bird observation rotation learning all kinds of fun facts about common sea birds – how plumages change as different species grow, identifying characteristics (which I’m still trying to sort out because there are so many!), stories of how the birds got their names, migration patterns, population densities, breeding grounds, and what species we could expect to see as we approached different islands on the Northwest Hawaiian Island Chain. Dawn knows countless identifiers when it comes to birds, and if she can’t describe it exactly the way she wants to, she has multiple books with photos, drawings, and paragraphs of information cataloging the time the bird is born to every iteration of its markings and behaviors as it grows. To be a birder means having an astounding bank of knowledge to tap into as they have a limited time to spot and properly identify many species before they continue on their journey across the Pacific.

DES_4517 — This Great Frigate Bird was flying about fifteen feet overhead, with a mast directly in front of him as he flew. He’s looking around for birds to steal food from. The Hawaiian term for Frigate Bird is ‘Iwa, meaning “thief.”

After two weeks of watching for birds with Dawn and Chris, I feel like I can properly identify a few different species – Wedgies, Frigate Birds (these are the klepto-parasite birds that steal other birds’ dinners), Tropic Birds, two types of Terns, and boobies, though I can only best ID boobies when they are not in flight. I find myself up on the flying bridge on independent observation rotations calling forward to the birder on rotation, “Was that a tern?” And now, my identifying skills have vastly improved over the last few days as I have engaged in the process of this very important data collection.

So, what has become of my irrational bird fear? Well, I have to be honest; much like Puffin and Owl, the Red-Footed Booby melted my heart. There he was, perched on the bridge’s shade railing, a lonely little fellow staring up at me with no reservation about my presence or expectation of a sandwich. There we were in the middle of a vast ocean, and he was all alone – simply looking for a place to rest his wings or search more earnestly for the hint of a delicious flying fish escaping the water. I spent a fair amount of time photographing the little guy, working with my new camera to find some fun angles and depth of field, and playing with the lighting. He was a willing and I daresay friendly participant in the whole process (in fact I wondered if he had seen a few episodes of America’s Next Top Model), and I felt myself softening my stance on placing the Red Footed Booby amongst the likes of attack pigeons. By the end of our encounter, I had mentally noted that the Booby should now be placed on the “safe bird” list.

As I’ve spent more time with Dawn and Chris and learned more about each species, seabirds have one by one slowly migrated over to the safe list – to the point now where there are just too many to recite and I feel it is time after fifteen years to do away with the whole of it entirely. As soon as I changed my perspective, the beauty of all of them have gradually emerged to the point where I can easily find something to appreciate (even admire) about each of the species we’ve seen. Terns fight fiercely into the wind as they fly, but when they can catch a thermal or pose for an on-land photograph for an ID book, look dainty and regal in their appearance – as if they should be a staple part of every holiday display. And baby Terns? Doc (our Medical Doctor on board) showed me a photo of a tern chick that followed him around Midway Island last year and the lil’ guy was so darn cute it could make you cry glitter tears. Today near French Frigate Shoals many of the species I’ve seen from afar came right up to the ship and glided effortlessly overhead, allowing me to observe them from a near perspective as they flew. (None of them pooped on me, so if they weren’t off the list by that point, that act of grace alone should have sealed their fate for the positive.) Frigate Birds can preen their feathers while they fly. Watching each species cast their wings once and glide on the air while looking all around themselves was oddly entertaining, certainly peculiar, but also impressive. I can’t walk on the ship looking anywhere besides exactly where I want to go and yet birds can fly five feet away from a mast and casually have a proper look about.

If this has taught me anything, it has shown me the truth in the statement that fear is just ignorance in disguise. When I accidentally gave my bird aversion away during our quick stop at French Frigate Shoals (more on this in an upcoming blog post) many of the scientists said, “I’d have never guessed you were scared of birds. How did you keep it secret?” The easy answer is “Teacher Game Face.” But, more deeply rooted in that is a respect and admiration for those who enjoy the things that I’m afraid of. Dawn and Chris have dedicated their entire careers to identifying and cataloging these creatures, and they are both so kind and respectable I find it hard to imagine that they would study anything unequal to the vast extent of their character. Thankfully I learned this early enough on in the trip that it was easy to trust their judgement when it comes to Procellariiformes. This experience is once-in-a-lifetime, and how short-sighted would I be to not want to explore every aspect of what goes on during this study because I’m a little (a lot) afraid?

In Colorado, before I ever left, I made a personal commitment to have a little chutzpah and learn what I can about the distant oceanic cousins of the sandwich thieves. And when it came to that commitment, it meant genuinely digging in to learn as much as I can, not just pretend digging in to learn at little. I figured if nothing else, simple repeated exposure in short bursts would be enough for me to neurolinguistically reprogram my way into bird world, and as it turns out, I didn’t even really need that. I just needed to open up my eyes a little and learn it in to appreciation. Learning from Dawn and Chris, who are both so emphatically enthusiastic about all things ornithology made me curious once again about these little beasts, who over the last two weeks have slowly transformed into beauties.

Sorry, pigeons. You’re still on the list.

Pop Quiz

What is to date the silliest question or statement Staci has asked/made during her TAS experience?

In response to a rainy morning, “Yeah, when I woke up it sounded a little more ‘splashy’ than usual outside.”
“So, if Killer Whales sound like this, then what whale talk was Dory trying to do in Finding Nemo?”
“So, there is no such thing as a brown-footed booby?”
After watching an endangered monk seal lounging on the sand, “I kind of wish I had that life.” (So…you want to be an endangered species? Facepalm.)
All of the above

If you guessed e, we’re probably related.

July 23, 2017January 19, 2024

Staci DeSchryver: When They Go Low, We Go High (Pilot Whales, that Is!): A view of Cetaceans using Drone Technology July 17, 2017

NOAA Teacher At Sea

Staci DeSchryver

Aboard: Oscar Elton Sette

Cruise Dates: July 6 – Aug 2

Mission: HICEAS Cetacean Study

Geographic Area: Northeast of Kauai, headed toward Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI)

Location: 24 deg 41.9 min N, 170 deg 51.2 min W

Date: July 17, 2017

Weather Data from the Bridge:

Visibility: 10 Nmi

Scattered Clouds

Wind: 11 kts at 90 deg

Pressure: 1018.2mb

Wave height: 1-3 m

Swell at 50 deg, 2-3 ft

Air Temp: 29 degrees

Wet Bulb Temp: 25 degrees

Dewpoint: 28 degrees

Science Log

Technology definitely finds its way into every corner of life, and cetacean studies are certainly no exception. One of the most recent additions to the Cetacean team’s repertoire of technology is a fleet of UAS, or unmanned aerial systems. (UAS is a fancy term for a drone, in this case a hexacopter. Yes, we are definitely using drones on this mission. This seriously cannot get much cooler.) HICEAS 2017 is utilizing these UAS systems to capture overhead photos of cetaceans in the water as they surface. And the best part of all of this? I was selected to be a part of team UAS!

The UAS can only fly under certain atmospheric conditions. It can’t be too windy and the seas can’t be too rough. We had the chance to practice flying the hexacopters on one of the few days we were off the Kona coast of the Big Island, where the wind and seas are typically calmer. Dr. Amanda Bradford is leading the HICEAS 2017 drone operations. She is involved in securing air clearance that might be required for a hexacopter flight, as well as all of the operations that take place in preparation for deployment – of which there are many. The UAS is launched preferentially from a small boat, although it can be launched from the ship. So, in order to do boat-based UAS operations, we must first launch a boat off of the side of the ship. There are four people involved in the small boat UAS operations – the UAS pilot, the UAS ground station operator (Dr. Bradford and scientist Kym Yano alternate these positions), a coxswain to drive the small boat (NOAA crewmember Mills Dunlap) and a visual observer/data keeper (me!) for each flight the hexacopter makes.

We all load up our gear and equipment onto the small boat, along with the coxswain and one team member, from the side of the ship. The ship then lowers the boat to the water, the remaining teams members embark, and we are released to move toward the animals we are trying to photograph. I don’t have any photographs of us loading on to the ship because the operation is technical and requires focus, so taking photos during that time isn’t the best idea. I will say that the whole process is really exciting, and once I got the hang of getting on and off the ship, pretty seamless.

Our first trip out was just to practice the procedure of getting into the small boat, flying the UAS on some test flights, and returning back to the ship. The goal was to eventually fly the hexacopter over a group of cetaceans and use the camera docked on the hexacopter to take photogrammetric measurements of the size and condition of the animals.

Launching a hexacopter from a boat is quite different from launching one on land. Imagine what would happen if the battery died before you brought it back to the boat! This is why numerous ground tests and calibrations took place before ever bringing this equipment out over water. The batteries on the hexacopter are good, but as a security measure, the hexacopter must be brought back well before the batteries die out, otherwise we have a hexacopter in the water, and probably a lot emails from higher ups to answer as a result. Each time the hexacopter flies and returns back to the small boat, the battery is changed out as a precaution. Each battery is noted and an initial voltage is taken on the battery before liftoff. The flights we made lasted around10 minutes. As soon as the battery voltage hits a certain low level, the pilot brings the hexacopter back toward the boat to be caught. My job as the note taker was to watch the battery voltage as the hexacopter comes back to the small boat and record the lowest voltage to keep track of battery performance.

The UAS has two parts, one for each scientist – the pilot (who directs the hexacopter over the animals), and a ground station operator. This person watches a computer-like screen from the boat that has two parts – a dashboard with information like altitude, time spent in flight, battery voltage, distance, and GPS coverage. The bottom portion of the ground station shows a monitor that is linked to the camera on the hexacopter in real time.

The pilot has remote control of the hexacopter and the camera, and the ground station operator is responsible for telling the pilot when to snap a photo (only she can see from the monitor when the animals are in view), watching the battery voltage, and the hand launching and landing of the drone. As the hexacopter is in flight, it is the coxswain’s and my responsibility to watch for obstacles like other boats, animals, or other obstructions that might interfere with the work or our safety.

To start a flight, the hexacopter is hooked up to a battery and the camera settings (things like shutter speed, ISO, and F-stop for the photographers out there) are selected.

The ground station operator stands up while holding the hexacopter over her head. The pilot then begins the takeoff procedures. Once the drone is ready to fly, the ground station operator lets go of the drone and begins monitoring the ground station. One important criterion that must be met is that the animals must never come within 75 overhead feet of the drone. This is so that the drone doesn’t interfere with the animals or cause them to change their behavior. Just imagine how difficult it is to find an animal in a camera frame being held by a drone and flown by someone else while looking on a monitor to take a photo from a minimum of 75 feet from sea level! But Amanda and Kym accomplished this task multiple times during the course of our flights, and got some great snapshots to show for it.

On the first day of UAS testing, we took two trips out – one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. On our morning trip, Kym and Amanda took 5 practice flights, launching and catching the hexacopter and changing between piloting and ground station monitoring. In the afternoon, we were just getting ready to pack up and head back to the ship when out of the corner of my eye I saw a series of splashes at the ocean surface. Team. I had a sighting of spinner dolphins! I barely stuttered out the words, “Oh my God, guys! There are dolphin friends right over there!!!!” (Side note: this is probably not how you announce a sighting in a professional marine mammal observer scenario, but I was just too excited to spit anything else out. I mean, they were Right. There. And right when we needed some mammals to practice on, too!) They were headed right past the boat, and we were in a prime position to capture some photos of them. We launched the hexacopter and had our first trial run of aerial cetacean photography.

On the second day, we had a pilot whale sighting, and the call came over the radio to launch the small boat. Things move really fast on a sighting when there is a small boat launch. One minute I was up on the flying bridge trying to get some snapshots, and the next I was grabbing my camera and my hard hat and making a speedy break for the boat launch. We spent a good portion of the morning working the pilot whale group, taking photos of the whales using the hexacopter system. We were lucky in that these whales were very cooperative with us. Many species of whales are not good candidates for hexacopter operations because they tend to be skittish and will move away from the noise of a small boat (or a large one for that matter). These little fellas seemed to be willing participants, as if they knew what we were trying to accomplish would be good for them as a species. They put on quite a show of logging (just hanging out at the surface), spyhopping, and swimming in tight subgroups for us to get some pretty incredible overhead photographs. I also had the chance to take some great snapshots of dorsal fins up close, as well.

These side-long photos of dorsal fins help the scientific team to identify individuals. There were times when the whales were less than twenty yards from the boat, not because we went to them, but because they were interested in us. Or they were interested in swimming in our general direction because they were following a delicious fish, and I’d be happy with either, but I’d like to think they wanted to know what exactly we were up to.

While photographing the whales a couple of interesting “other” things happened. I had a brief reminder that I was definitely not at the top of the food chain when Mills pointed out the presence of two whitetip sharks skimming beneath the surface of the water. Apparently these sharks know that pilot whales can find delicious fish and sort of hang out around pilot whale groups hoping to capitalize. I wondered if this was maybe my spirit animal as I am following a group of scientists and capitalizing on their great adventures in the Pacific Ocean, as well.

Another “other” thing that happened was some impromptu outreach. While working on the small boat, other boats approached the whales hoping to get some up close snapshots and hang out with them for a bit, as well. Two were commercial operations that appeared to be taking tour groups either snorkeling or whale watching, and one was just a boat of vacationers out enjoying the day. The scientific team took the opportunity to approach these boats, introduce us, and explain what we were doing over the whale groups. They also took the opportunity to answer questions and mention the HICEAS 2017 mission to spread the word about our study. It was a unique opportunity in that fieldwork, apart from internet connections, is done in relative isolation in this particular setting. Real-time outreach is difficult to accomplish in a face-to-face environment. In this case, the team made friendly contacts with approximately 45 people right out on the water. Congenial smiles and waves were passed between the passengers on the boats and the scientific team, and I even saw a few cell phones taking pictures of us. Imagine the potential impact of one school-aged child seeing us working with the whales on the small boats and thinking, “I want to do that for a career someday.” What a cool thing to be a part of.

Personal Log

Over the last couple of days, the ship was near the coast of the Big Island, Hawai’i. One morning, we approached on the Hilo side, which is where Mauna Loa is spewing forth her new basaltic earth. It treks down the side of the volcano, red-hot and caustic, only to be tempered immediately as soon as it strikes the anesthetic waters of the Pacific. Having never seen real lava before, I was hoping to capitalize on the big eyes and catch a glimpse of it as it splashed into the ocean’s cool recesses, forming solid rock and real estate on the side of the mountain. Unfortunately, I failed to account for the laws of thermodynamics – forgetting that hot things make water evaporate and re-condense into steam. I suppose I was just romanticizing the idea that I could possibly see this phenomenon from an angle that not many get to see it from – miles out on the Pacific Ocean. And the truth is, I did, just not in the way I had imagined. I did get to see large plumes of steam extending up from the shoreline as the lava met its inevitable demise. While I didn’t get to see actual real lava, there was definitely hard evidence that it was there, hidden underneath the plumes of white-hot condensation. I took a few photos that turned out horribly, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that I almost sort of saw lava. (I know, I know. Cool story, bro.) If you can’t believe that fish tale, surely you won’t believe what I’m about to tell you next – I didn’t see the lava – but I heard it.

Starting in the wee hours of the morning, the acoustics team deployed the array only to find an unidentified noise – a loud, sharp, almost cracking or popping noise. They tried to localize the noise only to find out that it was coming from the shores of the big island. Sure enough, when they figured it out, the acoustics lab was a popular place to be wearing headphones. The snapping and cracking they were hearing was the lava cooling and cracking just beneath the ocean surface on the lava bench. So, I didn’t see the lava, but I heard it solidifying and contracting on the acoustics system. How cool is that?

Ship Quiz:

Why do the head stalls (AKA bathroom stalls) lock on both sides of the door?

So that you can lock your friends in the bathroom as a mean prank
Extra protection from pirates
To give yourself one extra step to complete to get to the toilet when you really gotta go
To keep the doors from slamming with the natural movement of the ship

If you said “D”, you are correct! The bathrooms lock on both sides because if left to their own devices, they would swing and bang open and shut with the constant motions of the ship. So, when you use the bathroom, you have to lock it back when you finish. Now you know!

July 13, 2017January 19, 2024

Staci DeSchryver: Listening with Your Eyes – How the Acoustics Team “Sees” in Sound, July 10, 2017

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Staci DeSchryver

Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette

July 6 – August 2, 2017

Mission: HICEAS Cetacean Study

Geographic Area: Kona Coast, Hawaii

Date: July 10, 2017

Weather Data from the Bridge:

TAS DeScrhryver_weather data — Location and Weather Data

Science Log

While the visual team is working hard on the flying bridge, scanning the waters for our elusive cetacean friends, acoustics is down in the lab listening for any clues that there might be “something” out there.

TAS DeSchryver array — The hydrophone array is a long microphone pulled behind the ship

At any given time, two acousticians are listening to the sounds of the ocean via a hydrophone array. This array is a long microphone pulled behind the ship as she cuts through the water. When the acousticians hear a click or a whistle, a special computer program localizes (or determines the distance to) the whistle or the click.

But it’s not quite as simple as that. There’s a lot of noise in the ocean. The array will pick up other ship noise, cavitation (or bubbles from the propeller) on our ship, or anything it “thinks” might be a cetacean. The acoustics team must determine which sounds are noise and which sounds belong to a mammal. What the acousticians are looking for is something called a “click train.” These are sound produced by dolphins when they are foraging or socializing and are a good indicator of a nearby cetacean. On the computer screen, any ambient noise shows up as a plotted point on an on-screen graph. When the plotted points show up in a fixed or predictable pattern, then it could be a nearby cetacean.

The acousticians are also listening to the sounds on headphones. When they hear a whistle or a click, they can find the sound they’ve heard on the plotted graph. On the graphical representation of the sounds coming in to the hydrophone, the x-axis of the graph is time, and the y-axis is a “bearing” angle. It will tell which angle off the ship from the front the noise is coming from. For example, if the animal is right in front of the bow of the ship, the reading would be 0 degrees. If it were directly behind the ship, then the plotted point would come in at 180 degrees. With these two pieces of information, acousticians can narrow the location of the animal in question down to two spots on either side of the ship. When they think they have a significant sound, the acousticians will use the information from the graph to localize the sound and plot it on a map. Often times they can identify the sound directly to the species, which is an extraordinary skill.

Here’s where things go a little “Fight Club.” (First rule of fight club? Don’t talk about fight club.) Once the acousticians localize an animal, they must determine if it is ahead of the ship or behind it. Let’s say for example an acoustician hears a Pilot Whale. He or she will draw a line on a computerized map to determine the distance the whale is to the ship using the data from the graph.

DeSchryver HICEAS-AC20 — This is a “clean” localization of a marine mammal. Notice the two spots where the lines cross – those are the two possible locations of the mammal we are tracking. The ship is the red dot, the blue dots are the hydrophone as it is towed behind the ship.

Because the hydrophones are in a line, the location provided from the array shows on the left and the right sides. So, the map plots both of those potential spots. The two straight lines from the ship to the animal make a “V” shape. As the ship passes the animal, the angle of the V opens up until it becomes a straight line, much like opening a book to lay it flat on the table and viewing how the pages change from the side. As long as the animal or animal group is ahead of the ship, the acousticians will alert no one except the lead scientist, and especially not the marine observers. If a crew member or another scientist who is not observing mammals just so happens to be in the acoustics lab when the localization happens, we are sworn to secrecy, as well. Sometimes an acoustician will send a runner to get the lead scientist to discreetly tell her that there is something out there.

TAS DeSchryver HICEAS-AC25 — The screenshot on the left shows a series of spotted dolphin “click trains.” Notice the marks all in a line along the graph. The right photo shows the various localizations that the acoustics team has picked up from the click train graph. The red dot is the ship, the gray line is the “track line”, and the two blue dots behind the ship are the hydrophone arrays. Notice the V shape gradually goes to a straight line and then turns in the opposite direction.

This way, the lead scientist can begin the planning stages for a chase on the mammals to do a biopsy, or send the UAS out to get photos with the Hexacopter. (More on this later.)

As the mammals “pass the beam” (the signal is perfectly on either side of the ship, and starting to make an upside down V from the ship), the acousticians can alert the visual team of the sighting. As soon as everyone is aware the mammals are out there, either by sight or sound, the whole scientific group goes “off effort,” meaning we funnel our energy in to counting and sighting the mammals we have found. When this happens, communication is “open” between the acoustics team and the visual team. The visual team can direct the bridge to head in any direction, and as long as it’s safe to do so, the bridge will aid in the pursuit of the mammals to put us in the best position to get close enough to hopefully identify the species. Today, one mammal observer had a sighting almost 6 miles away from the ship, and she could identify the species from that distance, as well! Even cooler is that it was a beaked whale, which is an elusive whale that isn’t often sighted. They have the capability of diving to 1000m to forage for food!

When the visual team has a sighting, the three visual observers who are on shift have the responsibility to estimate the group size.

TAS DeSchryver chris takes photos — Chris captures photos of Melon Headed Whales for Photo ID.

Here we go with Fight Club again – no one can talk to one another about the group sizes. Each mammal observer keeps their totals to themselves. This is so that no one can sway any other person’s opinion on group size and adds an extra element of control to the study. It is off limits to talk about group sizes among one another even after the sighting is over. We must always be vigilant of not reviewing counts with one another, even after the day is done. The scientific team really holds solid to this protocol.

Once the sighting is over, all parties resume “on effort” sightings, and the whole process starts all over again.

Now, you might be thinking, “Why don’t they just wait until acoustics has an animal localized before sending the mammal team up to look for it?

TAS DeSchryver ernesto big eyes — Ernesto on the “Big Eyes” during a Melon Headed Whale Visual Chase

Surely if acoustics isn’t hearing anything, then there must not be anything out there.” As I am writing this post, the visual team is closing in on a spotted dolphin sighting about 6.5 miles away. The acoustics did not pick up any vocalizations from this group.

TAS DeSchryver acoustics lab 2 — Shannon and Jen in the acoustics lab “seeing” the sounds of the ocean.

This also happened this morning with the beaked whale. Both teams really do need one another in this process of documenting cetaceans. Further, the acoustics team in some cases can’t determine group sizes from the vocals alone. They need the visual team to do that. Each group relies on and complements one another with their own talents and abilities to conduct a completely comprehensive search. When adding in the hexacopter drone to do aerial photography, we now have three components working in tandem – a group that uses their eyes to see the surface, a group that uses the ocean to “see” the sounds, and a group that uses the air to capture identifying photographs. It truly is an interconnected effort.

Personal Log

I haven’t gotten the chance to discuss just how beautiful Hawai’i is. I would think that it is generally understood that Hawai’i is beautiful – it’s a famed tourist destination in an exotic corner of the Pacific Ocean. But you have to see it to believe it.

TAS DeSchryver melon-headed whales — Melon-Headed Whales take an evening ride alongside the starboard side of Sette.

I’ve been lucky enough to see the islands from a unique perspective as an observer from the outside looking inland, and I just can’t let the beauty of this place pass without mention and homage to its stunning features.

Hawai’i truly is her own artist. Her geologic features create the rain that builds her famed rainbows, which in turn gives her the full color palate she uses to create her own landscape. The ocean surrounding the shores of Hawai’i are not just blue – they are cerulean with notes of turquoise, royal, and sage. She will not forget to add her contrasting crimson and scarlet in the hibiscus and bromeliads that dot the landscape. At night when the moon shines on the waters, the ocean turns to gunmetal and ink, with wide swaths of brass and silver tracing the way back up to the moon that lights our path to the sea. With time, all of her colors come out to dance along the landscape – including the sharp titanium white foam that crashes against the black cliffs along Kona. And if a hue is errantly missed in her construction of the landscape, early morning showers sprout wide rainbows as a sign of good fortune, and as a reminder that she forgets no tones of color as she creates.

It is our responsibility to protect these waters, this landscape – this perfect artistry. It is critically important to protect the animals that live in the ocean’s depths and the ones that cling to the island surface in their own corner of paradise. I like to think that this study takes on this exact work. By giving each of these species a name and identifying them to each individual group, we share with the world that these cetaceans are a family of their own with a habitat and a purpose. When we “re-sight” whales that the team has seen in past studies, we further solidify that those animals have families and a home amongst themselves. The photo identification team counts every new scar, marking, and change in these animals to piece together the story of their lives since they last met with the scientists. Everyone on Oscar Elton Sette talks about the new calves as if we were at the hospital with them on the day of their birth, celebrating the new life they’ve brought forth to continue their generations. I like to think we all make a little room in the corner of our hearts for them as a part of our family, as well.

Did you know?

The Frigate bird has a Hawaiian name, “Iwa”, which means “thief.” They call this bird “thief” because they steal prey right from the mouths of other birds!

“Spyhopping” is the act of a whale poking his head out of the water and bobbing along the surface.

It is legal for research ships to fish off the ship, so long as we eat what we catch while underway. This led to the shared consumption of some delicious mahi mahi, fresh from the depths for lunch today. Yes. It was as good as it sounds.

Oscar Elton Sette knows how to celebrate! Yesterday was Adam’s birthday, a marine mammal observer. They decorated the mess in birthday theme, cranked up the dinnertime music, and the stewards made Adam his favorite – blueberry cheesecake for dessert!

Much of the crew likes to pitch in with food preparation. The on ship doctor, “Doc”, makes authentic eastern dishes, and the crew made barbeque for everyone a few nights ago at dinner.

March 27, 2014August 20, 2021

Suzanne Acord: Teamwork Is a Must While at Sea, March 25, 2014

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Suzanne Acord
Aboard NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette
March 17 – 28, 2014

Mission: Kona Area Integrated Ecosystems Assessment Project
Geographical area of cruise: Hawaiian Islands
Date: March 25, 2014

Weather Data from the Bridge at 14:00
Wind: 7 knots
Visibility: 10 nautical miles
Weather: Hazy
Depth in fathoms: 577
Depth in feet: 3,462
Temperature: 27.0˚ Celsius

Science and Technology Log

Teamwork

The Bridge communicates with the HARP team to determine the drop location.

The Bridge officers teach me how to communicate with the HARP team to determine the drop location.

At the helm with the help of the Bridge officers.

Kona cruise map — 2014 Kona IEA Cruise Map. Locate H1 and H2 to determine where our HARPs are retrieved and deployed.

Throughout the past week, it has become obvious that all operations aboard the Sette require team work. Scientific projects and deployments require the assistance of the Bridge, engineers, and heavy equipment operators. This was clear during our recent deployment of our HARP or High-frequency Acoustic Recording Package (see my earlier posts to learn why we use the HARP). Marine Mammal Operations lead, Ali Bayless, leads our morning HARP retrieval and deployment operations. We first prepare to retrieve a HARP that has completed its duty on the floor of the ocean. At least a dozen scientists and crew members attempt to locate it using binoculars. It is spotted soon after it is triggered by our team. Crew members head to the port side of the ship once the HARP at station H2 surfaces. H2 is very close to the Kona Coast. A fresh HARP is deployed from the stern of the ship later in the morning. Both the retrieval and deployment of the HARPs take immaculate positioning skills at the Bridge. Hence, the Bridge and the HARP crew communicate non-stop through radios. The coordinates of the drop are recorded so the new HARP can be retrieved in a year.

Contacting the HARP to bring it to the surface.

Retrieving the HARP on the port side of the ship.

Preparing to deploy the HARP for station H2 on the stern of the ship.

A Conversation with Commanding Officer (CO) Koes

Morale is high and teamwork is strong aboard the Sette. These characteristics are often attributed to excellent leadership. CO Koes’ presence is positive and supportive. CO Koes has served with NOAA for the past thirteen years. She came aboard the Sette January 4, 2013. She is now back in her home state of Hawaii after serving with NOAA in California and Oregon. She is a graduate of Kalani High School in Hawaii and earned a BA in chemical engineering at Arizona State University.

As CO of the Sette, Koes believes it is important to create trust amongst crew members and to delegate rather than to dictate. She provides support and guidance to her crew twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She is the CO of all ship operations such as navigation, science operations, deck activities, trawling, and engineering. She is highly visible on board and is genuinely interested in the well-being of her crew and ship. She does not hesitate to start a conversation or pep talk in the mess or on the deck. When asked what she enjoys most about her job, she states that she “likes to see the lights go on in the eyes of junior officers when they learn something new.” Koes goes on to state that her goal as CO is to have fun and make a difference in the lives of her officers and crew.

Personal Log

Ship Life

Bunkmate and scientist, Beth Lumsden, and I during an abandon ship drill on the Texas deck.

I have found that one can acclimate to life aboard a ship quite quickly if willing to laugh at oneself. The first couple of days on board the Sette were fun, but shaky. We had some rough weather on our way to the Kona Coast from Oahu. I truly felt like I was being rocked to sleep at night. Showering, walking, and standing during the rocking were a challenge and surely gave me stronger legs. Regardless of the weather, we must be sure to completely close all doors. We even lock the bathroom stall doors from the outside so they don’t fly open. The conditions quickly improved once we hit the Kona Coast, but conditions change frequently depending on our location. When up in the flying bridge for Marine Mammal Observation, we can easily observe the change in the wave and wind patterns. It is difficult to spot our dolphins and whales once the water is choppy. It is these changes in the weather and the sea that help me understand the complexity of our oceans.

Meal time on board is tasty and social. Everyone knows when lunchtime is approaching and you are sure to see smiles in the mess. All meals are served buffet style so we are able to choose exactly what we want to eat. We can go back to the buffet line numerous times, but most folks pile their plates pretty high during their first trip through the line. After our meals, we empty our scraps into the slop bucket and then rinse our dishes off in the sink. This gives us the chance to compliment our stewards on the great food. If we would like, we can eat our meals in the TV room, which is next door to the mess. It has a TV, couches, a few computers, a soda machine, and a freezer filled with ice-cream.

Chain of command is important when performing our science operations, when net fishing, when in the engineering room, and even when entering the Bridge. Essentially, if someone tells me to put on a hard hat, I do it with no questions asked. Everyone on board must wear closed toed shoes unless they are in their living quarters. Ear plugs are required on the engineering floor. Safety is key on the decks, in our rooms, in the halls, and especially during operations. I have never felt so safe and well fed!

“Doc” Tran

Did you know that we have a doctor on board who is on call 24/7? The Sette is fortunate to have “Doc” Tran on board. He is a commander with the United States Public Health Service. Doc Tran has served on the Sette for four years. He is our doctor, our cheerleader, our store manager, and our coach! When not on duty, he can be seen riding an exercise bike on the deck or making healthy smoothies for anyone willing to partake. He also operates the ship store, which sells shirts, treats, hats, and toiletries at very reasonable prices. He truly enjoys his service on the Sette. He loves to travel, enjoys working with diverse groups of people, and appreciates our oceans. He is a perfect match for the Sette and is well respected by the crew.