plankton sampling – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

September 4, 2024September 12, 2024

Lisa Werner: MultiNet Research, September 2, 2024

NOAA Teacher at Sea

Lisa Werner

Aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada

August 29-September 13, 2024

Mission: EXPRESS Project

Geographic Area of Cruise: Pacific Coast, near Northern California

Date: September 2, 2024

Weather Data from the Bridge (Humboldt Canyon)

Latitude: 41.6º N

Longitude: 124.8º W

Wind Speed: S at 4.59 knots

Air Temperature: 15.1º C (59.18º F)

Conditions: Mostly Sunny

Science and Technology Log

One of the other interesting components of the EXPRESS Project is the use of MultiNets to study plankton in the mid layers of the water column. MultiNets are exactly what they sound like – a collection of nets that are lowered into the water to grab a sampling of plankton from the area. There are different ways of using MultiNets. Sometimes they are used horizontally, where they are dragged through the water to grab samples. For our mission, however, they are being deployed vertically.

view down the ship's railing as the multi-net - two long plankton nets side by side, where the left net ends in multiple attached cannisters - is being lowered into the water by cables attached to a winch. crewmembers wearing hard hats and life vests stand on board watching and guiding the deployment. The sky is overcast and the seas are calm and gray. — *MultiNet being lowered into the water with the ship’s winch*

There are 5 nets that are each attached to a red canister. The net bags are all closed prior to deployment in the water, so that water flows freely through the frame. Upon the net frame being lowered to the deepest desired depth of study, the first net is opened to collect the water at that depth. As that canister is closed, the next one is opened at the new depth. This goes on as the MultiNet is pulled upwards until all 5 canisters have collected samples at the varying depths being studied. The MultiNet that is being used for this project also has a side net. The side net is used for capturing everything in the water column all the way up from 1000 meters upwards.

One of my favorite parts of the day is what I call “Show and Tell with Jenn,” where Jennifer Questel, the scientist deploying the MultiNet, goes through everything found in the collection from the side net. She pours small portions of the samples from the side net at a time into a glass dish to sift through and pull out the organisms of interest for separate preservation to study in a lab later.

a woman in an orange jacket leans over a metal workbench in the wet lab. immediately in front of her is a glass pie dish containing water. resting her left elbow on the table, she looks down at the pie dish and reaches with what is likely a pair of tweezers or foreceps in her right hand. around her on the table, we see other sample jars, bottles, syringes. — *Jennifer, sifting through the samples from the day’s collection*

close-up view of a clear glass or plastic jar with a white screwtop lid, held up for the photo by two hands. The jar contains water with greenish-yellow clumps of plankton. Behind the jar, out of focus, are rows of colored hard hats hanging on the wall. — *The jar of collected samples from the side net*

The very first time she did this, I was so excited to see a few jellyfish and a lantern fish. I thought that was all that was caught. When Jenn went through the samples, however, she pulled out these incredible clear living organisms that I hadn’t even noticed floating in the sample water.

top-down view of a glass tray of sample wells resting on a metal tabletop. in the top center well is a clear round organism that looks a bit like a peeled grape (perhaps a comb jelly). in the well beneath that is some sort of long, skinny larval fish, looking like a soft clear tube. — *Examples of what Jenn found in her samples*

I even got to hold a salp, which looks really squishy and slimy, but does not feel that way – it definitely has its own structure!

very close-up view of a hand holding a salp for the camera. The salp, clear and gelatinous, is as long as the width of the finger on which it rests. Two tiny antennae extend from one end, toward the ring finger. — *Holding a salp!*

Personal Log

Captain Laura Gibson arranged for me to get a tour of the engine room. Although there is plenty of science in the ship’s day-to-day operations, too, I’m going to use the “Personal Log” section of my blog to discuss ship specifics, particularly since I’ve gotten so many questions about life on NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada.

There are many systems that keep the ship operating. Obviously there is the engine that keeps the ship running, but there is so much that many people wouldn’t think of. For example, did you know that the water is put through a reverse osmosis system so that it is drinkable? I know we have a system like this in my basement for my house, but it is nothing compared to this system!

view of the reverse osmosis system; we can see tubes connecting different parts of a machine. a clipboard with printed protocols hangs in the middle of the photo. — *Reverse Osmosis System for the ship*

There is a very important system on the ship that handles all of the waste from the toilets. It is a very sensitive system and it was reiterated many times that you CANNOT flush anything other than toilet paper down the pipes, or you will be very unpopular amongst the ship engineers! In fact, we learned that most ‘flushable wipes’ that you find are not flushable in any marine system. I imagine this is a system many of you would not have thought about, but it is a system that you definitely want to be working smoothly!

view of an old control board, with four monitors, rows of switches, buttons, and colored lights. a spiral logbook with a pen rest on top of the control board, to the left. mounted above are two more modern computer screens; the larger one shows four simultaneous camera views of locations around the ship. — *Engine room control board*

The Chief Marine Engineer Rob Dillon has a digital system in which he can watch all aspects of NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada in action at any given moment. He is retiring in a month, and it was fun to hear his stories of working on steam ships first, then diesel, and also watching the transition to the digital displays. He has been all over the world, including making deliveries to the USSR before the end of the Cold War. I could have listened to his stories all day long!

view of the rudder post, a heavy round metal casing mounted on the ship's floor. the top is painted blue and the underside is painted red, and hoses lead in and out of the casing. on top appear to be gears. — *Rudder Post – I could see the subtle turning as we were standing there!*

The real fun was seeing the rudder control and the ship propeller. It was such a fascinating feeling to imagine what was happening in the water just on the other side of what I was seeing inside the ship!

a man wearing an engineer's work jacket, a baseball cap, and a beard, faces away from the camera to look at something as he squeezes between large orange metal paneling. — *Getting to the ship’s propeller shaft!*

view down the length of the propeller shaft, which looks like a huge black metal pipe extending out of the ship's wall. everything around it painted orange-red. a dirty oilcloth hangs from a line suspended above the shaft. — *The ship’s propeller shaft – the cloth is there because they clean the shaft often to keep it running smoothly*

Music Connection

Today’s music connection comes courtesy of Ensign Megan Sixt. I was visiting the bridge, and asking questions about the structure of the NOAA Corps (the uniformed service men and women who run the ship operations) and the science teams. Megan beautifully explained that the ship runs like a symphony orchestra – every person has their role, and each role is important. She talked about how there are certain roles on the ship that would be very difficult for her to do, and she is grateful for the people who do them so well on NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada.

It is a very inspiring experience to watch the NOAA Corps and the science team collaborate. Both parties highly respect what the other is doing, and you can see that in every interaction. Everyone on the ship wants the mission to be successful and they all understand their individual role in making it happen. Just like in an orchestra where a trombonist would not be covering an oboist’s part, the people on NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada know their role and do not try to tell other people what to do in their roles. It is so refreshing to be in a place where everyone appreciates and supports each other fully. The trust in each other and respect for each person is very high here, and it is a great lesson for the students I teach to hear about. There is rarely a collaboration that does not end in thanking the other person for their help, insight, or critique. The bigger picture – whether it is a scientific mission, or a symphony orchestra performance, is the ultimate goal that everyone focuses on.

Also, I want to share another audio clip with you all – this is what a group of albatross sound like. You can hear Popoki, as well, as we are recovering her from her dive.

This audio clip contains the sounds of the albatross

Student Questions

Part of the homework I had to do for the students I work with was to find out about squid in the area I am working. They will be excited to know that I saw one off the side of the ship tonight! I couldn’t get a picture of it, as the lighting was not great for an iphone photo. However, there also happens to be a squid in the lab for the freezer.

view of a single market squid, perhaps a foot long, on a refrigerator shelf. — *Pretty sure this guy wants to say hi to St. Bruno Wildcats!*

The samples from the MultiNet have also included some tiny squid.

top-down view of a glass tray of sample wells resting on a metal tabletop. this photo focuses on a sample well containing a larval squid, which is notable smaller than the adjacent salp, though round eyes and tiny tentacles are visible. — *Jenn says this is paralarvae, probably from a squid, found in the side net collection*

April 1, 2015August 21, 2021

Julia West: This Is What Drives Us, April 1, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Julia West
Aboard NOAA ship Gordon Gunter
March 17 – April 2, 2015

Mission: Winter Plankton Survey
Geographic area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: April 1, 2015

Weather Data from the Bridge

Date: 3/31/2015; Time 2000; clouds 25%, cumulus and cirrus; Wind 205° (SSW), 15 knots; waves 1-2 ft; swells 1-2 ft; sea temp 23°C; air temp 23°C

Science and Technology Log

You’re not going to believe what we caught in our neuston net yesterday – a giant squid! We were able to get it on board and it was 23 feet long! Here’s a picture from after we released it:

April Fools! (sorry, couldn’t resist) The biggest squid we’ve caught are about a half inch long. Image from http://www.factzoo.com/.

Let’s talk about something just as exciting – navigation. I visit the bridge often and find it all very interesting, so I got a 30 minute crash course on navigation. We joked that with 30 minutes of training, yes, we would be crashing!

From the bridge, you can see a long way in any direction. The visible range of a human eye in good conditions is 10 miles. Because the earth is curved, we can’t see that far. There is a cool little formula to figure out how far you can see. You take the square root of your “height of eye” above sea level, and multiply that by 1.17. That gives you the nautical miles that you can see.

So the bridge is 36 feet up. “Really?” I asked Dave. He said, “Here, I’ll show you,” and took out a tape measure.

Dave measuring height — ENS Dave Wang measuring the height of the bridge above sea level.

OK, 36 feet it is, to the rail. Add a couple of feet to get to eye level. 38 feet. Square root of 38 x 1.17, and there we have it: 7.2 nautical miles. That is 8.3 statute miles (the “mile” we are used to using). That’s assuming you are looking at something right at sea level – say, a giant squid at the surface. If something is sticking up from sea level, like a boat, that changes everything. And believe me, there are tables and charts to figure all that out. Last night the bridge watch saw a ship’s light that was 26 miles away! The light on our ship is at 76 feet, so they might have been able to see us as well.

Challenge Yourself

If you can see 7.2 nautical miles in any direction, what is the total area of the field of view? It’s a really amazing number!

Back to navigation

Below are some photos of the navigation charts. They can be zoomed in or out, and the officers use the computer to chart the course. You can see us on the chart – the little green boat.

In the chart above, you’ll see that we seem to be off course. Why? Most likely because of that other ship that is headed our direction. We talk to them over the radio to get their intentions, and reroute our course accordingly.

navigation chart 2 — Notice the left side, where it says “dump site (discontinued) organochlorine waste. There are a lot of these type dump sites in the Gulf. Just part of the huge impact humans have had on our oceans.

When we get close to a station, as in the first picture above, the bridge watch team sets up a circle with a one mile radius around the location of the station. See the circle, upper center? We need to stay within that circle the whole time we are collecting our samples. With the bongos and the neuston net, the ship is moving slowly, and with the CTD the ship tries maintain a stationary position. However, wind and current can affect the position. These factors are taken into account before we start the station. The officer on the bridge plans out where to start so that we stay within the circle, and our gear that is deployed doesn’t get pushed into or under the boat. It’s really a matter of lining up vectors to figure it all out – math and physics at work. But what is physics but an extension of common sense? Here’s a close-up:

setting up for station — Here is the setup for the station. The plan is that we will be moving south, probably into the wind, during the sampling. See the north-south line?

How do those other ships appear on the chart? This is through input from the AIS (Automated Information System), through which we can know all about other ships. It broadcasts their information over VHF radio waves. We know their name, purpose, size, direction, speed, etc. Using this and the radar system, we can plan which heading to take to give the one-mile distance that is required according to ship rules.

As a backup to the computer navigation system, every half hour, our coordinates are written on the (real paper) navigation chart, by hand.

Pete charting our course — ENS Pete Gleichauf is writing our coordinates on the paper navigation chart.

There are drawers full of charts for everywhere the Gunter travels!

Melissa and the nav charts — ENS Melissa Mathes showing me where all the navigation charts are kept. Remember, these are just backups!

Below is our radar screen. There are 3 other ships on the screen right now. The radar computer tells us the other vessels’ bearing and speed, and how close they will get to us if we both maintain our course and speed.

If the radar goes down, the officers know how to plot all this on paper.

On this maneuvering board, officers are trained to plot relative positions just like the radar computer does.

Below is Dave showing me the rudder controls. The rudder is set to correct course automatically. It has a weather adjustment knob on it. If the weather is rough (wind, waves, current), the knob can allow for more rudder correction to stay on course. So when do they touch the wheel? To make big adjustments when at station, or doing course changes.

These are the propulsion control throttles – one for each propeller. They control the propeller speed (in other words, the ship’s speed).

propeller speed throttles — Here are the throttles that control the engine power, which translates to propeller speed.

bow thruster control — This controls the bow thruster, which is never used except in really tight situations, such as in port. It moves the bow either direction.

And below is the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS). It prints out any nautical distress signal that is happening anywhere in the world!

And then, of course, there is a regular computer, which is usually showing the ships stats, and is connected to the network of computers throughout the ship.

ENS Kristin Johns checking the weather system coming our way.

In my post of March 17, I described the gyrocompass. That is what we use to determine direction, and here is a rather non-exciting picture of this very important tool.

As you can see, we have two gyrocompasses, but since knowing our heading is probably the most important thing on the ship, there are backup plans in place. With every watch (every 4 hours), the gyro compass is aligned the magnetic compass to determine our declination from true north. Also, once per trip, the “gyro error” is calculated, using this nifty device:

The reading off of the alidade, combined with the exact time, coordinates, and some fancy math, will determine the gyro error. (Click on a picture to see full captions and full size pictures.)

The math for calculating gyro error isn’t hard; it just takes many steps and careful following of instructions!

Numbers need to be taken from charts in these books…

Knowing how to read charts and tables is important!

You can see that we have manual backups for everything having to do with navigation. We won’t get lost, and we’ll always know where we are!

driving the ship — Here I am, “driving” the ship! Watch out! Photo by ENS Pete Gleichauf

Back to Plankton!

These past two days, we have been in transit, so no sampling has been done. But here are a couple more cool micrographs of plankton that Pam shared with me.

invertebrate plankton — This picture shows several invertebrates, along with fish eggs. Madalyn and Andy, who are invertebrate people, got excited at this collection. The fat one, top left is a Doliolid. The U-shaped one is a Lucifer shrimp, the long one in center is an amphipod, at the bottom is a mycid, etc. There are crabs in different stages of development, and the multiple little cylinders are copepods! You can also see the baby fish inside the eggs. Photo credit Pamela Bond/NOAA

red snapper larvae — These are larval red snapper, a fall spawning fish species of economic interest. Notice the scale! You have to admit baby fish are awfully cute. Photo credit: Pamela Bond/NOAA

Interesting Fish Facts

Our main fish of interest in the winter plankton sampling are the groupers. There are two main species: gag groupers and red groupers. You can learn all about them on the NOAA FishWatch Website. Groupers grow slowly and live a long time. Interestingly, some change from female to male after about seven years – they are protogynous hermaphrodites.

In the spring plankton research cruise, which goes out for all of May, the main species of interest is the Atlantic bluefin tuna. This species can reach 13 feet long and 2000 lbs, and females produce 10 million eggs a year!

school of bluefin tuna — School of Atlantic bluefin tuna. Photo credit: NOAA

The fall plankton research focuses on red snapper. These grow up to about 50 pounds and live a long time. You can see from the map of their habitat that it is right along the continental shelf where the sampling stations are.

The NOAA FishWatch website is a fantastic resource, not only to learn about the biology, but about how they are managed and the history of each fishery. I encourage you to look around. You can see that all three of these fish groups have been overfished, and because of careful management, and research such as what we are doing, the stocks are recovering – still a long way from what they were 50 years ago, but improving.

I had a good question come in: how long before the fish larvae are adults? Well, fish are interesting creatures; they are dependent on the conditions of their environment to grow. Unlike us, fish will grow throughout their life! Have you ever kept goldfish in an aquarium or goldfish bowl? They only grow an inch or two long, right? If you put them in an outdoor pond, you’ll see that they will grow much larger, about six inches! It all depends on the environment (combined with genetics).

“Adult” generally means that they are old enough to reproduce. That will vary by species, but with groupers, it is around 4 years. They spawn in the winter, and will remain larvae for much longer than other fish, because of the cooler water.

Personal Log

I’ve used up my space in this post, and didn’t even get to tell you about our scientists! I will save that for next time. For now, I want to share just a few more pictures of the ship. (Again, click on one to get a slide show.)

This is the bridge deck – inside those windows are where most of the pictures on this post were taken. The flying bridge is above.

This is looking forward (and very far down) from the flying bridge toward the bow.

This is the Gunter, looking aft from the flying bridge

My favorite part of the ship – the flying bridge. It’s the highest and a wonderful place for an afternoon nap or to read a book.

We have a small gym on board with an elliptical, treadmill, bike, free weights, a rowing machine, and other goodies. I use it often – I like to do the hill climb on the treadmill or ride the bike.

This is the lounge where people sometimes watch movies

Terms to Learn

What is the difference between a nautical mile and a statute mile? How about a knot?

Do you know what I mean when I say “invertebrate?” It is an animal without a backbone. Shrimp and crabs, are invertebrates; we are vertebrates!

March 25, 2015August 21, 2021

Julia West: Neuston! March 25, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Julia West
Aboard NOAA ship Gordon Gunter
March 17 – April 2, 2015

Mission: Winter Plankton Survey
Geographic area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: March 25, 2015

Weather Data from the Bridge

Time 0900; mostly sunny, clouds 25% altocumulus; wind 5 knots, 120° (ESE); air 21°C, water 21°C, wave height 1-2 ft.

Science and Technology Log

We continue to zigzag westward on our wild plankton hunt. When we are closer to shore, navigation is tricky, because we are constantly dodging oil platforms, so we can never quite do the straight lines that are drawn on the chart.

Plankton stations 3/25/15 — Here’s what we have covered through this morning. We’re making good time!

One of our Oak Meadow math teachers, Jacquelyn O’Donohoe, was wondering about math applications in the work that we are doing. The list is long! But don’t let that deter you from science – no need to fear the math! In fact, Commanding Officer Donn Pratt told me that he was never good at math, but when it came to navigating a ship, it all became more visual and much more understandable. I think it’s cool to see math and physics being applied. So, just for fun, I’ll point out the many places where math is used here on the ship – it’s in just about every part of the operations.

Today’s topic is neuston. As soon as we get the bongo nets back on board, the cable gets switched over to the neuston net. This net is a huge pipe rectangle, 1 meter x 2 meters, with a large net extending to the cod end to collect the sample. The mesh of this net is 1mm, much larger than the 0.3mm mesh of the bongo nets. So we aren’t getting the tiniest things in the neuston net, but still pretty small stuff! We lower the net to the surface, using the winch, and let it drag there for ten minutes. The goal is to have the net half in the water, so we have a swept area of 0.5 x 2 meters, or 1 square meter. (See, there’s some math for you!) That’s the goal. Sometimes with big waves, none of the net is in the water, and then all of it is, but it averages out.

Deploying neuston net — Here I am helping to deploy the neuston net. Photo credit: Kim Johnson

Then we hose the net off thoroughly to get what is stuck to the net into the cod end.

Neuston net cleaning — Andy is hosing off the neuston net.

As I mentioned before, neuston is the array of living organisms that live on or just below the surface. Some of it is not plankton, as you can also catch larger fish, but mostly, the sample overlaps with the larger plankton that we catch in the bongos. There tends to be more jellyfish in the neuston net, so we sometimes wear gloves. Pam got stung by a man o’ war on the first day while cleaning out the net!

Pam is sorting an interesting neuston sample. See her smile – she clearly loves plankton!

Collecting neuston — Madalyn funneling the neuston into a jar with ethanol

Sometimes we end up with Sargassum in our nets. Sargassum is a type of brown “macroalgae” (seaweed) that grows in large clumps and floats on the surface. Have you ever heard of the Sargasso Sea? It is a massive collection of Sargassum in the Atlantic Ocean, held in place by the North Atlantic Gyre.

Sargassum often collects in our nets. Sometimes we get gallons of Sargassum, and we have to carefully hose the organisms off of it, and throw the weeds back. We get the most interesting variety of life in the Sargassum! It supports entire communities of life that wouldn’t be there without it. If you want to know a little more about Sargassum communities, check out this website.

Here are a few examples of some of the photographable organisms we have collected in the neuston net. I’m working on getting micrographs of the really cool critters that are too small to see well with the naked eye, but they are amazing – stay tuned. All of the fish, except the flying fish, are very young; the adults will be much, much larger. (If you click on one of these, you will see a nice slide show and the full caption.)

Half-beak (Hemiramphidae). The long sword like thing is the lower lip. What could the adaptive value of that possibly be?

Trigger fish (Ballistidae)

Sargassum fish (Histrio histrio)

???? (Let’s call it “Littlush fishus”)

Filefish (Monacanthidae)

Flying Fish! This one was about 8″ long.

Pipefish (Syngnathidae) – in the seahorse family because of their similar long snout

This is either a filefish or a triggerfish.

Baby Portuguese Man o’ war (Physalis physalis)

Aurelia, or moon jelly. These get much larger than this little one, and are usually not seen in winter here.

By-the-wind sailor (Velella velella) – a type of jellyfish. They are so beautiful with their sails! How did they qualify for two such lovely names?

Lastly, here is a really cool neuston sample we got – whale food!

This sample looks like it is almost entirely made up of copepods; this species is a beautiful blue color.

Personal Log

Now let’s turn to the other life form on the ship – the people. There are a total of 26 people on this cruise. Everyone is really great; it’s a community of its own. First, let me introduce the NOAA Corps crew who run the ship.

The NOAA Corps, or NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States (can you name the others?). It seems that many have never heard of the NOAA Corps, so it’s worth telling you a little bit about them. Officers are trained to take leadership positions in the operation of ships and aircraft, conducting research missions such as this one and much, much more! NOAA Corps has all the career benefits of the U.S. military, without active combat. Our officers all have a degree in some kind of science, often marine science or fisheries biology.

The crew members generally keep 4 hour watches, twice a day. I really enjoy going up to the bridge to hang out with them. It’s a whole different world up there, and they have been gracious enough to explain to me (as best as I can understand it) how they navigate the ship. Conceptually, I get it pretty well, but even if I was allowed to, I wouldn’t dare touch one of the buttons and dials they have up there!

Our XO (Executive Officer) on the Gunter is LCDR Colin Little. Colin has been with NOAA for eleven years now, and his previous assignments include Sea Duty aboard Oregon II and Oscar Elton Sette, and shore assignments in Annapolis, MD and Newport, OR. His background is in fish morphology and evolution. His wife and two sons are currently living in Chicago.

ENS Kristin Johns has been on the Gunter for almost a year. She joined NOAA after getting a biology degree at Rutgers. She is currently being trained to be the next Navigation Officer. Kristin is the safety officer, as well as the MPIC (Medical Person in Charge). Kristin is the one who suggested I use the word “thalassophilia” as the word of the day – something she clearly suffers from!

Colin and Kristin — LCDR Colin Little and ENS Kristin Johns

Our Operations Officer (OPS) is LT Marc Weekley. Marc is in charge of organizing the logistics, and coordinating between the scientists and the crew. He’s been with NOAA for ten years (on the Gunter for two years), and has had some interesting land-based as well as offshore posts, including a year at the South Pole Station (yes, Antarctica) doing clean air and ozone monitoring.

ENS Melissa Mathes is newest officer with NOAA, but spent 6 years in the Army Reserves in college, and then 6 years of active duty with the Navy. Melissa loves archery and motorcycles, and she has been rumored to occasionally dance while on watch.

Melissa and Marc — ENA Melissa Mathes and LT Marc Weekley

ENS (which stands for Ensign, by the way) David Wang, originally from New York City, is our Navigation Officer (NAV). He’s been with NOAA for two years. His job, as he puts it, is “getting us where we gotta go, safely.” He is the one who charts our course, or oversees the other Junior Officers as they do it. Dave used to be a commercial fisherman, and when he’s not on duty, those are his fishing lines extending out from the back deck. He’s also an avid cyclist and ultimate Frisbee player.

ENS Peter Gleichauf has been on the Gunter since November, but finished his training over a year ago. He is also an aviator, musician, and avid outdoors person. In fact, for all of the officers, health, fitness, and active lifestyle is a priority. Pete is in charge of environmental compliance on the ship.

Dave and Pete — ENS Dave Wang and ENS Pete Gleichauf

King mackerel — Lead fisherman Jorge Barbosa and a king mackerel caught today on Dave’s line! It took 2 deck crew men to pull it in!

Term of the Day: USS Cole – you can look this one up. Next blog post I will explain what in the world it has to do with a plankton research cruise. I promise it will all make sense!