NOAA Teacher at Sea Avery Marvin (Almost) Onboard NOAA Ship Rainier July 8–25, 2013
Mission: Hydrographic Survey Geographical area of cruise: Shumagin Islands, Alaska Date: July 1, 2013
Greetings from the Oregon Coast! Thank you for visiting my blog, and I hope you continue to follow me this summer throughout my 18-day Alaskan adventure aboard the NOAA ship Rainier. I am elated and honored to be a NOAA Teacher at Sea—an experience that will undoubtedly shape me and my classroom instruction for years to come.
NOAA Ship Rainier
My name is Avery Marvin and I am a middle school General Science and high school Biology teacher at Taft 7-12, a mid-size public MS/HS in Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast. I moved here just one year ago, and have been discovering the unique facets of living and teaching in a coastal community ever since. I continue to be amazed and inspired by the natural surroundings and marine resources (i.e. the NOAA base in Newport, Hatfield Marine Science Center) at my fingertips. Knowing I am New York native, many of my students have quizzically asked me, “Ms. Marvin, why did you move here?” My hope, then, is that through this NOAA experience, I will be further able to inspire and show kids that “here” is a pretty amazing place to be—not just in terms of its natural beauty but its ecological and research significance moreover. With this awareness and education, students hopefully will feel a greater sense of ownership of—and thus appreciate and actively protect—the greatest resource in their very backyard: the ocean.
Avery dives in the chilly waters of Tasmania, Australia
As an avid adventurer and ocean-goer, I have explored many waters both as a conservationist and a recreationist (i.e. scuba diver, fisherwoman). Yet Alaska is a place I have dreamed of visiting for most of my life, and to be able to combine my experience with like-minded scientists conducting vital ocean research is truly awesome to me. The Rainier, homeported at the NOAA Marine Operations Center – Pacific in Newport, Oregon, is a hydrographic surveying ship whose primary focus is mapping the sea floor in coastal areas. The depth data collected on the Rainier is used to update nautical charts. This is crucial work as commercial shippers, passenger vessels and fishing fleets rely on accurate nautical maps to safely traverse various ocean passages. In the case of Rainier’s work in Alaska, some of the terrain is being surveyed for the first time. Rear Adm Gerd Glang, director of Coast Survey, sums it up best, “Simply put, we have better maps of the moon than of our oceans.” Several multi-beam sonar systems located on the Rainier as well as on a few smaller launch boats are employed to acquire this mapping data. This six-minute video gives a good overview of the mission and daily operations of the Rainier.
My 18-day journey begins on July 8, 2013 in Kodiak, Alaska, where I will be meeting up with the Rainier. From Kodiak, we travel southwest to the Shumagin Islands, where the majority of the research on this leg of the trip will be conducted. We will then conclude our journey back in the Kodiak port. (Track Rainier’s movement here.) I can’t wait to dive in and absorb all that I can. I am particularly looking forward to working with and learning from all the scientists onboard, seeing the majestic Alaskan landscape and understanding how survey data can be used for mapping vital fisheries habitats.
I hope you will ‘virtually’ join me aboard the Rainier, this summer, and be a witness to some incredible scientific research. This blog will be updated weekly with interesting stories, pictures and lots of newfound information about our mission at sea. So check back often and feel free to leave comments and questions for me. If I don’t know the answer, I will ask a brilliant scientist to help me.
“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.” -Jacques-Yves-Cousteau
Greetings from Philadelphia, almost 5,000 miles away from Kodiak, Alaska, where I will be meeting up with the NOAA ship Rainier in a few short weeks. A few years ago, one of my students made me an award that characterized my personality with the phrase, “I’m so excited!” and this is how I feel about my upcoming cruise with NOAA. Between the science, the opportunity to work with some amazing people, and the scenery, I can’t believe my good fortune in having this opportunity.
Rosalind (right), NOAA Teacher at Sea during her last Alaskan adventure
My name is Rosalind Echols, and I teach students physics at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. I also coordinate our “Capstone” senior project program, and teach a ceramics elective. I like to stay busy, so in my “free time”, I coach ultimate Frisbee and cross country. One of the most exciting features of the school I teach it is that our whole curriculum is project based, meaning that all of the learning is contextualized and applicable to settings beyond the classroom. I am looking forward to being able to bring what I learn this summer on the Rainier back to my classroom in the form of new and exciting projects. Although Philadelphia is close to the now-infamous “Jersey Shore,” my students do not have a great deal of experience with the ocean, particularly in the realm of science, so I hope that this experience helps me identify ways to make oceanographic topics more relevant to their lives.
The main mission of the Rainier is a hydrographic survey, mapping the sea floor in coastal areas to support NOAA’s nautical charting program. This is particularly important because it allows chart-makers to identify areas of possible danger as well as safe shipping routes. If you are looking for more information right away, you can check out the Rainier’s homepage, but rest assured, I’ll be sharing plenty of information through this blog as I learn more about our mission! From reading about past missions, I have found that even in re-surveying areas previously charted, the ships sometimes find new features on the sea floor which, had they remained unknown, could have been dangerous to ships in the area. The Rainier does this research using a variety of sonar systems, both on board the Rainier itself and from several smaller boats it can launch.
NOAA Ship Rainier at sea
I will be with the Rainier for 18 days, just shy of its 22-day endurance limit. During this time, we will be sailing around the Shumagin Islands and possibly other places on the Alaska Peninsula, starting and ending in Kodiak, Alaska. As a native Seattle-ite, I am particularly looking forward to the scenery and the weather in Alaska, as it should remind me of my home town. I also can’t wait to share what I see and learn with my students back in Philadelphia, most of whom have never been out in this direction.
Geographical area of cruise: Southeast Alaska, including Chatham Strait and Behm Canal, with a Gulf of Alaska transit westward to Kodiak
Log date: June 14, 2013
Weather conditions at port: 19.08⁰C, scattered cumulus clouds with little vertical extent against bright blue skies, 43.05% relative humidity, 1017.36 mb of atmospheric pressure, wind speed of 9.5 knots with a heading of 79⁰
A panoramic view of the Port of Juneau with a cruise ship beginning its exit of Gastineau Channel
Explorer’s Log: Mendenhall Glacier
Flying across the North American continent at an altitude of 34,000 feet is an experience somewhere between looking down upon a held globe and walking across the terrain. Maybe that’s too obvious a sentence for starting this second blog entry, but the fact of that obviousness is the necessary beginning, I think.
As we walked the few miles through Tongass National Forest and across or around several mountains along the West Trail to Mendenhall Glacier, Ensign Steven Wall and I followed piled stone trail markers called cairns.
Crossing the skies above the glaciers of western Canada and eastern Alaska, I was overwhelmed by the sheer majesty of the sights below me. Stretching from one horizon to the other, mile after seemingly endless mile of nearly blinding albedo from frozen water reflecting the sunlight of the approaching solstice at the nearly-Arctic latitude, interrupted only occasionally by jutting dark crags of towering mountains with just enough warmth or slope to slough the otherwise boundless field of snow, and dotted here and there by impossibly sapphire pools of today’s meltwaters. Eons of valleys carved by the almost imperceptibly unhurried slog of ice advancing under the magnitude of its own weight. Cascades of energy waiting, breathing, crawling, leashed only by the chilly bonds of molecular attraction below a certain thermal mark. But the hiker in me instantly feels a frostbitten ache in the ankles and knees just from peering downward at the tremendous glaciers from the warmth of the airplane cabin, entirely based on the mere consideration of just one day’s walk across the frozen sheet, thousands of frigid footfalls constituting a single-digit of traversed miles, at best. Truly, the glaciers are awesome when seen from an airplane.
These ice formations are at the leading face of Mendenhall Glacier as it slowly creeps along and melts into the lake and river below. Even though they seem small, the rocks beneath the ice are more than twenty-five feet high above the water line in this picture! About an hour after I took this photograph, a chunk of ice calved away from the glacier, making an explosive sound that could be heard for miles.
On a globe in my classroom, though, those magnificent glaciers are mere splotches of white and maybe a bit of texture for the fingertips, an entirely different paradigm, to be sure. Accurate, proportional, and contextually appropriate on a cardboard sphere that must display the major surface features of an entire planet. Excellent for showing young people comparative and relative size and location in order to launch discussions about geography, tectonics, Earth’s axial tilt, or the water cycle, but not likely to send shivers through the imaginations of the young students whose travels more often are flights of fancy rather than physical treks to distant lands.
This was our first close-up view of Mendenhall Glacier. The “ramp” of ice that you see on the right is more than one hundred feet high.
The point of this comparison? A study in perspective.
Where a biologist sees a species of tree (or maybe a whole ecosystem), a painter sees verticality or varieties of green, and a carpenter sees a cabinet. Importantly, all three observers are valid, correct, and good in their perspectives. Perhaps more importantly, not one of those perspectives has to be deemed wrong just so that the others can be right at the same moment. Likewise, the globe and the look-down from the airplane both are meaningful in providing totally different perspectives on the same glaciers.
Pressure, temperature, and friction work together to carve holes and caves in glaciers, some of which are big enough to walk through… with safety gear, of course!
Therefore, I was overjoyed to hear on my first morning after boarding Rainier a bit of enthusiastic encouragement (and a quick primer on how to use a can of bear spray!) from the ship’s XO, Holly Jablonski, insisting that Ensign Steven Wall and I should spend the day actually exploring Mendenhall Glacier above the Tongass National Forest, just outside the Juneau city limits. With snacks and drinks in hand, Ensign Wall and I were dropped at the head of the West Trail, where we hiked through a few miles of verdant evergreens and mosses, over and around a few mountains, and up a rock face before arriving at the toe of Mendenhall Glacier. Abruptly, here in front of me was a rippled wall of ice with folds so large that singular words of description are insufficient to capture their enormity. What had appeared from miles across the meltwater lake to be small chunks of ice at the face of the glacier now were towers more than 140 feet tall, and yet their backdrop still showed them to be relatively tiny. In the river below were chunks of floating ice that had fallen forward from the glacier’s leading edge, seemingly just a few feet wide… until I saw kayaks completely dwarfed next to them like flies next to football stadiums.
If you look closely, you’ll see that the black specks on the lake are kayaks, which will give you some idea of the size of the “small” icebergs adrift in the water below Mendenhall Glacier.What appears to be a small crack really is a crevasse more than twenty feet deep, and its small drainage cave continues downward for more than 150 feet to the lake below the glacier.
Indeed, the ice was cold, but the feelings at the front of my thoughts were more about size and power, awe and beauty. Nothing in my previous education had prepared me for my sudden inability to appreciate the magnitude of the behemoth. Crawling through caves of ice and walking on the surface of the ice was both spiritually overwhelming, as I joined something so much larger in size and time than any human experience, and also tremendously frightening, as the sound of every creak and every drip striking a floor hundreds of feet below the edges of the hole served as a reminder of my fragility at the hands of such forces.
Next, though, I surprisingly was struck by exactly the opposite of the feeling that I had expected: Rather than feeling the tremendous difference between the frozen landscape in front of me and the 90-plus Fahrenheit degrees that I left before dawn just one day earlier in Florida, I was moved instead by an overwhelming sense of unity, sort of a bridge between the airplane view and the globe view about glaciers that already had passed through my mind. I couldn’t escape the connection between this mountainous ice sheet and the swampy lowlands where I live thousands of miles to the southeast, because ultimately it is the existence of this frozen ocean atop the mountains of Alaska (and its neighboring icecap, extending toward the planet’s pole) that leaves the great liquid oceans of Earth at a lower level, thus exposing the small peninsula of Florida that I call home at the far other corner of the continent. And then I saw everything around me differently: The flowing ice around the peaks looks very much like the wind-blown sands at the beginnings of beach dunes, the small deltas in the mud from the trickles of meltwater are shaped identically to the much larger region surrounding the Suwannee River as it crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, and the wetland grasses miles below the glacier are nearly twins of the salty marshes near Florida’s Intercoastal waterway. While very different, also quite the same in many ways.
A delta is formed when running water meets the friction of an obstacle in its path (often a larger body of water) and spills leftward and rightward of its banks, making a triangular shape (like the shape of the Greek letter delta) in the nearby land when seen from above. This tiny delta is at the end of a rivulet at the base of Mendenhall Glacier, but it has the same basic form as larger river deltas all over the world.
As my students and friends hear me say so often, we are the sum of our stories, and every story is interesting if told from a meaningful or exciting perspective.
If I simply had described the past few days of my life as a series of long and uneventful flights followed by a walk among some trees and ice chunks, it wouldn’t have been untrue; it just would have been less interesting. We all know that the best stories often come from places of familiarity, but spun with unfamiliar points of view. During the next three weeks, I look forward to hearing and sharing ideas and insights with scientists, mariners, stewards, and technicians aboard Rainier as together we explore the same scenery along the waterways of Alaska, but from our own different perspectives… and then sharing those stories with you here.
By finding the ice features along the left wall of this picture on other photos in this blog may give you some additional perspective about the tremendous size of Mendenhall Glacier, as here you can see a group of hikers along the edge of a meltwater stream.
In our hurried world of expediency, cell phones, and paved highways, perhaps we too often put on blinders to see our travels from only one frame of reference. As you walk your own paths, I challenge you – as I again challenge myself – to look at each new thing in several ways before closing any doors of possibility or windows of perspective. Keep exploring, my friends.
Explorer’s Supplemental Log: Juneau, Alaska
The native Tlingit people carve and paint totem poles and other images to tell stories, record events, and celebrate or worship. Central to their totemic imagery is the great raven, a powerful bird of the local skies. The items in this photograph are at the entry to Village Drive, where many members of the Tlingit Tribe still live just a few blocks from the water in downtown Juneau.
Before my excursion to Mendenhall Glacier, I first was taken to the ship port in Juneau, where NOAA Ship Rainier has been at port for two weeks. Despite the late hour of my arrival, the sun at this northern latitude so near the beginning of summer remained far above the horizon, and so I decided to explore the local city on foot.
Many colorful flowers bloom in the warming air in and around Juneau as summer approaches.
Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, is nestled among several evergreen-rich yet white-capped mountains on both banks of the mighty Gastineau Channel, which carries its glacial headwaters eventually to the distant Gulf of Alaska in the North Pacific Ocean. While Juneau has served as host for my shipmates during their hours of liberty in the past several days, the city traces its history both to the discovery of gold in the nearby mountains and waters and to the native Tlingit people who moved from nearby Auke Bay. During the past century and a half, those beginnings have laid a strong foundation for commercial ventures in mining, exploration, and government alongside a rich cultural heritage that still is seen in the stories told by the totem poles at the entry to Village Drive. Further, those roots have since grown as other visitors and new residents have brought their own religions, cultures, and curiosities, resulting in a small and beautiful city of varied flavors and voices, a city whose shopkeepers, fisherman, sailors, citizens, and guests mingle their perspectives into a lovely harmony with those of the soaring eagles, boisterous ravens, playful otters, and hungry gulls.
Downtown Juneau has many beautiful older buildings, like this one, which houses the movie theater (a favorite evening site for ship crews ashore).Senators represent their home districts as they debate, negotiate, and legislate in the Alaska Senate Chambers in the state capital city of Juneau.This is the oldest Russian Orthodox church in North America, constructed in the 1800’s to educate and convert the local Tlingit people.
Did you know?
Like other living things, languages grow, ingesting new ideas and experiences, and then converting them into written or spoken symbols called words. The study of vocabulary often reveals another important lesson in perspective, as word roots give us clues about how the inventors of those words saw the items and events in their own worldviews.
For example, a glacier is an enormous sheet of ice, but the etymological root of that word is the same root that underlies glass (which looks like ice in its nearly-clear, fragile, appearance of solidity) and glaze (which means to coat or polish a surface so that it appears to be covered in ice, a metaphor that is extended into frosting and icing on cakes). And in many European countries, you can order a frozen treat by asking for a glacé. Also, when a frozen chunk of the leading face of a glacier breaks free of the main body of the glacier, the event is called a calving, as the inventor of that term in that context must have seen the many ways that the event is like the birthing of a smaller baby cow from its much larger mother.
(By the way, calved chunks of glaciers that fall into bodies of liquid water don’t sink, but rather they float to become icebergs. Most substances become denser when they freeze from liquids into solids, but water is unusual. The buoyancy of water ice – which you’ve experienced on a small scale every time that you see ice cubes floating in a glass of drinking water – is caused by the greater density of liquid water compared to the lesser density of frozen water, as electrochemical forces lock water molecules into a more spread-out lattice during the freezing process than those same molecules experience as they flow more closely around one another in the liquid state.)
NOAA Teacher at Sea Bill Lindquist Aboard NOAA Ship Rainier May 6-16, 2013
Mission: Hydrographic surveys between Ketchikan and Petersburg, Alaska Date: May 19, 2013
Weather at port. Taken at 1600 (4:00 in the afternoon)
Latitude: 56.8044° N
Longitude: 132.9419° W
Overcast skies with intermittent rain
Wind from the SW at 6 knots
Air temperature 7.2° C
Log: Petersburg: Completing the journey
No Teacher at Sea journey would be complete without immersing oneself in the people whose lives are dependent on that sea. Such an opportunity presented itself as we made port at Petersburg, the town that was “built on fish” (Little Norway Festival Pageant). We pulled into Petersburg during the annual “Little Norway” cultural festival held over Syttende Mai weekend celebrating the signing of Norway’s constitution. Since 1958, Petersburg has celebrated this powerful conjunction of Norwegian heritage and the vital role of fish and the fishing industry.
Alaska’s Little NorwayThe Little Norway Pageant
The Little Norway Pageant
Like many small towns, the Little Norway festival gathers the community together for a parade, softball tournament, dunk stand, food booths, walk/run, and pancake breakfast. Unlike other towns, Little Norway is graced with music from the Pickled Herring Band, a herring toss (think water balloon toss with fish), fish barbecue, and wandering Vikings willing to raid any party along their way. The closing song at the festival pageant seems to capture the spirit of Petersburg.
The Pickled Herring BandThe Little Norway parade included VikingsHumpback salmon emblazoned into the sidewalk
I Love Humpback Salmon
I love humpback salmon Good ol’ humpback salmon Caught by the Norkse fisherman,
I like shrimp and shellfish They sure do make a swell dish I think the halibut is grand!
I don’t like T-bone steak Cut from a steer in Texas But give me fish! And I don’t give a damn If I do pay taxes!
I love humpback salmon Good ol’ humpback salmon Caught by the Norke fisherman!
Today’s Petersburg brings together the native Alaskan traditions with the heavy Norwegian influence. A pair of towering totem poles on one end of town capture the history and contributions of the Tlingit hunters and fishermen that roamed these parts since over 2000 years ago. Coming into Petersburg we encountered several icebergs calved from the nearby LeConte Glacier. It was the presence of this clean source of ice that led the Norwegian Pioneer, Peter Buschmann to recognize the potential for the use of this ready supply of ice to pack fish and in 1897 started the Icy Strait Packing Company. He went on to add a sawmill and dock, and the town of Petersburg was launched. By 1920, Petersburg had become a town of 600 people and growing – majority of which shared Peter’s Scandinavian descent.
A strong presence of fisheriesEveryone fishes
Fishing is and has always been a constant presence throughout Petersburg’s history. At one end of town lies the Fisherman’s Memorial Park committed to the memory of those lives “that have been lost at sea and/or spent much of their lives working directly in the fishing industry” (Plaque at the base of the statue of the fisherman). On the other end is Eagle’s Roost Park highlighting the “outlook point for wives awaiting their husbands return from fishing” (plaque at Eagle’s Roost Park). Centered within are the present day canneries and businesses that keep this unique community vital. A plaque honoring a Petersburg pioneer states, “When he taught us to fish; he taught us to appreciate the rewards of patience. When he taught us to row; he taught us the power of perseverance and hard work.” Seems these words have served this community well.
The memorial of the fisherman
One gets a picture of the culture of a place by strolling through its shops. Unlike Ketchikan with its cruise line stocked gift shops, the merchants of Petersburg carve their own personal niches into the culture of the community. I have always enjoyed strolling through hardware and grocery stores. They serve as reflections of the life and values of the surrounding community. The Petersburg True Value hardware store shelves are stocked with the necessities of life for this fishing community. Along with nails, screws, and Weber grills you might find in any hardware store, here are rows and rows of waterproof gloves, bib overalls, jackets, flotation gear, rope of all kinds, snaps, and chains that are needed for the boats on their fishing journeys at sea. Along with the groceries one might expect, the Petersburg IGA stocks supplies of hardy Carhartt mariner clothing, washing machines, recliners, and iPhones. Each gift shop in town is unique, serving as markets for locally crafted goods by area artisans. There isn’t a place in Petersburg for the nondescript big box retailers of larger cities. These merchants stock all the supplies necessary to keep the pulse of the lifeblood of this community going. In so doing, they keep alive what makes this community unique. Not unlike the life I experienced on board the Rainier, Petersburg is an island community that has learned to rely on itself for the safety and well-being of all its members.
The festival comes to a conclusion with the annual fish barbecue held at Sandy Beach park. The event centers on all the grilled salmon, black cod and rockfish you can eat – hot off the wood fired barbecue pit. To a Minnesotan so far from the sea, this much seafood all in one spot grilled to perfection was truly a great way to being to a close my time in Petersburg.
The fish barbecue
Fish on the grill
Rainier crew enjoying a fish dinner
Tomorrow I fly out on what I was told was the milk run, leaving Petersburg for a 34 mile flight to Wrangell, then 83 miles to Ketchikan, on to Seattle, then finally home to Minneapolis/Saint Paul. I leave behind the life and work of the Rainier, the majestic views of the Alaskan landscape, and a glimpse into the quaint Norwegian community that was built on fish. I take with me the memories and stories of my little slice of life at sea, and all insight gained from the deep cognitive stretching obtained at the hands of the mariners, survey technicians, and NOAA Corps on board the Rainier. A special thank you to NOAA and the members of the Rainier community for making this powerful Teacher at Sea adventure possible.
Addendum: Monday, May 20
I met Rob Thomason, the Petersburg school superintendent, at the fish barbecue and was invited to the school for a tour and visit. This morning I took him up on his invitation and was treated to a two-hour tour of Stedman Elementary, Mitkof Middle, and Petersburg High School. The Petersburg schools’ match the charm and close knit community atmosphere of the town itself. During that time I was witness to many of the things that make this school special. Earlier that morning, a high school class had boarded a boat for a trip to a nearby glacier to conduct field studies. Between the schools was a boat the high school shop class had manufactured. Students in an elementary class were making fish prints – painting a fish and pressing a white t-shirt onto its surface. I naively made the comment, “That looks like a real fish.” He smiled and nodded. In the back schoolyard was the construction of a new greenhouse for the schoolyard gardens. We stopped in a culinary arts class and were treated to a plate of freshly made sushi rolls. Both buses are parked in a single garage. Class sizes are in the upper teens/lower 20s. Everywhere I looked, students were engaged in their learning. The taxi driver bringing me to the airport had just picked his kids up at the school. Without hesitation, he shared his opinion that the Petersburg schools were the best in the country. With district NCLB passing rates in the high 80s, perhaps Petersburg Public Schools are on to something – low class sizes, authentic learning experiences, strong community support, stable faculty and staff, and a positive, nurturing learning environment committed to all students. Thanks for the visit.
The Petersburg bus garage. One bus goes north, one south
NOAA Teacher at Sea Bill Lindquist Aboard NOAA Ship Rainier May 6-16, 2013
Mission: Hydrographic surveys between Ketchikan and Petersburg, Alaska Date: May 15, 2013
Weather on board. Taken at 1600 (4:00 in the afternoon)
Latitude: 56° 03.43 N
Longitude: 131° 6.8 W
Overcast skies with a visibility of 8 nautical miles
Wind variable at 1 knot
Air temperature 10° C
Sea temperature 7.8° C
Log: What did you learn?
I am often asked some variation of the question, “So, what have you learned?” The short answer is “it depends”. The nature of the response lapses into a definition of learning and just what learning entails. If it means gaining sufficient proficiency at a task to independently take it on, I’m not sure I “learned” anything. If rather, learning were to include sufficient exposure to new ideas to be able to have an appreciation for a world previously unexplored; or the ability to carry on a conversation about the work being done on board a hydrographic survey vessel; or the ability to transfer new ideas to the world as I knew it two weeks ago… then I’d have to say I “learned” a tremendous amount.
As my leg of the Rainier’s 2013 fieldwork season begins to wrap up, I find myself reflecting on this learning. Captured below is a list of some of the key learnings I will carry away with me.
Leadership.NOAA Corps is one of the nation’s uniformed services. There is a clear command structure on board and everyone on board knows just what it is. Proper clearance must be had before anything goes forward. To accomplish the detail of this work acquiring terabytes of data while keeping all crew members’ safety as top priority requires effective leadership. It has been a pleasure to witness the leadership on board the Rainier effectively finding that delicate balance between maintaining a clear hand on the big ideas of the work and allowing those under them do that work they are charged with and responsible for. Trust is a construct that travels both ways. The crew trusts the leadership to lead, and the leadership trusts the crew to do their work.
CDR Rick Brennan, Commanding Officer, NOAA Ship Rainier
Pedagogy of the ship. A significant activity on this ship is focused on teaching. In part due to a frequent turn around in human resource, in part to the technical features within all aspects of the ship, in part to a commitment to help all crew members advance their skill level and qualifications, and in part because that is simply a part of what they do as members of the Rainier community. I watched as a new crewmember was mentored one-on-one by more senior members in how to manage the anchor, operate the davits, launch the boats, etc. I watched as another crewmember gained skills to qualify as a coxswain – that critical role of assuming responsibility for all maritime aspects of a launch working away from the ship. The NOAA Corps officers are continually being mentored to direct all functions of the ship – dropping and raising the anchor – working with the helm to control the speed and direction of the ship – managing control central for all away parties – etc. The survey techs go back and forth with each other on how to better handle some aspect of data collection or processing. The day begins with a morning meeting to clarify the objectives for the day and review safety concerns. Throughout the day, people come together for collaborative problem solving. The pedagogy I witnessed was one of hands-on; specific, instant, clear and direct feedback; one-on-one; calm; and patient. The community on board is committed to one another. The more skill the individual is able to gain, the smoother sailing for the whole ship.
The pedagogy of the ship
Science is messy. The Rainier is noted as one of the premier hydrographic vessels afloat. Coming in, I carried the misconception that that meant all would proceed according to carefully articulated plans. Turns out variables such as tide, heave, roll, pitch, salinity, temperature, GPS, waves, weather, software, hardware, expertise, knowledge, skill, and all variants of the human condition all work together to create a dynamic environment that necessitates continually fine tuning, tweaking, and responding. The past several days we have been wrestling with the tide gauge not reading what was expected potentially jeopardizing the week’s data. Seems the gauge reads 5 cm off the expected. – we are currently on the way to seek a resolution. What is truly remarkable is that despite all the issues that arise, this project will be successful. The people involved embody the persistence and fortitude to hang in there until everything fits within the prescribed limits of accuracy. We will continue to survey every square meter in the Behm Canal project area, assemble terabytes of data, and confidently submit a Descriptive Report to the Pacific Hydrographic Branch. Meanwhile the Rainier and its crew will be off to begin another project after leaving Petersburg and I head home to finish off the semester and get grades submitted.
Hydrography at work
The ocean is important. I have also carried a misconception that the ocean is so far away from the prairies and woods of Minnesota that it lacked in importance to our lives. I have come to realize the increasing importance of thinking globally with global considerations directly including the ocean that wraps 75% of our planet. Our climate is directly influenced by the impact of the sea. Our economy is dependent on the commercial vessels that carry goods to their destinations. The safety of those vessels are reliant on accurate navigational charts. The waters off Alaska rely on NOAA’s Ships Rainierand Fairweather to conduct hydrographic surveys of the ocean bottom for the creation of those charts.
An understanding of the ocean is critical to all. Photo source: http://www.noaa.gov/features/resources/
Appreciation of beauty. No matter how common this landscape has become to the mariners on board, how advanced their level of experience, their station on the ship, the amount of salt coursing through the blood, etc., etc., all take time to stop and gaze at the grandeur of Walker Cove, Wrangell Narrows, Punchbowl Cove, spouting of whales, play of the porpoises, sunset, sunrise, misty clouds, etc. etc. It is a majestic world, one that can quickly take away your breath, bring everything to a standstill – to simply gaze. “How would you like this for your office?” the CO had asked me. There is little question it beats the “window” overlooking the BWCAW I made for myself in my otherwise windowless office. Mine has beauty, but lacks life. The loss of this majestic backdrop will dearly be missed.
Can you ever tire of this?
Propellers. The ship’s engine runs at a steady rpm. The speed of the ship is governed by the pitch of the propellers. Thank you Bernoulli.
Sea language. There is language that exists on board that I have slowly come to know. A holiday is missing data. A “head” is a toilet. A Cox’n (coxswain) is in charge of the boat and a Bo’sun (boatswain) is in charge of the ship’s equipment and crew. People in charge are Chief – Chief of Engineering, Chief Boatswain, Chief Steward, Chief Hydrographer – they are all called “Chief”. FOO (Field Operations Officer), XO (Executive Officer) and CO (Commanding Officer) are titles. Right now the Rainier even has FOO 1 and FOO 2; XO1 and XO2. The repeat of “Very well” means “Yes, I heard you” and “Aye” – agreed. We eat at 1700 hours instead of 5:00. You might say “Happy hydro” to someone heading out to survey. The list goes on.
Davits ready to welcome the launches back to the ship.
Food. So many had asked, “What will you eat at sea?” with images of canned rations or space food in mind. This community eats well – steak tonight, ribs last night It’s hard to picture going back to my lunchtime staple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Hard work. Being a mariner is hard work. The labor, confines of the ship, and separation from family bring challenge and sacrifice.
Salty dawgs. I have a new appreciation of what “salty” means as it applies to the mariner community. Living and working together for extended periods, at times in harsh conditions, and at others with lapses into long contemplative stretches, the conversation and actions aboard the ship, is for lack of any better definition, “salty” indeed.
Sharing the salt. While perhaps not quite certain of the role a Teacher at Sea visitor plays within this tight-knit community, all members on board have graciously taken the time to share with me their work – work of which they are deeply invested – and of their life at sea with the salt that flows within their blood.
Tomorrow we arrive in Petersburg, Alaska. I will post again of my experience of the “Little Norway” cultural festival going full steam during our time there. Then it is a departure for home and return to my office at Hamline University. Until then it remains, “Happy hydro.”
