sea lion – Page 2 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

August 24, 2008April 5, 2021

Alex Eilers, August 24, 2008

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Alex Eilers
Onboard NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan
August 21 – September 5, 2008

In the picture, the “Big Eyes” are covered and on the left side of the picture, the antennas are directly above me.

Mission: Leatherback Sea Turtle Research
Geographical area of cruise: California
Date: August 24, 2008

Today we were in assembly mode and I spent the majority of my time on the flying bridge (top deck). With the help of several scientists, we cleaned and replaced the viewing seats, installed the “Big Eyes” – (the largest pair of binoculars I’ve ever seen), and assembled and tested the Turtle tracking antennas. The “Big Eyes” will be used to help track and identify marine mammals, leatherbacks and birds near the boat. This is especially important prior to and during the times scientists have equipment in the water so we don’t catch or injure these animals. The receiver will be used to track the Leatherback Sea Turtles who have a transmitter attached to their carapace. The good news is we are receiving reports that there is a Leatherback approximately 110 miles off the coast of Monterey – the bad news is he may not be there when we arrive.

Safety training During our first true “day at sea” we had two practice safety drills; a fire in the galley (kitchen) and an abandon ship. The crew handled both drills quickly and efficiently. The abandon ship drill was exciting. When the bell rang, everyone was responsible for his or her own billet (job duty). My billet required me to grab my life preserver and survival suit and muster to the O1 deck (report to an area for role call).

Training to be a VO – visual observer We started the day on the flying bridge. Karin Forney, marine mammal researcher, trained us on how to be a marine animal visual observer or VO for short. During the first observing session, we only saw a few animals – sea lions and various birds.

I’m getting fairly good at spotting kelp beds (seaweed), however, the scientists are not interested in them, so I still need more practice identifying marine mammals.

By the afternoon, we started to see more marine life. A large pod of common dolphins swam playfully near the ship. This was a beautiful sight to see but not ideal for net testing. We waited 30 minutes without a mammal sighting then successfully tested the nets. As the scientists were pulling the nets aboard we spotted another smaller pod of common dolphins, some California sea lions and a small mola mola (sun fish). All in all it was a good day!

July 31, 2007April 1, 2021

Elizabeth Eubanks, July 31, 2007

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Elizabeth Eubanks
Onboard NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan
July 22 – August 3, 2007

Mission: Relative Shark Abundance Survey and J vs. Circle Hook Comparison
Geographical Area: Pacific Ocean, West of San Diego
Date: July 31, 2007

Weather Data from the Bridge
Visibility: 10 miles
Air temperature: 16.0 degrees C
Sea Temperature at 700m: 5 degrees C
Sea Temperature at surface: 19.2 degrees C
Wind Direction: 300 W
Wind Speed: 15 kts
Cloud cover: Clear –stratus
Sea Level Pressure: 1013.9 MB
Sea Wave Height: 4-5 ft
Swell Wave Height: 2 ft

Science and Technology Log

Salt, Sodium, NaCl, Salinity. How much salt is in the ocean? How much salt is in me and you? Is there a difference between the amount of salt in from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean? How much salt is in a fish or shark? Lots of questions about salt. I spent some time again with Dr. Jeff Graham and he showed me some nice diagrams to help me understand.

Percent of average salt content – salinity. ***The top of the box marks only 10% scale subject to revision (due to lack of resources on board ship) — Percent of average salt content – salinity. The top of the box marks only 10% scale subject to revision (due to lack of resources on board ship)

Personal Log

Yeah I added a new species to my list and yesterday I was able to get a photo of the Black Footed Albatross. While we were hauling our line he kept circling. He seemed to be very interested in the line. Some of the scientists were tossing bait to him from the hooks they were debating, but he didn’t seem that interested our old Mackerel. Albatross are beautiful birds. They are the largest of seabirds and spend most of their time on the water. They have long, narrow wings as you can see from the photo below. One of the scientists on board was telling me that she read studies, indicating that they can travel 3,000 miles across the ocean, before they need to touch land. Rarely does a person have the opportunity to view them from shore unless you are on some remote island when they are breading and nesting.

Look at the photo I took. You will notice a yellow band on left leg and a white one oh his right. I am told that to band these birds, you go to a remote island and just band them. They aren’t really afraid of people. – I would love to do that…. When is that cruise? Nobody likes it when this happens, especially the sea lions. This is the only we caught this trip. They put up a huge fight and this one actually got off of the line. Hopefully, he will be fine. It is such a treat to see them out here. During this set we had a lot of half eaten bait, so we believe he was having a feast!

Question of the Day

Salt is essential for all life. However too much salt can be toxic. Animals have special ways of regulating the salt in their bodies. How does the shark regulate its salt? Define these terms associated with salinity and adaptations an animal makes to an environment: Isosmotic, Hypoosmotic, and Hyperosmotic.

Question of the trip: Which hook, the J or Circle, will catch more sharks?

Please make a hypothesis. Utilize resources to justify your hypothesis. ———Yes, you get extra credit for this.

July 10, 2006March 19, 2021

Heather Diaz, July 10, 2006

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Heather Diaz
Onboard NOAA Ship David Starr Jordan
July 6 – 15, 2006

Mission: Juvenile Shark Abundance Survey
Geographical Area: U.S. West Coast
Date: July 10, 2006

This is one of the Mako sharks that we tagged. You can see the “spaghetti” tag and the OTC tag on his dorsal fin. After we released him, he came back to see what we were doing on the platform. Mako sharks will usually dive down deep once we release them from the cradle, but this little guy wanted to come back for one more look.

Science and Technology Log

One team of scientists set a swordfish line at 3am. We hauled in the swordfish longline at 6am. We caught one pelagic ray. We set the first shark line at around 8am, and hauled it in around 12pm. We caught one blue shark. We set the second shark line at around 2pm. We let it soak an extra hour, and hauled it in around 6pm. We caught one Blue shark, four mako sharks, and one pelagic ray.

I had an opportunity to take a tour of the engine room with 1^st Engineer Chris Danals. We first visited the aft work room. Chris is crafting a wooden boat by hand! It is very neat looking. He said that he builds boats for fun. He showed me the rudder room, and it’s amazing to see how huge these two rudders are. They control the rudder from the Bridge. In front of the aft work room is the engine room, which you have to climb down a ladder to get into. The noise is so loud that it is deafening, even with earplugs in. He explained that there are two main engines, which are White Superior engines. The port side engine is used to power the winch, which we use when we set/haul in the lines.

The starboard engine is the one we use to power the ship. He said that the engines are diesel engines, and they get about 1 mile to the gallon. Chris also explained that even though the computers monitor everything in the engine room, they still have to monitor all of the engines in person during each watch. The engines are huge, each one being at least 6 feet tall and at least 15 feet long. But, as Chris explained, it takes a lot of power to move a ship this large through the water! The ship’s top cruising speed is 10 knots, but he said we often travel only a few knots, especially when we are setting a line or hauling a line. And, there are times when we are not moving but a few feet per hour, while the longlines are soaking.

Another thing that Chris explained was how the ship makes water. Since they can only bring a finite amount of water with them to sea, they have to rely on other methods to get fresh water once they are at sea. He said that they pump sea water in, then they use heat to separate the fresh water from the salt. The only problem is that sometimes we aren’t moving, and the engines need to be hot in order to make water.

Personal Log

This morning we were kind of between 4 islands: Santa Cruz/Anacapa, Santa Barbara, and Catalina. I think we are headed west today. You can’t see land anymore, and the waves have become much more intense…several stomach dropping waves this morning and last night. It is very foggy today, and it is quite cool outside. It actually looks like it might rain.

Everyone was a bit disappointed when our first two hauls yielded only 1 animal each. But, the last set was better, and everyone is looking forward to seeing if the blocks farther out might have better luck.

The real treat today was a California sea lion (which has been named Eddie). He was following us after the last haul, eating the mackerel that we were discarding. Eddie followed us for about 15 minutes, he was quite happy and kept coming up to the surface to look at us and blow water out of his nose. He was so cute! Of course, since we had been having bad luck with the sets, I did not bring my cameras downstairs, so I missed getting a picture of the whole thing! I am hoping that “Eddie” will come back tomorrow!

During the night, they had to sound the fog horn several times to alert other boats that we were in the area. I thought it was the general alarm at first, but then I realized that it was just fog.

June 19, 2006March 18, 2021

Lisa Kercher, June 19, 2006

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Lisa Kercher
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
June 11 – 24, 2006

Mission: Hydrographic and Fish Habitat Survey
Geographic Area: Alaska
Date: June 19, 2006

Science and Technology Log

The morning began at 7:00 with a delicious breakfast to fuel me up for what lie ahead. I was on the POD (plan of the day) to go out on a small launch boat. How exciting! My only hesitation was knowing that I would be out on a small boat for 8 hours and I might just have to pee! Regardless of my worriers, shortly after the 8:00 safety briefing, Launch 1010 was put in the water and myself, ENS Jonathan French, and boatmen Emily Evans and Ron Walker boarded with our gear for the day! We headed south of Andronica Island, where the FAIRWEATHER had been anchored for the night, and began our hydrography work. Each launch is equipped with the same technology that the FARIWEATHER has, making it easy to collect more data at one time. As we located the polygon where we were assigned to work, we dropped the CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) device into the water.

Jon and Emily watch the computers to monitor our work

Jon and Emily quickly processed the data and then we began making passes through the polygon collecting data from the bottom of the ocean using the MBES (multi beam echo sounder) that is located on the underside of the boat. This equipment provides a picture of what the ocean floor looks like and locates any features such as rocks and rough terrain by bouncing beams of sound to the bottom of the ocean floor and then receiving them back. The speed at which the beams return and the length at which they travel is combined with the data that is collected from the CTD to get an accurate representation of the surface of the ocean bottom. I was able to run the equipment for a short time as Jon looked over my shoulder. It was not too difficult! I was excited to learn later that night, after our work was processed that we collected very clean data that they survey team was very happy with! Good work team!

I work the computer system, logging data as we cruise through our polygon

Personal Log

I could not believe how absolutely gorgeous it was in Alaska today! The skies were clear, the wind was calm and the temperature was warmer than it has been since arriving here! I even got to sunbathe on the launch for a short while as we cruised back to the FAIRWEATHER at the end of our workday. I got to see lots of wildlife on the launch and on Andronica Island. While surveying today and yesterday we had to travel at precise speeds to acquire the most accurate data. While on Launch 1010 today we surveyed at 8 knots, completed our roll test at 7 knots, and yesterday while surveying on the FAIRWEATHER we cruised at 10 knots. Convert each of these speeds to miles per hour to get a better idea of how fast were we moving through the water in each instance.

Stellar Sea Lions sun on a small island southwest of Andronica Island.

A black oystercatcher comes close to our campfire on Andronica Island. We were invading his habitat.

The remains of a sea urchin were washed up on the beach of Andronica Island.

Lupine, a beautiful purple flower, grew wild all over the banks of Andronica Island.

The remains of a sea urchin were washed up on the beach of Andronica Island.

Lupine, a beautiful purple flower, grew wild all over the banks of Andronica Island.