27-Jul-2017
48° 27’ 43.6” N 123° 18’ 32.8” W 1050 hours: A good night’s sleep and several cups of coffee later, I’ve made it back to the office at UVic. I’ve already succeeding in getting sunburned in the half-day I’ve been home and I’m somewhat pleased with that fact. Despite the midnight sun we sailed with for the last couple weeks, it’s been a while since we’ve had any sort of heat. It’s almost like we were in the Arctic or something. Weird. Now that I’ve had a few moments to regroup, caffeinate, and remember how to feed myself now that I no longer have Kara and Trevor’s amazing meals three times a day, I’ll do my best to provide a coherent reflection of the past three and a half weeks, in reverse chronological order, as the memories trickle back. It took three flights, four airports, and twenty-six hours of travel, but we made it home. Imminent weather forced us to helicopter off the CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier and make into Barrow, AK a day early, and a cancelled flight kept us in Barrow even longer. I am now able to supply a complete review of almost all the restaurants in Barrow, if you ever happen to end up there. Osaka, the Japanese/Korean/American breakfast place definitely comes number one in my personal Yelp reviews. The increased layover time in our flights led to an important discovery in Seattle: Turkish coffee is essentially nectar of the gods. One of the first missions upon returning home (post-nap) was tracking down where to find it. Our departure from the ship was bittersweet. No more nights on the bridge between samples, bantering with Bryan, Paul, and Tony, then lapsing into exhausted silence and getting lost staring into the waves. I won’t get to hear Christina’s laugh due to some dry comment from Svein, the chief scientist (well, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the sound could travel from Maryland), nor trades jokes with leading seaman, Nik, about the Box of Death (also known as the box I used for methane and nitrous oxides sampling that contained mercuric chloride). However, most of the crew lives in Victoria, so we already have plans to meet up for board games when they finish their leg. So it was a “goodbye for now”, to both the crew and the ocean. Two and a half weeks more, and I will be returning to the ocean to sample along Line P. The last week before departure passed in a flash, with CTD rosette sampling, Van Veen grabs [a method of sediment sampling] and bongo drops [a plankton sampling net] occurring every couple hours. Between stations, I continued sampling for the InFORM project. With 37 samples processed before Dutch Harbor, I had four remaining to take in the Bering Sea. I had intended on taking more, but the waters proved so productive that filtering the Bering Sea samples took over 24 hours each. Brief respites at the end of each transect (group of sampling stations in a line) gave us time to catch up on sleep. However, one of those days of respite was a little more exciting – in the morning, we had a rendezvous with the US Coast Guard Cutter Sherman. We took the Zodiacs over to visit this 167-man ship, while they sent a couple of people over to tour the Laurier. Those of the crew I met were extremely welcoming, and happy to take us around to their bridge, engine room and gun deck (we definitely do not have the latter on the Laurier). That afternoon, we had the Arctic Crossing ceremony. We had crossed the Arctic Circle several days earlier, at 0310. I was up on the bridge at that time, as I had woken up an hour or so before to check on my samples, then came up to say, “Hi.” Bryan then told me that we’d cross within the hour, so naturally, I had to stay up until we did. There’s no dotted line in the water, in case you hadn’t guessed, but it was still pretty cool (cold, even) to see the GPS turn to 66° 33′ 46.8″ N. As for the details of the ceremony itself, there isn’t much I can say – I’m under an oath of secrecy. All I can tell you is that I survived, and am a tadpole no more! I am officially a shellback and have the certificate to prove it. This trip has left me inspired, motivated, and filled with an immeasurable respect for all those I worked with. Having now learned a wide variety of sampling techniques, I have such a better idea about what is possible insofar as oceanographic research. Ofttimes, after learning a new technique, or having someone explain their research, or simply staring out at the wash of pyrosomes in the North Pacific, an idea would spark and I would wait impatiently until we next had internet to briefly scour databases for papers on a certain topic. Moreover, not only was everyone brilliant and kind, but they were unwaveringly optimistic at 4 am stations, willing to talk me through their sampling techniques at all hours of the night, and happy to discuss anything from their research to Say Yes to the Dress (there were some long nights in Barrow). Alongside respect is pure affection and gratitude for the friendships with both science contingent and crew that I hope will carry forward. There is a certain sort of bond that doesn’t form unless you’re all sleep-deprived, somehow simultaneously over- and under-caffeinated, and entirely isolated from the rest of the world – I promise you, it’s a beautiful thing. One final note: before this trip, I had no concept of the scale of this planet of ours. Now, having sailed a distance approximately equal to the radius of the Earth, I find the thought all the more stunning.
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13-Jul-2017
60˚ 18.866’ N 171˚ 15.836’ W 1200 hours: We set steam from Dutch Harbor two days ago, and have been making fast headway towards our first station. Dutch Harbor was absolutely breathtaking, astounding, astonishing – my adjectives are woefully inadequate when attempting to describe it. We lapsed into movie comparisons as we sailed through the sunlight that filtered through mist, wrapped ‘round rolling mountaintops. I think the closest we came in terms of comparisons was walking out of the Shire, the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bride, and the song-bound hills of the Sound of Music. The evening we pulled into port, we came into town and explored a little, then set about with more detailed exploration the next day. At 7:30 am, too few hours after we had gotten home from the town, a couple of us made a hiking expedition up the Ballyhoo. This hill was host to a few signs that had perplexed us at first – later that day, two men in town explained that the US Coast Guard owned the signs, so whenever ships came into that port, they would repaint a sign with their ship’s name. We tried to rally a few artistic souls to leave our mark on the hillside, to no avail. We discovered that these fellows were following a similar route to us, laying fibre optic cables around the coast of Alaska. Apparently these two are self-described seamen for hire, and had just returned from excavating Spanish Galleons from coral reefs. Sile asked them if it was for archaeological purposes. At this, they scoffed amicably and one said, “Nah, treasure hunting.” Apparently they’ll be in Barrow at the same time we will be there; maybe we’ll run into our Indiana Jones-esque friends once again! This rest of the day’s adventure involved only minor amounts of climbing rocks, don’t worry. It’s quite the experience, traveling with a cohort of scientists from disciplines – the walk into town alone took much longer than it rightfully should have, as each of us would get distracted by some different aspect of the landscape and excitedly point it out to the others. This is why my SD card currently has several shots of step basalt carving its way through the hillside- Sile giddily pointed them out to me. Once in town, we wandered the local haunts and the tourist traps (aka Safeway – Dutch Harbor is not a tourist town). We had Mexican food for lunch…though we were probably as far as we possibly could get from Mexico, it hit the spot nevertheless. Last night, I was further indoctrinated into ship life. A week or so again, much shock and chagrin occurred among the scientists and crew upon learning I’d never seen the Wes Anderson film ‘The Life Aquatic’. Apparently it’s required viewing, as despite the fact that none of us religiously wear red hats or have been assaulted by pirates, it’s an accurate representation of SWL [Sir Wilfred Laurier] life (mostly kidding). Sile and I are the interns in this situation, so we’d have to share a Glock. There are no Glocks on board, so we had to put something else into our leg holsters… That leads me into the next little bit of shenanigans on board. If you’ve read through Saskia’s posts, you might remember she alluded to some sort of ceremony for those who haven’t yet crossed the Arctic Circle – tadpoles, if you will. For those of you out there who will someday cross the Arctic Circle yourselves, I can’t say much more… but I will mention that it involved me on AutoCAD at 22:30, and desperately calling engineering students from home to figure out what file type works in a MakerBot 3D printer… I now have an oddly-shaped object strapped to my leg and am feeling kind of like Laura Croft, Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, the 3D print didn’t work and I had to improvise with plastic bags and a heat gun. We cross the Arctic Circle in four days, and the round-the-clock science stations start tomorrow. I’ll be helping out with everyone’s sampling where I can, and doing the N2O [nitrous oxide] and CH4 [methane] sampling for a lab at UBC [University of British Columbia], along with a few more radiocesium samples. I’ve been promised there’s a whole lot more tadpole-baiting and sleep deprivation to come… I may have already made an enemy of Andrew, the EL [electronics] Tech, in the ruthlessness that is these trials. Stay tuned for the dramatic next installment. 07-Jul-2017
52˚ 56.101’ N 143˚ 27.889’ W 1020 hours: I have noticed that I have begun talking to my filtration rig as if it is a small, disobedient child. I would be more concerned about this turn of events, except it seems to be working – the rig has been behaving particularly well recently, so the occasional reprimands I give it are tinged with fondness. In all seriousness, ship life has begun to settle into a bit more of a routine. I wake up to check on the rig a couple times during the night, and take another sample depending on when my last one was. Around five, I’ll check on it one more time and decide what needs to be done that day. Breakfast is promptly at six. I’ll usually have crawled back into bed for 20 minutes of shut-eye after the 0500 check, so my alarm startles me back to reality with bursts of static. For some reason, I’ve opted to leave it on whatever radio station it was set to when I co-oped it from my older sister’s bedroom, so there is no discernible music whatsoever. Then again, my radio alarm at home has been set to the same station since 2006, despite the fact that I don’t get that station in Victoria, nor do I really listen to that sort of music any more. Maybe I’m comforted by static. I’m not going to try to analyze that particular quirk any further. Breakfast usually involves me trying and failing to avoid whatever decadence is prepared by the wonderful chefs (this morning was chocolate covered croissants) and making up for it by having eggs as well. It’s always an interesting mix of moods at breakfast – many of us stumble in, groggy and grumbling, only to be greeted by those still on shift from midnight to noon like Ryan, who are a little less stunned by sleep and comparatively quite chipper. After that, and a caffeine jolt to the system, we head back up to the lab. I take another sample, maybe start a new column on the rig if one finishes, then have a quick nap to make up for the sleep missed at night. By 0800, the CTD is cast, and is winched back up with its Niskin bottles full by 9 or so. After sampling – I don’t actually work with any of the samples from the Niskins, but Sile and Dr. Varela let me help with their sampling so I can get some experience – it’s back to the lab to process. With Sile and Dr. Varela vacuum filtering for silica and nutrients, and my rig running for radiocesium, it can get pretty loud in here. However, putting a cellphone in a large plastic speaker amplifies music astonishingly well, and it can break through the background noise. With the lights off in the lab to protect the chlorophyll samples, it’s quite the party. (Wooo, science!) Lunch is an affair that often entails bizarre and fascinating conversations that start rather rationally. For example, yesterday, we were discussing the Trappist-1 system and the meaning of the ‘Goldilocks zone’. By the end, we were switching between fairly graphic descriptions of the bends and other perils of diving, and racking our brains trying to figure out what the newest Alien movie was called. (For the record, it’s Alien Covenant). I usually try to get out on deck for a little bit after lunch, and stand next to the incubator on the helicopter deck while watching the waves. Yesterday, we had an Argo float deployment during that time as well – I’ll send along a couple pictures when I’m back in internet. Argo floats can are all over the world’s oceans, descending and reascending to relay information about the ocean profile where they are situated to satellites, and then to scientists around the world to analyze. Speaking of lunch, it’s about that time. I promise to return with further ramblings later today. 1900 hours: This evening can be summarized best by telling you that it involved Oreo ice cream cake, some emotional trauma regarding Bambi’s mom, and the initial draft of plans to make a cannon for deploying Argo floats. The internet access is getting more and more questionable, so I’m going to send this off before we lose it entirely. Until next time! Update: Lost internet entirely in the five minutes between finishing this and trying to send it off, so this will come to you once we reach Dutch Harbor. 05-Jul-2017
50˚ 23.840’ N 131˚ 12.998’W 0800 hours: At breakfast this morning, I made to introduce myself to the crew member sitting next to me. Rather amusingly, he informed me that we had, in fact, met about 8 hours earlier when I had been blearily starting a new sample in the aft lab and he had been checking in as part of the midnight to noon watch. Given my reindeer pajamas and bemused 1 am expression, I think it was fairly obvious I hadn’t been entirely conscious at the time. I’m reluctant to let my samples run all night without supervision, and every couple hours I have swap to a new 20 L carboy filled with seawater. The result is an alarm set for every 2 hours through the night, and lots of short naps through the day. I also have a secret stash of chocolate covered coffee beans for when times get desperate – I might also use them to make friends with the night watch crew. The first day and a half of the cruise have been as up and down as the larger swells last night. As the onboard electrical technician, Andrew, put it, “The first days are filled with putting out fires all over the place.” As long as they remain metaphorical fires, it’s nothing we can’t handle. The first couple samples I ran got so clogged with biological activity that they could barely process, and kept putting a concerning amount of back-pressure on the mountains of electrical tape that kept the resin columns, used for filtration, tightly sealed. Now that we’ve gotten a little farther into open water, the samples run much more smoothly. On the upside, I’ve gotten through almost 320 L of seawater at this point! Though a small fraction of the 2700 L I will have processed by the end of this cruise, it’s significant progress nonetheless. Other moments of excitement include my first foray into the world of banana splits, and a whale sighting on our first morning. Sadly, I did not get any photos of the whales – Sile and I raced to the boat deck after frantically securing our samples, and managed to catch only the tail end of them (pun intended). 06-Jul-2017 51˚ 55.301’ N 137˚ 36.786’ W 1200 hours: I got distracted from my previous post by as Nina, one of the other scientists in the lab, finished up on the underway loop system and I had a chance to hop on and get my sample. The rest of the day yesterday comprised sitting in the lab, keeping one eye on my samples and the other on the endless expanse of waves and sky through the porthole. I also got to take samples from the Niskin bottles on the CTD rosette for the first time. Sile kindly walked me through the sampling order – oxygen and other dissolved samples first, as the air that rushes in to fill the Niskin bottles as they drain starts to contaminate the top of the water with air. Right now, CTD casts are happening twice a day. After we reach Dutch Harbour, they’ll be every hour. I managed to get down to the onboard gym yesterday as well. I stayed well away from the treadmill, given that I tend to fall off treadmills that are firmly rooted to solid ground – I would hate to see the result of me trying to run on one that moves with the waves. Getting a little bit of exercise on some of the other machines definitely made me feel better, and made me feel especially justified in the delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie we had for dessert today at lunch. In other news, it’s definitely getting colder! Each time I take a sample, I record the coordinates, salinity, conductivity, and temperature at the beginning and end of the sampling time. At the beginning of the cruise, the loop water was about 14.5˚ C. Now, it’s just above 11˚ C, and will only get lower. Other things to note: my sister was absolutely correct in telling me to label my Blundstone’s with my name when I got them for my birthday this year. Not only are they a staple in Victoria, they’re apparently a shipboard staple as well – I’ve already almost worn Sile’s pair several times in the last few days, and pretty much everyone in the lab has the same ones. Also, I’m still not sure who’s acting as DJ in the lab (might be Nina), but their music choices are absolutely stellar. Blondie is definitely good for morale. All the classic rock is clearly getting to me; I keep dreaming that I’m in the movie ‘Pirate Radio’. One snowy, early morning in January of this year, I was sitting in a first-year Earth and Oceans Sciences class, clinging to my coffee cup for dear life. My professor, Dr. John Dower, then began saying something that completely dispelled any need for caffeine: he was describing the opportunities for undergraduates on research cruises. Wow, I thought, this is something I absolutely need to explore. I had never before considered that I might be able to go out to sea during my undergrad, but the possibility was suddenly real.
A couple turns of fate, several final exams and some months later, here I am preparing to embark upon the CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier as it traverses the Northeast Pacific from Ogden Point to Dutch Harbour and then onto Barrow, Alaska. As part of the Fukushima InFORM project, I will be collecting 60 L surface seawater samples and processing them using a specialized resin that adheres to radiocesium. These columns will be analyzed for radiocesium content using a gamma ray spectrometer. My sampling will be following the efforts of Saskia, Laura, and Kathryn who performed this sampling in previous summers. This collection of samples will give us a better comprehension of the movement and distribution of radionuclides in the Pacific from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi accident. The first time I saw the CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier I was entirely unprepared for the sight. It was several months ago, and I had only recently found out that I would be participating in this cruise. Walking past Ogden Point where the ship was moored, I was entirely floored by the size and majesty of her. As I began my training, my excitement only grew. Over the last two months, training has included familiarization with the operations of the class 100 clean lab at the University of Victoria campus, and extensive work with Sue Reynolds, filtering and processing the samples collected by citizen scientists up the west coast of Canada. These samples are processed in a similar manner to those I will be taking on the ship, and originate from many different communities, including Sandspit, Vancouver, and Victoria. Between muffled airlock battles (or at least, passionate debates) on who gets to wear the flowered Crocs in the clean room, and long hours spent reading papers and deciphering numerical models to the score from the Lord of the Rings, the time has passed rapidly. Tomorrow, I’ll get to take my first steps on board and set up my filtering apparatus in the lab. On July 3rd, we will set out for Dutch Harbour and arrive there in about four days. Upon arrival, we will pick up the rest of the scientific crew. The majority of my sampling will occur in the 4-day stretch between Ogden Point and Dutch Harbour, with a quarter of the samples taken in the Bering Sea as we trundle on to Barrow. I’ve spoken with Saskia to glean some insight on ship life from the perspective of an InFORM student scientist, and her anecdotes have bolstered my excitement even more. From everyone I have spoken to, the common themes in regards to ship life have been:
I have packed a laptop, a notebook, a camera, and an inordinate number of fleeces: I am entirely ready to set off. |
AuthorUncoordinated scientist who isn't sure how she hasn't fallen off a boat yet. Archives
November 2020
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