Month: August 2014 Page 1 of 2

So for this post I have decided to change up my writing style. Since I really enjoy photography I figured it might be best to provide photos in order to give you an idea of what I get to see everyday versus writing a wall of text.

Overall my duty as a marine technician has remained the same for the current NOAA fisheries cruise I am deployed on. The main differences between this cruise and the previous cruises is that I get to run the pot hauler to retrieve the fish traps that we set at each station. Anyways…

As a marine technician you need to be prepared for a variety of weather conditions. For the most part our cruise has been uneventful (with the exception of the first 3 days) and we’ve been able to enjoy the 1-2 ft sea state and the beautiful sunsets that come after an 80-degree day on deck.

However some days we have to suffer through pouring rain, thunderstorms, and high seas. Yet even those days (where you are spending most of the time hoping you don’t vomit up your lunch while helping out the scientists) you can find those beautiful moments that make all the suffering worth it.

For this particular cruise we spent the majority of our time off of the shelf of Georgia and near Daytona Beach, Florida. The objective of this cruise was to collect data using fishery-independent sampling techniques, specifically by using chevron fish traps and underwater high-definition video. The main fish that we were aiming to catch was the Northern Red Snapper, which is a prized food fish, caught commercially, as well as recreationally. Red Snapper is the most commonly caught snapper in the continental USA making up almost 50% of total catch. Overall we sampled a total of 142 stations with traps and underwater video (112 random, 11 opportunistic, and 19 recon) in Georgia and Florida over 10 days at-sea. The weather was a little bumpy to begin our cruise, forcing us to forgo some sampling on the second day. Highlights of the cruise were 172 red snapper trapped, including a bunch of small red snapper around 200-300 mm total length. A couple of videos likely had 30-40 red snapper visible. We also caught a small (3-kg) goliath grouper off Daytona Beach. Catches of other species were light to moderate. Video quality was very good, and the MARMAP group was able to record 80-90 GoPro Hero 3+ calibration videos for a hopeful switch to GoPro cameras next year. I believe we will be donating around 300 lbs of fillets to the Salvation Army in Savannah.

For the most part I spent the cruise running the pot hauler to retrieve the traps, as well as standing watch, and working on instrument malfunctions. Retrieving the traps was a three-step process. First you had to grapple for the buoy lines. Once you pulled the buoys in and created enough slack you could attach the line to the pot hauler. Lastly you had to pull the trap on board and dump the contents into a bucket.

Step 1: Grapple buoy line

Step 2: Reel up trap using pot hauler (and make bets on trap contents)

Step 3a: Stop the pot hauler with enough rope to allow scientists to pull trap onto deck. Avoid reeling in too much or else you will screw up the block.

Once all of the traps are collected the science party will begin processing their catch. Overall there were pretty much three different species that were consistently caught: Red snapper, Black sea bass, and Tomtate.

Since this cruise was focusing on red snapper all the specimens caught were processed. The scientists took weight and length measurements, as well as otolithes (fish ear bones), DNA samples, Reproductive Organs, and Stomach content of the red snapper. The other trapped fish were measure for weight and length, however depending on the species (I don’t remember the exact list) they may have gotten worked up more.

Beginning the data collection process

Fish are sorted by species

Bucket full of Vermillion Snapper

Once all species are sorted the scientists take a species bucket and dump it into the laundry bucket to determine total mass

After being weighed the fish is measured. The species shown here is a Red Snapper.

Depending on the species the fish may or may not get an extended work up. In this picture the otolith (fish ear bone) is being removed.

Usually the catches were generally similar (assuming there was actually something in the trap) however the best part of the cruise was when we found an unexpected species in our traps.

Remora aka Shark Sucker. This species is generally found attached to sharks, turtles, large fish, or even the hulls of ships.

Short Bigeye- Generally not found in trap due to their habit of feeding at night and hiding during the day.

Reticulate Moray

Red Octopus

Salps- A planktonic tunicate that was wraped up in our trap

Unknown (to me) Eel

Golith Grouper

Since this was a fisheries cruise one could probably assuming that most of the science party members like to fish….that was garanteed this trip. Every chance they got, either while steaming towards the next trap site or while anchored during the night, they would put their lines out. I’m not going to lie….it was sort of contagious. I’ve never been fishing before this cruise but with enough prodding I finally decided to cast out a line…and was instantly catching fish left and right. It was awesome. What made it even better (in my mind since I don’t eat seafood) was the fact anything we caught was being added to our dataset. Overall we caught a lot of different fish. While trawling we caught Dolphins, Barricuda, Little Tunny, a sailfish, and some sharks. Bottom fishing had its own unique catches, mostly Snapper, Squirrelfish, Tomtate, Black Sea Bass, Sharks, and a Sea Robin. Below are some of the pictures of everyone enjoying their free time fishing.

One of the scientists hooking a barracuda

Close up of barracuda

First fish I every caught – Snapper

Second catch – Snubnose shark

Squirrelfish

Red Snapper caught by one of the science party

Lizardfish caught by one of the science party

Tom Tate

Dolphin

Sea Robin

Apocalypse Now

By Sonia Brugger

On August 27, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Savannah, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, University of Georgia

My current work list consists of:

Ship data summary document (a document given to all scientists at the end of the cruise to help them navigate their raw data cd) – update document to reflect changes in file structure.
ADCP Frame – Remove ADCP. Sand and paint frame with Anti-fouling paint. (See picture above for awesome Apocalypse coustume aka sanding and painting gear)
Shared-Use Equipment maintenance:
Grab Samplers – lubricate
Trawl bridle – make new bridle
NEUSTON net – Inspect and replace/retie line holding chain on
Re-soak SBE 21/25 (using bleach/water solution) – vacuum bottom of canister (to remove debrie that can clog and distrupt sensors
Finish updating wire log database (data recorded when J-frame is deployed)
PC Cleaning – take apart and clean laptops as well as servers to optimize airflow
CAT5 to Chief Scientist cabin – Pretty much we have had requests to permit internet access to the chief scientists room, which required us to make new cables and run them from the router/switch. It was a good training in electrical work.

Check Salinities on the two SBE 21’s in our possesion – we had just recieved a unit back from SeaBird that had been tested, so it was a requirment to make sure both of them had similar readings before installing the new unit.
Pot Hauler maintencance – remove hauler, relube bolts to main sheave, reblube shackles on hauler and outer sheav, use abil wire to secure shakle pins
Electrical wiring diagrams – using a computer software to convert handwritten electrical diagrams to cleaner computer based diagrams.
Update PC log – Finding all of the computers on the ship and writing down basic information such as usernames/passwords/OS/RAM/Processor Speed/and Optical Drive.
Updating NobleTec Chart Software – Making sure the Wheelhouse has the most up to date version of their navigation software to ensure safe passage during cruises
And most importantly….putting tennis balls on the bottoms of all the chair legs….

Of course the work on a ship is never ending. It seems as if every item on my list that I complete spawns two more things to do. One of the most frustrating things currently is the fact my mentor is on vacation for the week…so while I am more the confident at my ability to complete all my tasks (and the new ones that pop up) I am also finiding myself stuck on some tasks because I would like to get his approval first. Ohh well, in the meantime I will continue to finish my work list and help out the rest of the crew on their projects.

Week Six- The End

By Alison Mitchell

On August 26, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment

We spent a few more days at anchor in the Chesapeake Bay and then we packed up and headed for Lewes. It took a little less than a day to get back; we steamed through the night and got to the dock early morning. We had a quick turn around off loading some of the science equipment and personnel that would not b joining us on the second leg of my final trip on the Sharp. Around 9 am we left the dock with a few extra people, the University of Delaware’s Provo’s and his family along with some other officials joined us for a little cruise around the bay to see some of the work that the boat can do. We went out past the breakwater and did a CTD cast and our guests were given a complete tour of the boat. After the cast we headed back in behind the breakwater to get some respite from the sea state. There we had a wonderful lunch and the visitors were faired back to the dock with the small boat. Once they had been off loaded and everything secured we headed out. Our goal was to get out to where the water would be deep enough to do a 2,000m cast to look at the water profile and take some samples. The weather was a bit rough and some of the scientist got seasick. I went to bed after dinner in anticipation of our early morning CTD cast that was scheduled for 4 am. I got up bright and early and we ended up having to wait for the sun to come up so that the mate on watch could see the sea state and keep us all comfortable for the nearly 3 hour cast. Right after sunrise we put the CTD over and all when well until about 1200m when the computer lost the connection to the instruments on the CTD, we were able to restart the program and get things running again with out having to restart the cast. After that everything went fine and we finished the cast and then did 2 more, not quite so deep but still pretty deep. After the casts were done, much to the delight of the scientists, we headed back early to make it back to Lewes for the early tide. We got in around 8 am the next day and off loaded the science gear. I spent the day helping get the boat ready for the next trip, doing laundry and making up beds. I also helped clean the CTD and get the computers ready for the next trip. Late in the afternoon, Max one of the techs. brought me to Salisbury, MD where I would fly out of the next day. We went to a cute little city run zoo with free admissions and then Max dropped me off at my hotel in anticipation of my flight the next day. I am now currently sitting in the airport in Philly waiting for my connecting flight home to Providence. I should be getting home right now but my first flight was late taking off so we got to Philly with only 20min till my next flight left. I knew my chances of making it were slim but I ran across the airport like a crazy person with my backpack and carry on in tow but missed my flight. As I sit here in the airport, it has given me a chance to reflect on the past six weeks that have flown by and were such a whirlwind of activity. I learned a lot and had a ton of fun this summer on the Sharp and I cant wait to get back out to sea again.

The R/V Oceanus marine tech team

By Nikiforos Delatolas

On August 26, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, Oregon State University, CEOAS, R/V Oceanus

Steaming west in the Labrador Sea

By Robert Daniels

On August 25, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive

Every body of water has its own character. Its unique inputs and diverse atmospheric interactions create a set of distinctive qualities. The Labrador Sea, which is just a small section of the North Atlantic Ocean, exemplifies this idea having such a different feel from its oceanic sibling, the Irminger Sea. The Labrador feels colder, which is probably due, in part, to the lack of warm Gulf Stream current and its heat flux. Its bird population seems to be composed of larger species with a greater diversity. Each afternoon I watch Shearwaters, Iceland Gulls, and a few yet identified birds soaring along the surface of the water, sketching the contours of the sea swells at what seems to me to be an all too dangerous proximity. When the weather picked up on Wednesday night, countless puffins took refuge in the lee of the ship, diving below the sizable swells that rolled by. It’s striking how different an ecosystem and environment can be on the opposite side of a small end of land. Even down to the difference in smell which we get as we’re heading back toward the coast on the ends of our CTD sections. The odor is more alive, even primordial soupish, hanging in the moist night air, engulfing the boat.

I’ve been working a lot with the LADCP, which stands for lowered ADCP. The set up we’re using is two ADPCs mounted on the CTD rosette– one points up and the other down. They are used to look at the velocity of the currents in the water column at every station and assembled into sections to give researchers a look at the greater and lesser current in the area. It is necessary because the ship board ADCP is only good for the first 150 meters, but as the ship is 3000 meters of water, the LADCP is essential to get a look at the entire system.

The LADCP is run using a Python program supported by Linux which I enjoy digging through when we have a deployment or recovery problem, though it’s a little stressful on the quick turn arounds. I’m getting better at deducing the problems that arise and using the growing set of skills that I’ve picked up on the trip to sort them out. It feels really good getting comfortable with a complex oceanographic instrument that I felt was very cryptic and intimidating when we left the dock in Reykjavik. Dan, the physical oceanography research specialist from WHOI, and I tested all the cables Thursday afternoon and ran through the system during this evenings shift. He’s a really nice and smart guy that has been teaching me a lot about ADCPs. We ended up having to replace the faltering wiring harness that connected the ADCPs and the battery together and to the ship, making the whole system worked far better afterwards. It stopped returning error codes in what I thought looked like Icelandic to my deployment and recovery commands, which was terribly unnerving at 3AM on a coastal cast, especially when the majority of those stations have 10 minutes between them, creating an increased urgency for the instrument to just work.

Our cruise has done a total of 150 CTD casts, 90 of which has been deployed and recovered by Larik and me on the night shift, leaving the other two shifts to split the difference. I’m really glad be got the busy overnight schedule. I’m getting the experience that I came here for, plus I’m being pushed to progress in an environment and with people that really facilitate learning. We’ve gotten very good at our job, working well with each other and doing it with an absolute smoothness that makes getting a 1200 pound. CTD out of a big swell and on to the swaying boat controlled and easy. I just wish my Russian was progressing as well.

All this work culminated with last night’s flawless shift; with no computer freeze ups, miss firing bottles, or any sort of minor breakdown. There wasn’t one hectic situation where I learned how to fix a different problem that arises on a ship on the fly. Nothing went awry. It was a prefect ballet, rolling through a gentle story, punctuated with moments of excitement (i.e. the CTD recovery and deployment) and elation.

Hole in the hull

By Nikiforos Delatolas

On August 21, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, Oregon State University, CEOAS, R/V Oceanus

This past week we have been tied to the dock doing various repairs and getting ready for the next cruise. The crew sanding and painting in the wet lab, the mechanics welding in the galley, the marine techs opening and cleaning all hardware in electronic racks, and the engineers installing a flow through system pump in the engine room.

But last Tuesday was not an ordinary workday. After lunch Jonha, the marine technician, and I climbed through a hatch below the main deck and down a 16 foot narrow tube into a chamber the size of a Volkswagen Beetle.

After making sure we had all the tools we needed, we established radio contact with Chip, the engineer, and told him to close the door and start pressurizing. Air started coming through the vents and our ears started popping as if we were scuba diving. After 30 minutes of swallowing to equalize we reached seven psi. Only then we began to remove the bolts from a thick steel plate located at the bottom of the ship. Sixteen bolts later, I lift up the plate to see the ocean beneath me as still as if it was a bowl of water.

The objective of all this was to replace the two plates with Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) transducers that emit high frequency pulses of sound that scatter off moving particles in the ocean. From the change in transmitted and received frequency we can determine current velocity.

These transducers look like one-inch thick steel 19^th century top hats with sensitive instruments inside. Securing them into their exact position in this small space was a challenge to say the least. It took us three hours to install them both, check for leaks, repeat, add more washers and check again.

The simple physics behind the reason why we didn’t sink the ship by opening a hole in the hull is that the pressure of the water at that depth is less or equivalent to the pressure of air in our chamber, so ideally there is not fluid movement either way.

On one occasion the waterline started rising so we radioed the engineer above to increase the pressure and the water started going down. What we found out later is that every time we made a seal between the hull and the transducer the air pressure jumped up to 9 psi, so the engineers had to immediately turn off the intake and open the valves to release air. Big thanks to Chip and Don for standing by for three hours monitoring the gauges. Overall, it was an amazing experience.

Week Five

By Alison Mitchell

On August 20, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment

We made it back to Lewis and off loaded the science crew from the second cruise and loaded the scientist for my final trip. The scientists on this final trip were pretty self sufficient and got most of their gear on themselves. We left Lewis early in the morning on the 18^th and spent all day transiting to a site just bellow the Bay Bridge. We stopped every two salinity points as we made our way up the bay and did a CTD cast to get a profile and fire a couple of bottles. Once we got to the site we dropped anchor and did another CTD and did the first of many pump casts. This is a metal frame with different equipment attached to it and a pump to collect water samples. It needed to be lowered over the side of the boat a meter or so at a time, but the winch had no metering device and the metering block was broken. One turn of the winch drum was about 2.5m so I would watch a piece of tape on the drum go around and guess when the appropriate amount of wire had been paid out, which is apparently a hidden talent I have because I got fairly good at it by the end of the trip. The next two days were a repeat of the pump profiler and CTD casts on repeat. The CTD profiles we got while at anchor were some of the coolest I saw while on the boat. We were anchored in an anoxic hole and when the CTD when down to a point the oxygen readings would drop to zero. Today we did some multi coring which was a very cool, very messy process. We sent the multi coreer over twice and completely messed up the cores on the first one and then got some good ones on the second try. The hole apparatus is a metal frame with a top and a bottom part that are locked open when it is not in use. There are 4 plexi glass tubes around the frame that when they dig into the mud and the bottom part gets pushed up into the top it triggers the tubes to close and collect the mud. The tricky part is getting the samples out once back on deck. It was a messy process and after some trial and error we finally figured it out and all went well. The rest of the day consisted of more CTD’s and pump casts and lots of popsicles. I got to make a trip in on the small boat today and on the way back I got some good pictures of the boat!

R/V Knorr is in the Labrador Sea

By Robert Daniels

On August 18, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive

We had our first sight of Greenland at 14:30 on the 11^th. The rising sea became more littered with icebergs and coastal debris on our track west, toward the coast. As we approached land, the immense size of the rugged mountains and glaciers became more apparent and impressive. Giant horns towered over a coast strewn with remnants of the ranges erosion. I went up to the bridge to get a better look at the landscape and, as luck would have it, I got to see a couple of pilot whales and this pea soup thick fog bank rushing in to obliterate our sightseeing. It was all really breathtaking– one of those moments that I stopped to actively appreciate how rare and amazing this experiences is.

With mooring deployment consuming all the daylight hours, CDT casts have all been scheduled at night, which has made Larik and my shift very busy. The nights of the 11^th and 13^th were especially hectic when we were doing a casts for a high resolution data collection of the Eastern Greenland coast, in an attempt to get a better understanding of the Eastern Greenland Current. We had ten minutes between cast until 4:00, which meant starting the set up for a deployment as we finished the last cast. We real got into a rhythm at about midnight on the first night making the rest of the night and subsequent days easier and more fun. Larik is even teaching me some Russian as we work, including songs from famous Russian musicals, in trade for the conversational English lessons I’m giving him.

On the night of the 12^th, we spent the night “mowing the lawn”, which means steering the ship on a grid pattern course collecting bathymetry data. We used the soundings with their latitudes and longitudes to create a contour map of the sea bottom around the area we’re putting the mooring tomorrow. It really gave me a better sense of what we’re looking at on the echo sounder screen and how “right” my previous interpretations of the data was, also how to infer a more realistic picture of what the bottom looks like. In the past I’ve only been on ships that have gone to established mooring sites, where we’ve recovered and re-deployed moorings. This trip is much more involved, having to establish a site, installing the moorings in a reasonable and advantageous spot.

I’ve been working with Nick, the technician, on the Seabeam software, attempting to sort out the bugs in the system. The Seabeam has been down since the ship tapped the bottom leaving WHOI. Just enough water got in to scramble the system but not destroy it. Fixing this system would allow us to use the ships high resolution bathymetry system and have a far better understanding of what the sea looks like at the mooring sites. We are getting really close. The computers are finally talking to us and system seems to be awakening from its coma.

We had a minor accident Friday morning as Larik and I were bringing the CTD out of some pretty rough seas. The Winch operator miscalculated the speed he needed to come out of the water and drove the CTD up into the winch block, it’s called two blocking. Our tugger winch’s groaned under the strain of the sudden yank until we quickly let out line. The cable eye was pulled beyond its breaking strength, thus needed to be replaced. Looking on the bright side, no one was hurt and I got to observe how a replace the eye on a steel cable, but it did shut down work for a couple hours.

It’s Sunday and we’ve made it to the Labrador Sea after an epic crossing through the Prince Christian Sound. We spent last night doing XBT cast on the west coast of Greenland. XBT’s are a onetime use temperature probe that we send down as far as 1830 meters so researchers get a feel for the water column. Historically XBT’s were “… prepared “by rubbing a bit of skunk oil on with a finger and then wiping off with the soft side of one’s hand,” followed by smoking the slide over the flame of a Bunsen burner.”, but lucky it’s all done by a simple instrument and some software at this point. These XBT’s, CTD’s, and the Bathymetry work of the last few days are all in preparation for the mooring that we get started with on Monday morning at 6:00.

Life is good.

Castles in the sand

By Sonia Brugger

On August 15, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Savannah, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, University of Georgia

After taking our sediment samples the scientist Meg and I decided to build a sandcastle. Must say it was a fitting way to end our cruise. Photo by Sonia Brugger.

Week Four

By Alison Mitchell

On August 15, 2014

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, University of Delaware, College of Earth, Ocean and Environment

The rest of the storm chasing trips had been a bit tough. We had some really rough weather and had almost three days when we couldn’t work. We weren’t able to do any science, which was hard on the science crew; they got a bit restless, which is completely understandable. We did finally get to do a couple CTD yesterday in the morning before we had to head for Lewis tToday. Other than that we had a couple of days of good science before the sea state got too bad. We got back out to the drifters and did about a days worth of sampling and then we steamed southwest in hunt of rain. We got to the spot where the rain was supposed to be and sure enough it poured for about 4 hours and then it stopped and we headed back to the drifters and continued where we had left off. We had a few more days of following the drifters around with the same daily routine on CTD, clean CTD, light meters and tow fishing with aerosol sampling at night. On the night of the 11th and we spent most of the 12th and 13th rolling around. There were a few big rollers where I felt like I was on a rollercoaster and my stomach got that sudden dropping feeling, but mostly it just feels like you are on a terrible never ending carnival ride, just enough movement that you can feel it and it effects you but not enough to be fun! Once we were finally able to do science again we did a deep cast that everyone had been prepping for for days with styrofoam cups. When you send a cup down to 2000m it get awfully small!