Month: June 2015 Page 1 of 2

The last week aboard the Sharp was a mix of light and hard days of work. The first two days of the week (Fri and Sat) were mostly Habcaming with the occasional light dredging. One dredge in particular though on Saturday had a huge boulder, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. It had to be craned off the table. Other than the boulder, the days went quickly and had a light load of work. Sunday on the other hand was brutal. Science made the call to end the cruise early due to the weather and we had to offload everything while in Woods Hole Sunday. I was exhausted as I had to start the hard process of switching over to being diurnal.  When we arrived in port at 5:20 am, the weather was overcast and very windy but it soon worsened into hard rain and the occasional lightning. We worked in our full foul weather gear to offload all the dredges, the keel pod, and all the wire cages filled with science’s equipment via crane. Loud Fuel arrived an hour and a half late and began refueling at around 8 am. It took several hours to offload and refuel but things in general went smoothly. By noon, the last the gear was off and it was time to begin the 30-hour steam back to Lewes. The rest of Sunday and the whole of Monday was spent heading home and cleaning the ship. The dry lab, wet lab, vestibule, staterooms, and the heads all had to be cleaned before arrival.

We docked in Lewes by early Tuesday morning. It was brutally hot that day but we worked hard in the morning to crane off the scallop table, scallop ramp, Habcam deck, Habcam ramp, and the two small hydraulic winches. A small boat was added to the deck for the upcoming cruise in the Bahamas. Wednesday was much nice in comparison. The weather cooled off after thunderstorms in the night. In the morning, the two keel pods were removed, the van was removed, and after lunch, a new van was installed. This was a slow process as it was difficult to crane such large and ungainly things while also staying safe. Max and I finished the day by installing three new fridges and freezers and a fume hood. Today, we finished off the rest of the work. I spent most of my time helping install the new keel pods before the crew had to attend an important staff meeting. While the crew was in the meeting, the new intern arrived, Amber. I got her settled and showed her around before it was time to get back to work. Right at the end of the workday at 3pm, the SMS computer decided to act up. The next couple of hours were spent collectively trying to troubleshoot the hardware for the setup. Finally at 5, the stars aligned and the computer was working. Amber and I ate dinner downtown before we headed back to the ship for the night.

Sadly, this will be the last post from me. These past weeks have been incredible and life changing. I will be sad leaving the ship tomorrow morning for the last time while heading to the airport. Thank you MATE so much for giving me this opportunity.

Signing off,

Maia

The start of the week was uneventful. We Habcamed for a day and a bit until it was time to start dredging. Saturday, the first day of dredging, was marked by hauls filled with sand dollars and some huge monkfish. Sunday was more interesting. The first few dredges were full of shell hash and one in particular was so muddy and huge I had to help sort for twenty minutes. After breakfast, science decided to change out the dredges so that the one currently on deck and the one currently in use switched. They needed to do some repair work to the inner lining of the dredge. That took a good while to maneuver and crane the dredges into place. However, once everything was figured out, the dredges after it were rather fun. One haul had lots of baby monkfish (over ten), one haul had a huge lobster and a seahorse, and one haul had a little, bitty octopus (as pictured above). That little octopus made my week!

Monday was quiet in comparison. The hauls were small and the runs between stations were long (30-60 minutes of downtime). A large, thick haddock was caught in one of dredges and was cooked up for lunch. It made for a good fried fish sandwich. Unfortunately, Tuesday was probably the hardest day of the week. Fog moved in, there was constant precipitation, and the swells had grown. It never graduated into bad weather but it was enough to make the work long and chilly. On the bright side, I saw a mola mola right up next to the ship and some species of sea bird landed and hung around the deck where we were working. It took off after a few minutes before anyone could take a picture. By Wednesday we only had a couple of dredge stations left. I only had to do four dredges before it was time to pull the dredge up and place the Habcam in. We Habcamed all of my Thursday watch as well but by Friday we will likely be back to dredging.

Plans are up in the air for the end of the cruise. We don’t have enough fuel to make it to the end and weather is supposed to get nasty for Sunday. The tentative plan is to refuel Sunday morning and wait for the weather to die down before heading back out. By tomorrow (Friday) there should be a final decision.

Until next week,

Maia

This past week been exciting! On Friday we dredged the whole day but this time we were getting lots of scallops. For one memorable dredge, there were so many scallops that they overflowed the net. The scallops were the size of dinner plates and were covered in muck. The dredging however was interrupted the next few days due to weather. Bad weather was supposed to move in where we were for the weekend. In particular, the wind was supposed to pick up to around 20-30 knots. In order to stay safe, we spent the first half of Saturday steaming over to the water near Nantucket. The idea was that instead of being stuck over 100 miles off shore in bad weather, the area around Nantucket was close to shore and could buffer storms. Once we arrived at Nantucket we continued to dredge as to not waste time. Personally, most of my watch that day was spent waiting for arrival but I did have some rock filled dredges towards the last few hours of my day. While waiting around, I noticed that there were many, many whales. While in the past weeks whales were not uncommon, that day in every direction I looked I could see at least one whale. There were more than whales as well. I saw seals, dolphins, and sharks too. It was incredible and time flew watching them. Unfortunately, I was unable to get any good pictures.

The next few days were spent dredging around Nantucket and the occasional Habcaming. On Monday we had particularly bad luck with dredging.  There were multiple hauls that consisted of huge mounds of sand dollars or brittle stars. Anything other than scallops, fish, and one species of crab is considered trash and is duumpted over the side. One dredge broke the record for bushels of trash with 49 bushels of sand dollars. Those types of dredges and the dredges with rocks are the hardest and most backbreaking type of haul so Habcaming was a well needed break.

On Tuesday we pulled up the Habcam and steamed back to Woods Hole. We arrived at around 6 pm and I grabbed dinner at a local café. We spent the whole of Wednesday mobilizing. Most of the time was spent trying to install a new washer and dryer as ours had broken down a couple days prior. This was a large undertaking since the laundry machine didn’t fit through the doorways. Instead, they had to be craned through a hatch. Like all days on land, we worked from 7 am to 3 pm. At the end of the workday, I took the ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard to visit a friend from college who lives there. Bright and early this morning we left Woods Hole and started Leg 3 of this scallop survey. Today was entirely spent steaming out to the first station. I have to look forward to over 100 dredges by the end of the trip as science wants to do 70% dredging and 30% Habcaming.

See you next week,

Maia