Month: May 2017 Page 1 of 2

After completing our event in Baton Rouge we made our way to Morgan City, where we met several workers at the Oceaneering facility. For many years, Oceaneering has centered its ROV work in the Gulf of Mexico, laying pipelines for oil rigs. However, due to a dying industry, they have shifted their energy towards research endeavors. We will be working alongside oceaneering workers, scientists and LUMCON’s director- no pressure! The Mississippi Canyon is a region located wtihn the Gulf of Mexico-where the Deep Water Horizon tragedy occurred only several years ago. The mission of our ROV cruise is focused on deep-sea biodiversity. We will explore many sites, including the Deep Water Horizon region and several other shipwrecks. In addition to ROV footage and collection, our scientists onboard will be conducting several “woodfall” stations using a basket rigged to our side winch (see top description).

Our first day in transit set the tone for the rest of our cruise- full of problems and excitement! We spent a majority of the first day refueling and rewatering, while also fixing and ordering a port navigation light that went out during the night. During our cruise, we deployed both the ROV and a steel basket filled with logs off our side winch. However, the memo that we would be using a basket did not make it up the chain of command, and many crew members found themselves dumbfounded and flustered by the event. Because Oceaneering made our floating tether for our basket too long, we spent a majority of our trip retooling a method for disconnecting and reconnecting the basket at the bottom. The idea is to deploy the basket and ROV to the bottom with transducers on the basket, ROV and site mooring. The mooring will be dropped at our log location and the ROV then must open the basket with a robotic arm and insert logs into the sediment for later recovery. The mooring will stay down below for later return.

In short, the basket caused much more trouble before it became better. Deploying both a basket and ROV off our boat- which is not a DP vessel- is very dangerous as wires can become tangled in our wheels. Because of this, the Captain held position manually our whole trip. After a few days of refitting, and very very long nights, we found several issues wrong with our side winch. Our side winch has not been used this deep (2000m+) in a very long time. While deploying our basket, our chief engineer found several kinks at 1800m of line. We had to immediately pull and address the winch issue, which could not be fixed. Luckily, we reterminated our basket wire and fitted it to our other side winch- which worked swimmingly! Posted below is a photo of the infamous basket! Which I may add a small ancetdote- we found a lizard in there! The lizard must have came from LUMCON and got stuck in a log pile. She (which we originally thought was a he, before she laid an egg) swam all the way back to the boat when the basket was deployed. I took care of “Wilma” for several days and she made it back to LUMCON safely! I will post a photo in my later blog, when the cruise ends!

PC: Jason Bradley- an extremely talented photographer who accompanied us during our cruise! He has many more pictures coming- so stay tuned for more 🙂

In addtion to our basket and winch, I learned so much during this fun- yet extremely stressful cruise! For starters, I learned about transponders- an acoustic location system which uses pings and beeps to locate objects for later deployment. As stated, we used these devices on our ROV, basket and moorings and tracked them on a program called Tracklink 5000. It is very important to know where our equipment is while on the vessel- to ascertain nothing is under the boat or tangled (which almost happened a few times). Perhaps my favorite part of the cruise was all the amazing ROV technology! It is incredible that we can set an instrument under water and see what is happening in real time- and do scientific sampling and work! I learned how to tagline, deploy, recover and “fly” an ROV. All very dangerous- yet exciting. Posted below is a photo of my flying for the first time! The cruise is not yet over, but I am so extremely grateful for this experience, the science party and the crew I’ve grown to love with all my heart.

PC: James Aldridg from Oceaneering

And the rest! (more to come) All from Jason Bradley!

A deep sea isopod we collected!

Dreaming of beer and hamburgers.

STAY TUNED!

Its week two on board the Atlantis

By Daniel O'Grady

On May 28, 2017

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

It’s Week Two. Yes the second week has ended and this one snuck up on me. We keep to a steady schedule of getting out of bed at five, prepping the sub and trying to get it out on deck around seven fifteen, and in the water by eight. This means we all need to on our game to get our task done the right way wile being the most efficient. Sadly this means finding time for pictures of the prep, rollout, and launch can get difficult. Now have no fear I have some pictures of all the other work I’ve been doing.

Now I believe I left off on last Tuesday with describing my struggles of finally getting the network figured out. So were on to Wednesday. Wednesday was s bit of a late start for various reasons we did not get into the water till eleven o’clock. The camera crew that I had briefly mention before had bee for a show on Vice. Now I never caught what the show was called and any other information for that matter. It was very strait forward, here is the sub, here is how it works, and then they got to go down for a ride and look around. Do to the work I was doing at the time I didn’t really see them too much. The Vice crew had there own vessel that they would return to at the end of the day and by Thursday they were gone.

Thursday, well Thursday is the day when the weather changed from sunshine and smooth waters to rain, rain, and more rain. It really wasn’t that bad because the storms didn’t last long enough to produce large waves. I started a new side project were I had to rebilled the thermal couples on the sub’s ICLs (inductively coupled link). An ICL interface allows for a non-contact serial communication with an instrument via a pulsed AC magnetic filed. This allows the sub to use different interchangeable tools on one arm and not have to worry about wires.

Friday was a little more interesting. The sub went into the water at its normal time and I continued work on the thermal couples. In all it went according to plain until it was time to pule the sub out of the water. We had a visitor land on the walkway we use to get people in and out of the sub wile it was on deck. At the time we didn’t think anything of it, birds land on the ship all the time so it was nothing new. So after a wile we are finally bringing the sub in and this bird had not left yet. Well we tried everything short of pushing the bird off the walkway and it still wouldn’t leave. Lone behold it wasn’t until we got everyone out of the sub when this bird decided stop standing in the middle of the walkway and flew off.

Saturday was a great contrast to Friday because it didn’t stop raining. It was raining when we put the sub in and was raining wile we took it out. There were no problems with the sub and spent most of my work time that day soaked to the bone. The one thing that was interesting was the thunderstorms that night. Lightning rarely touches down out at sea so most of what we were seeing would branch across from one end of the sky to the other.

Lastly it is today, Sunday. The day started off like all the others, wakening up at five and getting the sub into the water. The weather finally started to clear up and the day was going well. Then around One

O-clock a pod of dolphins came by the ship. There had to be at least one hundred of them. They were chasing down a school of fish and just so happened to pass by the ship. It had happen so fast that it was over before most of the crew new what was happening. When it came time to bring the sub up it had begun to rain again and once it was on deck we got it into the hanger as quick as possible and unloaded the passengers from there. In all the day went really well, other then getting bogged down with work for the sub tonight I have been in a pretty regular schedule the last two weeks.

I am going to try to leave more photos this time and I noticed that my last photo didn’t scale properly for my posting. I don’t know it if the case for everyone but if it continues to happen you can view the photo by right clicking and going to view image. I am trying to figure it out.

Week 2 on R/V Sharp

By Huxley Conner

On May 27, 2017

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

Hello again from the R/V Sharp! It has been quite a crazy week on board. Last Saturday was quite rough, and many of the scientists were out of commision with sea sickness as the habcam was towed once more. Showering was quite an ordeal! I had to take a pill when I felt it coming on…but luckily soon afterwards I was fine. I learned how to terminate, or put the end plugs on, ethernet cables that we might need when we figure out what is wrong with that internet. After a little trial and error, we got our terminations to work! Dinner was amazing, where Paul, the cook, prepared seafood alfredo featuring the some of the scallops we caught yesterday. Sunday was another gorgeous day weatherwise with the seas lessening, as we reached the northern Jersey shore with the cam. The water began to change color from slightly translucent blue to the more opaque sea green I am used to. The scientists showed me a habcam image of a dolphin, which they happened to get a very clear shot of.

Monday was calm but rainy, so we spent the day inside fixing code for the winch plot graphs, which were not reading tension porperly. These are important because we need to know how much strain the habcam is putting on our deck winch. It took a while, as Christian and I are both relatively new at coding, but we talked out and worked thorugh the problem together until the front office was happy. Tuesday we got a task via e mail from KG, the senior tech who was not on board, to design a flowchart for the internet system so we can more quickly find the problem when we get back to port. It was a long day of tracing wires throughout the entire ship, and even then we did not have a complete chart! As we were working on the bridge, we got a chance to talk to Jimmy, the captain, who was very nice. He told me to stop by his office some time so he could give me a crew shirt, affirming that I was a true crew member.

Wednesday we went back to port in Lewes, Delaware a little early to avoid an oncoming storm. The cruise was a success, with scientists processing over 3 million images that will be used to estimate scallop populations. I helped tie up the boat, then worked with Christian to turn off the flow through system. KG and Tim Deering came on board and we all worked on the internet, adding to the flowchart. When we all ran out of ideas, it was time to call the IT company on shore that we work with. I had the rest of the day off, and felt quite landsick once I left the boat as I was not used to standing on solid ground. Yes that is a thing! Christian invited me over to his place for dinner, where we talked about his previous experices as a science volunteer on other research ships and what working on the Sharp was actually like.

Thursday it was raining once again, as all hands were on board to get set for the second leg. I helped the crew load a sediment grabber, and worked with Drew to drill into metal plates that will be used to better anchor the CTD. KG, who will be working with me on the next leg, showed me a little about how the multibeam scanner worked. We will need it to get an accurate profile of the bottom on portions of this leg. Pam, the cook for this leg, arrived, causing me to have to vacate the room I had been sharing with Paul and move down with a scientist. I spent the last few hours working with Pam and Joe, one of the shoreside workers, to load food and distribute clean linens.

Finally, Fiday morning we casted off again to begin the second leg, heading north along the shelf towards Massachusetts. Once I helped with lines again, I worked with KG and Drew to start the flowthough system, lower the keel and start the various systems for data logging like the SMS.
After a while of steaming, during which time I worked on a spreadsheet describing all the sensors we own, taking pictures of them, and linking them all to their digital manuals. The CTD is much more complex than I thought! In the evening we deployed the habcam again, and after that time it was my day on the rotation to clean the boat and empty trash. I then was told to see Sean, the Chief Mate, who told me I have to move rooms again tonight because all of science wants to be dowwnstairs together. Since our job is to keep them happy, I told him that I would move to a pullout sofa in the conference room. I felt that I had to be willing to be flexible. At least now I have control of the ice cream freezer! I am looking forward to this next week, an learning much from KG who is an incredibly knowledgeable marine technician.

Until then,

Huxley

Pictures from Scallop Leg 1

By Huxley Conner

On May 25, 2017

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

/files/marine/files/IMG_0720.JPG/> : Arriving at the Sharp

/files/marine/files/IMG_0728.JPG : The habcam pre deployment

/files/marine/files/IMG_0726.JPG : The scallop dredge pre deployment

/files/marine/files/IMG_0731.JPG : Leaving Lewes, DE

/files/marine/files/IMG_0735.JPG : First sunset at sea

/files/marine/files/IMG_0736.jpg : Deploying the habcam

/files/marine/files/IMG_0742.jpg : Friends I saw off the bow

/files/marine/files/IMG_0753.JPG : The scallops we caught while dredging

/files/marine/files/IMG_0754.JPG : I got a chance to shuck a bunch of scallops with the scientists

/files/marine/files/IMG_0760.JPG : The bottom that we dredged up

First week with the R/V Atlantis

By Daniel O'Grady

On May 23, 2017

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

My adventure started last Tuesday. I had to fly from my parents place in Virginia to Atlanta and then on to Costa Rica. I was able to meat another member of the Alvin team in Atlanta. Hue has been working at WHOI for a long time now but has not worked with Alvin to often during his time there. When we got into San Jose I got to meat Mike, one of the Alvin pilots. Mike has been doing this for a wile and has had the opportunity to dive on numerous locations. One very notably of which was the Titanic. There were several people flying in that night so instead of leaving for the port everybody stayed at the local Days Inn. The fallowing morning we drove two hours to Puntarenas. Then we took the 12:00 ride over to the Atlantis. The Atlantis had been out at anchor because the tides and swells were so strong that it would lead to issues wile in port. Once I was aboard all the introductions began and I got to have a tour of the ship. Once that was done I got to meat the rest of the Alvin group, Pat, Todd, Josh, Drew, Jason, and Danik.

Thursday was workday, the Alvin team had to get the sub completely ready for operations. For me this meant that I would be working with the ET shop. I had to be checking the different cameras and making sure everything was set up correctly. Friday Started out with a weight party. A weight party is when you wake up and report on deck at 5:00am to setup the weights for all the cruses. We had to make 82 stacks and each stack had 16 weights. Each weight ways 16 pounds so there is 256 pounds per stack. In the end we moved 20,992 pounds of steal weights. The science group came aboard that day and started to setup all of their equipment. Some of the bigger items we had to go into port to get. As Saturday came around we left the bay at 9:00 and transited for 10 hours to our dive location. Once there we got the elevator set up and dropped it for the dive on Sunday. The elevator is a platform that is sent down with samples attached to it so the sub can place them and recover old samples that were left on pervious dives. Finally Sunday was our first dive day and it went well. I had gotten a run down of jobs I had to complete in order for the sub to get in the water on time. Then when the sub was in the water we prepped for its return and went on to do side projects. I started work on the batteries one of the battery packs had been swapped out and needed work done. The sub was out of the water by 5:00 and then began the post dive operations.

Now I was intending to send out a post that night saying look guys its week one and we just did our first dive. As you can tell it didn’t go according to plan. Internet wasn’t working out to well. There are two more groups that are working on this ship with Alvin. Sentry, which is a UAV (underwater autonomous vehicle) and Wire Flyer, which is a autonomous bot that operates by moving up and down a wire that towed at deep depths. That doesn’t include the science group that is working with Alvin. Every one of these groups needs to be utilizing the network so it has become very limited. We have had two more dives sense Sunday, one on Monday and one today. They went off like clockwork with just your typical post dive maintenance. I have finished my work on the batteries and have moved on to a couple different projects. Things have been going well and there even was a film crew that came out today. I didn’t see much of them but apparently they have a dived schedule for tomorrow.

I’m going to try and post every Sunday in order to recap on the week before. I also will post a picture with me in it next time.

Big Wigs and Boat Celebrations in Baton Rouge

By Amanda Dostie

On May 22, 2017

In Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Pelican

Our short cruise is now officially over and we spent the following late evening in transit to Baton Rouge. The trip was much longer as expected as we had several locks and bridges to go through, which never ceases to tickle my excitement! We took on board our chief scientist for our upcoming ROV cruise- along with two other scientists conducting work on micro-plastics. The Mississippi River is a huge sink for most of the United States pollution, and a large amount of that pollution is composed of micro-plastics. During a selected number of stations, along our transit to Baton Rouge, we slowed down periodically to deploy net tows. The net tows are put over the side deck and slowly drifted until sufficient plastic is accumulated. A scientist on board informed me that it’s not a matter of if fish will be filled with plastic, but a matter of how much. The information was saddening to hear, and holds greater weight knowing a very large majority of US fish bought originates in Lousiana and the Mississippi River. We arrived around 7pm to Baton Rouge, set up our gangways for our event tomorrow, demobilized and called it a night. We have a long few days ahead of us- full of legislative talks and public boat tours.

The following day marked the start of our massive ‘Meet the Fleet’ event. Over the next few days, thousands of people swarmed the boat for tours, info sessions and rides. I worked at our environmental monitoring booth today. The system Amanda and I worked on was placed in a spare lab on board, along with several posters, sensors, artifacts and informational pieces. Though the subject is not as interesting- in lieu to our 5 million USD dollar ROV on display (see picture posted below)- the subject is extremely important and I enjoyed educating the public about its place in society. I tried my best to make it fun and relatable to the public. I believe I was able to reach a large audience-which makes me very happy.

The next few days went as planned, with a premature cancellation on Sunday, due to poor weather. Unfortunately, the call was made too early and we did not receive our storms until the following day. Evidently, the following day was our most important as all Louisiana legislative would be touring the boat..

Big Wigs in Baton Rouge

Today was our last, and most important, day in Baton Rouge. This afternoon, several members of the state legislative department came aboard our vessel. Shortly after the event ended, we made our way to the state capitol for a ceremony service of LUMCON. The service, and several days of boat touring, was meant to educate the public of the importance of LUMCON, its research, educational outreach and vessels. We are hopeful that this event will help fuel funding for a new vessel, which has been extremely beneficial- physically and economically- to the state of Louisiana and Gulf of Mexico region.

Week 1 on R/V Sharp

By Huxley Conner

On May 19, 2017

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

After quite an overnight transit adventure, I made it to the airport in Salisbury, Maryland. There I met Tim Deering, the Ocean Services Coordinator at the University of Delaware, as well as Drew, another marine tech who was hired on a temporary basis just for the scallop cruise. Tim drove us to Lewes, Delaware, where we met the ship as it was being offloaded from its last cruise. I met Ken “KG” and Chirsitan, two of the other technicians that worked onboard. Tim gave us a tour of the boat, including the kitchen, which was well stocked and extremely impressive! My room was very nice (with a TV!) which I would be sharing with Paul, the oncoming cook. The crew and technicians eventually went home, giving Drew and I some free time on the boat. Over the weekend, we worked with the crew to prepare the boat for the first leg of three of the scallop trip.We loaded scallop dredges and repaired hydraulic lines for winches that would be used during the cruise. On Sunday, only Sean, the relief captain, Drew, and I were working, so once we finished Sean drove us to Cape Henlopen State Park and gave us a tour of the area. The views on the point were breathtaking. We then had dinner in town which was very nice. So far, the crew has been very good to work with. On Monday the scientists showed up, and it was all hands on deck to get the van, or shipping container on deck serving as additional lab space, on board. I worked with Christian to load test the CTD (a probe that measures water quality), and helped the scientists set up thier computers and habcam, a large device that will be towed that takes pictures of the ocean floor.

Tuesday we finally left to begin surveying off the coast of Virginia. It was a beautiful, calm day to be out on the water. I stood my first 12 hour tech watch with Christian, where we worked on fixing the cellular internet, which was having issues, lowered the keel that contained transducers for various instruments such as an acoustic depth current profiler (ADCP), Knudsen echosounder, and surface mapping system (SMS), and cleaned out the filter on the flow through system. We helped drop the habcam in to the water and the scientists spent the next few days towing it along transects and taking pictures of the bottom. The equipment was working well, so we did not have a whole lot to do for several days besides occasional network issues and cables and monitors that needed to be hooked up. We continued to monitor our water quality data, It was a good chance to get some reading done, spend some time working with the second mate on the bridge, and look at the deep ocean fauna, including loggerhead turtles, pods of dolphins, a massive ocean sunfish, and even a baby whale. The weather stayed nice, and it was both wonderful and intimidating to be out at sea with no land anywhere in sight.

Today, Friday, was a little more interesting. I began my shift on deck rather than inside on another beautiful day, to find the scientists crowded around the drege table sorting through massive mounds of material from the bottom rather than watching cameras. I helped them separate scallops and crabs from sand dollars, sea mice, worms, and mud that had been pulled up. We collected gallons of scallops, and I got to try my hand at shucking them. The scientists even purified several so Christian and I could try them raw. Not bad…but hopefully the cook will make us some of the leftovers that aren’t being studied! We dredged a second time, sorted, then packed up the dredge and dropped the habcam back in. Jimmy, the captain, after viewing our slightly slow work, joked that “we’re lucky to not be on a scallop boat because we wouldn’t last long.” Now hat the dredging is done, the scientists will continue to run the habcam on transects until we get back to port in Delaware, hopefully by Wednesday, to complete the first leg. So far, my time on the Sharp has been interesting and I have learned so much already about marine technology.

Note: Since the internet is pretty slow on board, I’m going to only post pictures in each port between legs, wheteher it is a blog day or not. Until next time!

Huxley

Docks and Landers in the Gulf

By Amanda Dostie

On May 15, 2017

In Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Pelican

For the remainder of the week, I worked on environmental monitoring with our instrumentalist Amanda. We have a “Meet the Fleet” event coming up in Baton Rouge soon- a large PR event that broadcasts our boats, instruments and different areas of research and education within the LUMCON facility. We are currently working on a weather monitoring station for the event, to rig on board within one of our labs. Amanda spent the week picking up the last of our supplies: PVC piping, and a mounting block that we will attach our sensors to for display. We spent the day rigging our display, and adding last minute aesthetic touches such as blue spray paint. The boat will return tomorrow afternoon- in the meantime, I am swinging by New Orleans to pick up my mentor John at the airport after work. All in all, I am very excited to be back on the boat with the crew!

Back at it again:

Back on the boat for demobilization and loading: We have a short three-day cruise coming up tonight until the 16^th. During my very first cruise on the Pelican, a group of scientists dropped a lander at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. This particular lab group has now returned and will be joining us on a cruise to retrieve their deployed sensors. Several CTD and MIDAS flow-through samples will be taken on the way, to maximize additional research on our transit to our lander station. I am excited to return, and this three-day cruise should be a relaxing transition back onto the boat!

We spent the first day in transit, and picked up several CTDs along the way. I spent some of the morning driving, testing our boat’s alarm systems and learned more about our navigation and anchor lights. By mid afternoon we made our way to our lander station and retrieved our device using a transducer and hydrophone system, which brought our lander afloat. We were able to pick the device up with our back a-frame and did not need to deploy our small boat. Unfortunately, upon arrival on deck, we had the discovery that the lander was fried in several spots and only recorded about ten days of data. Our chief scientist ruled out several possibilities and believes there is an issue with the stepper motor, which draws samples and data. A new part was ordered and will be delivered tomorrow morning at C6C- a common station within the Gulf of Mexico only 3 hours from LUMCON.

Following day:

Our new stepper motor was delivered around 11am, hooked up around lunchtime and tested several times. However, while the stepper motor is fixed, the issue lies in several fried wires. After a long few days of troubleshooting- to no prevail- we had to turn around and are hopeful that we can send a small boat out tomorrow to get our lander back in the water. Heading back now, we should be arriving at dock around 7pm. We will quickly mobilize, bring items on the boat for Meet the Fleet and our scientists will stay on board until our small boat trip tomorrow.

We are leaving late tonight for Meet the Fleet in Baton Rouge. Most of the boat is packed up and our scientists are planning to leave soon to deploy the lander. The wires are fixed and our boat’s MATE will be leaving soon to deploy.

But, I am very excited for our PR event!

Preparation for Internship aboard R/V Atlantis

By Daniel O'Grady

On May 15, 2017

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

My name is Dan O’Grady, I am from the great State of Ohio. Presently I am attending Stark State College in North Canton, Ohio. Originally, I’m from a town called Gahanna, just outside the city of Columbus. I was first introduced to MATE my junior year of high school when I signed up for the Underwater Robotics Class. That was an unusual class to have for a high school that was in the middle of farm country. The teacher of that class (who is one of my greatest supporters) was Mr. Donelson. He had created an afterschool club for students who were dedicated and enjoyed Underwater Robotics. As a club, we competed in MATE’s Rover competition. At the time, we were the only high school in Ohio who were competing so we to travel to Michigan for our regionals. We made it to internationals my first year but placed second at regionals my senior year. Now in college I am finishing an Automation Manufacturing Robotics Degree and have been interested in pursuing more with Underwater Robotics. I have been fortunate to be selected by Woods Hole to be an Intern on their Ship R/V Atlantis.

Five Days ago, I finished my last my last final examines for the semester and travel to Virginia where my family just moved for my father’s job in Washington DC. I will be beginning my travels tomorrow, May 16, flying to San Jose, Costa Rica where I will be meeting up with the submarine pilot and electrical technician to travel to Puntarenas and catch a 10:00 launch to the ship. I look forwarding to this opportunity to experience life as an Oceanographic Technician.

Getting Ready for my Internship on R/V Hugh R. Sharp

By Huxley Conner

On May 10, 2017

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

My name is Huxley Conner, a student at Maine Maritime Academy and newly selected MATE intern for the summer of 2017. I have grown up and lived in the area around New Haven, Connecticut. From a young age, boating, going to the beach, and learning about marine science have been passions of mine. I could not imagine a life where I was not on the water. I even attended a city magnet high school that specialized in marine science and technology, which inspired me to desire a career on the water and apply to a maritime academy.

At Maine Maritime Academy, primarily made up of students training either to be a deck or engine officer on merchant ships, I have completed junior year studying Marine Science and Small Vessel Operations in the small but close knit Corning School of Ocean Studies. This program, with its own dedicated research vessel and unparalleled access to conduct research on the coast of Maine, has been immensely helpful in preparing me for a science career on the water. I originally discovered the MATE internship through two former interns of this program and graduates of my academy, Allison Mitchell and Julianna Diehl, who encouraged me to apply.

Not even a week ago, I have finished finals and have arrived home to Connecticut. Since I leave for Maryland to meet my boat, the R/V Hugh R. Sharp, in three days, I have been busy packing and reading up on how to use and maintain the equipment I will be working with. At the same time, I have been saying my goodbyes to family members and friends at home, who I likely will not see again until Thanksgiving because I am moving to Maine to be a science and sailing instructor at a day camp as soon as my cruise ends.

I will be meeting the boat in Ocean City, Maryland, and will be flying by myself from New York City to get there, a new adventure for me. I will be taking two overnight trains and a bus to get to La Guardia Airport, and then two planes! At least I have family members and friends with a lot of flying experience that I have been learning from. I remember there being an aquarium in Ocean City…but I doubt I will have time to stop. From this internship, I hope to meet many different individuals on board and find out what their experiences are like. I am eager to discover if I can see myself working on a research vessel once I graduate. I cannot wait to get started!