Month: September 2019 Page 1 of 2

Something that no one tells you about research voyages is that most plans are ever changing. Our research cruise has been ahead of schedule in accomplishment of the science mission. There are multiple additional goals that have been added, on a rolling basis. However, I do not know much of the details, and usually wait until a planning meeting prior to the evolution. Other than assisting science I keep myself busy by learning different skills of a marine technician. There is no single task that marine technicians do that would define them. Rather, the job requires working knowledge of a thousand little things that are necessary for continuous data collection. So far I’ve tried my hand in terminating CTD cables, deploying CTDs, computer networking, meteorological data acquisition, and an endless list of instruments and software that a MarTech is responsible for. 

    Sometimes I find it difficult to keep up with all the nuanced details that I have to learn. There is a sense of panic that I experience whenever asked to do something that I don’t know how to do. I guess one of the best ways to learn something is to figure it out as I go along. Sometimes I feel nervous while at work, maybe it’s something all newcomers experience when they enter a professional field. Other times I want to rush into a task and get it done as soon as possible. I have to remind myself to slow down, breathe, and listen to my superiors tell me how to do it right. As the coast guard likes to say “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. But I’ve been doing alright, taking my time and learning. There are some things that I feel very confident in, such as: deck work, basic electronics, basic mechanical fixes. Yet there are other tasks that challenge my understanding. Most software, advanced electrical troubleshooting and computer networking prove to be quite a challenge. Much of the concepts behind something like computer networking are very abstract. Luckily there are multiple team members within STARC and the science party that can explain how to communicate with instruments, and how to direct data flow to the Healy servers. Information technology and its application to marine science is interesting in its own way. Yet it is also very much a background process. By design, IT systems are hard to notice and often overlooked by an untrained eye. So far I’ve been familiarizing myself with the IT nomenclature, such as: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, Domain Name System, Random Access Memory, etc. Sometimes it takes going over the material a few times before it starts to make sence. Lucky time is something I have quite an abundance of while out here. Just after a few days of studying the subject I can communicate with other devices on the network from my computer, route cables, and most importantly; understand what is going on. One of the main learning objectives that I had for the MATE internship was to learn system networking and its application to ocean instrumentation. During many application processes that I’ve underwent prior to the MATE internship I was always lacking the skill in system networking. Other than system networking I’ve also learned the details of CTD operations.

    Throughout the cruise, we’ve been performing a CTD cast at every mooring deployment site. CTD, or Conductivity, Temperature and Depth instrument is the most fundamental of all marine technician responsibilities. From my prior research cruise experience, CTD casts are the bulk of a scientific mission. However, since the objective of this science mission is to deploy moorings, there has only been a few CTD casts.  The responsibility of the marine technician is to maintenance and operate CTD instrumentation. With the assistance from the STARC coordinator, I’ve had to opportunity to disassemble and reassemble the CTD instrument, colloquially known as the “CTD fish”. It’s the fine details, of knowing which sensor requires a two pin or a three pin cable, what is the angle of tygon tubing connecting the seawater pumped to the conductivity sensor, that are the purpose of my internship. In science, precision data collection is guaranteed by equally meticulous attention to detail in instrumentation. While on this particular cruise, the CTD cast are specifically targeting physical properties of the ocean. There are no Niskin bottles installed on the rosette. It’s probably a better training environment since the task is not rushed by the demands of water sampling by scientists. I’ve been able fix small issues that I find on spare parts of the CTD, slowly putting together all of the details taught to me throughout this internship. 

    Our research cruise is about half way through the mission. Majority of the goals have been accomplished, and now additional projects are added to fill up the time on the Healy. With each day aboard I learn something new, even if it is stressful at times.

The far north reaches of our sea voyage. We’ve lost the internet for about a week, which was a nice change of pace. It’s rather relaxing to detach from the troubles on shore. Some people have a hard time isolating themselves from the world, but that’s not a problem for me. Its kind of funny, I felt more isolated while on land, than while at sea. Some of the best conversations I had were at sea. That’s one thing about working in oceanography; Everyone who is aboard, wants to be here. From the intern fresh out of college, to the chief scientist, everyone has a reason to be out in the Arctic. It’s interesting to hear stories, of tangled and extraordinary lives that brought everyone to this voyage. Some of the scientists had vastly different careers prior to becoming oceanographers. Some were construction workers, others were bartenders, some were merchant mariners, and only a few knew their path from early on. It’s reassuring to me that there is no one way of starting my career, and that sometimes careers depend on luck more than anything. Conversation seems to flow a lot easier when there is one goal at hand. One way or another I’m helping out everyone who asks, learning new methods and building professional networks. As for the work we do, so much has happened in these last few days, it’s hard to put everything down in writing without missing all the details. 

    Our expedition has reached thick sea ice, and we’ve been hunting for the ideal ice floe. Ice floe is just a fancy word for a big ice chunk. First the the infrared sea ice satellite imagery is sent to STARC. Then the processed and re-projected images are then given to the scientific personnel onboard from the National Ice Center. The imagery is then analyzed with the use of ArcMAP, an older  GIS program. I was somewhat surprised when I saw government agencies using outdated software. There is often a misconception that government agencies have top of the line technology. But for the work that we do, it gets the job done. After the ice floe has been identified Coast Guard sends out a reconnaissance team assisted by sea ice expert from the science party. After the ice has been deemed suitable for working conditions, the work begins. Ice work requires layers of foul weather gear. Mustang suits and ice boots, balaclavas, waterproof gloves; we have to do everything possible to mitigate frostbite. Ice stations are a big deal onboard the Healy. Its one of the few times the routine of everyday life onboard is changed. Both crew and scientist alike volunteer to help with hauling equipment from the ship to the ice. Our first ice station required five separate buoy deployments. I was assigned to the one titled WIMBO, or Weather, wave, Ice Mass Balance and Ocean drifter. We got all of our gear together and began drilling the site that was mapped out for us. Ice drilling is probably one of the most exciting things I’ve done on this cruise. A seven foot tall, twelve inch diameter drill, powered by a gasoline motor that cuts through ice like butter. Handling the ice drill requires a least two people, since there is a lot of kickback. Yet, as soon as we drilled at the original site, we hit a melt pond. Melt ponds are a basins of melted freshwater within the ice floe. These basins are a nuisance for ice buoys because they destabilize the position of the buoy on the ice.  So, we had to gather everything up, put it back on the sleds and venture out beyond the perimeter to find a new site. Once again we set the drill, powered up the motor, and began drilling. After about a foot, we hit a melt pond again. Next four or five tries we kept hitting melt ponds, until finally we found the site worthy of buoy placement. We drilled a hole in the ice, and assembled the WIMBO buoy. The WIMBO buoy profiles the water column at a depth of two hundred meters. We lowered a cable riddled with temperature and pressure sensors into the ice hole. The entire operation took roughly four to five hours. The WIMBO buoy is one the most recent programs, seeking to quantify under the ice ocean layer horizontal temperature gradient. As I finished helping the WIMBO group I jumped over to the other buoy deployments. Part of me wanted to learn other ice drifter systems, and part of me just wanted to stay on the ice a little longer. I ended up helping out the Woods Hole group with their buoy drifter. The Woods Hole group was deploying an ITP buoy or Ice-Tethered Profiler. The ITP’s are also quite a unique buoy, as it has two instruments that slide up and down the buoy wire to measure ocean current velocity and heat exchange in the upper ocean layer of the Arctic. Much like scientific mooring buoys the ice buoys also require an astonishing amount of planning. While on ice the lead WHOI scientists leads the team by strict command and fast paced work pace. Unlike conventional scientific work is often slow paced, meticulous and generally safe ordeal, field oceanography is high pressure and high risk. The system of management in field oceanography is much more analogous to military style of management. Everyone knows their place and follows the order given. Yet despite the high pressure during ice operations  much of the science party and STARC personnel are patient with me, and try their best to educate me in field techniques.

    After our science group finished up the buoy deployment, most of the scientists went back on the ship. Myself and a couple other scientists stayed behind and helped out the coast guard with loading the gear back onto the ship. As we were finishing up cargo operations the ship’s whistle went off. A distinct signal; there was a polar bear sighted close to the ship. He was approaching the ship from the starboard side. After climbing the gangway back onto the ship, I immediately grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked on to where he was sighted. I say “he” mostly due to a semi-educated guess based on the size of this particular polar bear. He was quite massive, as it is the end of summer, which polar bears spend fattening up for the winter. The bow of the ship was full of coast guard and scientists looking at the bear passing around binoculars and quick facts about polar bears. I don’t know which one I enjoyed more, having the experience of seeing a polar bear, or sharing with people equally excited about it as me. Maybe it’s the nature of our work, or the remoteness of the surrounding environment, but there is something to be said about the camaraderie aboard the Healy. It is like no other ship that I’ve been on.Looking at the bear in his natural habitat is one of the few moments that truly make this job special. I was looking onto the horizon at the edge of the perimeter, where no human footprints pollute the view. It almost feels like looking onto a different planet. It’s a surreal experience to be out in the Arctic, to see places most people only see on TV in the comfort of their living room. The beauty and awe of the Arctic has not been lost on me just yet.

Our ship has crossed the Chuckchy Sea, and the Beaford Sea, and now we are in the vast Arctic Ocean. Most days are cloudy and unremarkable in scenery, but when the clouds are gone, and the sun shines through the clear blue sky onto the sea ice, the scenery is breathtaking. When we first saw ice the whole crew ran onto the bow, some without coats or hats, just to the see the first ice of our voyage. There is no wave action in the arctic, sea ice dampens the energy transfer from winds to waves. Yet when the ship hits ice, you can feel the shaking, and the hallow thumps of ice chunks crashing against the steel hull. Moving through the ice feels less like a ship at sea, and more like severe turbulence in an airplane. Throughout last week the watch standers on the bridge have spotted Arctic animals, a walrus and a polar bear. While I got to the see the walrus up close, about ten feet from the port side of the ship, the polar bear could only been seen from binoculars. I don’t have any good pictures of the animals to post, for a couple of reasons. One is that the fauna is mobile and most often seen in a blink of an eye. And more importantly, I’d rather enjoy the experience myself, without attempting to take a blurry photograph on my phone. We’ve transited for a four days, and as we approached the first science station, all the commotion began.

A whole week of scientific work. I feel like I’ve learned more about oceanography in the last week than in last year of college. There is so much to learn, so much to see, everyday is like a semester of material crammed into twelve hours. My day starts around five o’clock in the morning, with a vigorous reading of instrument manuals. For me Its much easier to spent hours upon hours reading while at sea than while on land. Maybe perhaps its due to regimented lifestyle while at sea, or less responsibilities, or maybe just because there is just simply much less of distractions.

By nine o’clock there is an updated plan for the days operations. So far I’ve had the opportunity to finally see mooring buoy retrieval and deployment. The amount of calculations and hard manual labor that mooring buoys require is astonishing. Every little detail has to be accounted for; From the location of everyone on deck to the position of a small temperature probe installed on the wire. But I’m getting ahead of myself. In general, a mooring buoy is an anchored buoy with a wire that stretches from the ocean floor to the near surface of the ocean. The wire is riddled with different sensors, mostly pressure and conductivity sensors, temperature probes, ADCP units, and numerous other instruments depending on the aspect of ocean properties the scientific group is interested. The current scientific project utilizes many acoustic instruments, with a sound source on one of the moorings and receivers installed on others. Moorings themselves are designed and redesigned every year to account for different environments and missions. During the morning briefing the course of action is planned out for the day’s operation. From what I’ve seen; There is no usual course of action for a mooring operation. There is a general plan of how the operation is going to go, but the circumstances are constantly evolving, often with sudden, abrupt changes to the procedures. It takes years of experience to understand every possible detail affecting the operation. Some of the scientific personal have been doing mooring operations for over forty years. After all the planning has been discussed, and risk assessment has been agreed upon, the scientists and BM’s (Boatswains Mate’s) go out on deck. I do not have to be there, but I join the science party on deck anyway. I really enjoy working on deck, the differences between the coast guard and scientists are quickly dissolved during difficult tasks as such. A mooring operation can take anywhere from four to eight hours. Most of the crew rotate their positions with shift changes, scientists stay out for the entirety of the operation. After all is set and done, the ship departs the mooring and transits to the next station. There are many steps that I’m leaving out, partly because I don’t fully understand them yet, and partly because even though they are important, they aren’t exciting to write about. In fact, there is so much going on between the science lab, technicians office, and deck department that I have yet to learn and see. By now I feel comfortable with my duties and responsibilities, I would say I’m rather invested in the work we’re doing out here. Day by day I feel more and more comfortable working with the STARC, even though I am new to this industry.

On a sunny Thursday morning we set sail across the Bering Sea. The final preparations for the cruise involved tying down all science equipment and double checking inventory list for everything that we might need while out at sea. The ship was brought off the dock by a tug boat and we began our voyage towards the Arctic. 

First day of a scientific cruise is one of the busiest times for a Marine Technician. There is a multitude of onboard continuous instruments that need to be started as the ship sets sail. The physical oceanography instruments include: ADCP, single-beam echosounder, multibeam echosounder, meteorological sensors, gravimeter. There is also a couple of chemical oceanography sensors, such as atmospheric pCO2 system and an underway seawater pCO2 system. My interest align much more with the physical measurements, specifically the ADCP and echosounders. 

ADCP stands for Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. The task of this instrument is to measure ocean currents while the ship is underway. While at sea, I’ve been spending my time familiarizing myself with this instrument by meticulously reading the training manuals provided by STARC as well as asking for a theoretical background from some of the scientists aboard. The two ADCP systems that are installed on the Healy are set two sound frequencies, one is set at 150 kiloHertz the other at 75 kiloHertz. THe lower the frequency allows the ADCP sensor to sample at a greater depth, while the higher frequency provides much more precise measurements of surface currents. One of the unique opportunities of studying instrumentation while at sea, is to immediately apply my knowledge to ongoing projects.While the ADCP is used for collecting ocean current, the multibeam echosounder is the instrument most people think of when talking about ocean surveying.The Multibeam Echosounder is also an acoustic instrument, but it is used for mapping the ocean floor. Colloquially known as bathymetry, or the topographic map of the ocean floor. The software on board allows for real time view of the bathymetry as the ship passes through a region. One of the responsibilities of STARC, and most marine technician in general, is to have round the clock monitoring of the system and data to guarantee accurate bathymetry data collection. Much of the work that the STARC team conducts is based in the computer lab, with many routine checks of instruments throughout the ship. Often times I feel overwhelmed by the amount of information presented to me, but so far I’ve been able to keep up with what’s going on. There are many additional challenges and problems that come up during work in such environments such as the Bering Sea.

The Bering sea is exactly like I’ve read in books; cold, rainy and gloomy. Yet there is something beautiful about such a bleak place. The difficulty of the environment is highly reflected in the science operation planning. Every little detail is talked over between members of the science party, technicians and Coast Guard personnel. In addition, the STARC Coordinator is adamant on recording all ongoing projects and methods. In my eyes the database of all methods provides a business model for conduction scientific operations in this environment. I’ve sailed on a couple scientific research vessels before, but I’ve never seen such a high level of planning and coordination. The STARC team definitely takes pride in there work, with meticulous planning and record keeping of everything they do. I find myself working more than the 12 hour shift assigned to me, just to see as much as possible of the work done at sea. We are currently in transit, but in a couple of days we will arrive at our first mooring station.