Month: June 2026 Page 1 of 2

And just like that, we have docked up in Nouméa, New Caledonia. In this final week aboard the R/V Thompson, we transited across Vanuatu waters, completed the last OBS deployments off New Caledonia, experienced slightly larger swells (~10ft), and got to celebrate World Oceans Day at sea!

During some of the final deployments, I was entrusted with the OBS release line. This is the high-stress job of ensuring the instrument is not released from the crane until it is in the water and all other tag lines have been released. Luckily, all of my deployments went smoothly!

Once at the dock and the ship cleared customs, demobilization began. This primarily consisted of preparing the magnetometer gear for storage and eventual shipment from Guam. We retrieved the magnetometer, rinsed both the cable and instrument with freshwater, and level-wound the cable neatly onto the winch drum. The winch was then unbolted from the deck and placed inside its storage box with the rest of the gear.

The ship’s crew planned to perform maintenance on the safety boats while in port. Flying boats do exist! They also created a makeshift cradle with fenders—sometimes you have to get creative out here.

My favorite meal this week consisted of crab cakes and homemade clam chowder. A big thank you to Gabriel, Juanita, and Caleb for all the amazing grub!

This week, I had the realization that I was actively living out my childhood dreams. What an amazing experience for a landlocked girl from Colorado to travel the world and spend three weeks at sea assisting with marine research! I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to set sail as a MATE intern, especially with the amazing crew aboard the Thompson. I gained a lot of experience and knowledge, but the people onboard are what made this experience so valuable. I am already hoping to get back out to sea as soon as possible.

Until next time!

-Avery

Today is our 15th day at sea. By now, I’m deep in my watch standing rhythm and the days have started blending together. This week, I’ve averaged 3 cups of coffee, 2 cups of tea, 75 twisties chips, and about 100 pages of Stephen Ambrose’s New York Times Bestseller, D-Day (borrowed from the ship’s library) a day.

We’ve completed our first cluster of OBS deployments so we have a lot more downtime as we cruise back and forth along the North Fiji Basin collecting bathymetric data. The magnetometer has still been putting up trouble; a few days ago, the 300 meter winch towing the instrument failed so we had to pull it in by hand while we prepared for an OBS deployment (this was the second occasion of such a task). It was nice to supplement the exercise I’ve been getting in the ship’s gym. Using the rowing machine in swell kind of turns it into a roller coaster.

In between deployments, we’ve been learning general technician skills from Liz and Andy. I’m happy to report that my time spent as a youth playing video games has given me some great background in learning the ins and outs of IT networking. I also got intimately acquainted with how to terminate an ethernet cable when I wired it wrong 3 times in a row. Beyond that we’ve also practiced soldering wires and configuring network switches. I love when the techs give us a task to complete and leave us to figure out how to get it done. Sometimes it takes me a lot longer than it should but I feel like I learn the best when I’m left to my own devices to solve a problem.

In addition to our technical duties, we’ve also been joining the science party for daily science presentation, where we rotate through sharing ongoing or past science projects. It’s forced me to brush up on my tectonics and I now feel more confidant discussing subduction zones than I ever have before. I also got to refresh my own presentation skills as I discussed some of my past work. I tried to remember Shakespeare’s maxim, “brevity is the soul of wit” but I also do love to hold the floor. In all seriousness, it was great to practice speaking about my research experience to a scientific audience.

All in all, it’s been a great week with calmer seas and good weather. The seas are forecasted to come up from a storm blowing out of the Tasman Sea so I’m glad I’ve been taking advantage of sunsets on the aft deck—I’m not sure how many more of them I’ll get.

Oh also, I made it onto the instagram! Cruise is a huge success.

Another week down. This one was even calmer than the last, with only a few OBS deployments. The magnetometer continues to function as we “mow the lawn” southwest of Fiji, collecting bathymetric mapping data.

With the extra downtime, we’ve continued lessons and hands-on challenges to learn as much as possible from the onboard marine technicians. So far, that coursework has included networking challenges, cable management and termination, serial data communication, CTD setup, and a variety of other technical skills.

I presented some of my past research experience which was a fun opportunity to bring some physical oceanography and ecology topics to the onboard science team which largely consists of seismologists and geophysicists.

I am also learning an important lesson about the dangers of having auto updates enabled on a computer actively being used for data collection. Not only did we lose data during the update, but a driver had to be manually updated before we could resume data collection. Learn from our mistakes.

The menu onboard continues to impress. My favorite meal this week was a Rueben wrap, tuna steaks, and salad with Italian dressing.

The weather has been fantastic, with swell between two and five feet and many sunny days. I’m trying to enjoy the calm before the storm as we brace for a schedule packed full of deployments, larger swell, and rough weather in a few days.

Please enjoy this amazing sunset, which included a visit from some red-footed boobies!

-Avery

This week on the Thompson we are finishing up the deployments of the first OBS array. After a final deployment Friday night, we are starting to head to the western array, taking a detour to map more of the seabed that is critical to answering this cruise’s research questions. 

The aftermath of deploying the magnetometer (Maggie affectionately) during a downpour

During these long stretches of multi beaming surveys, when deployments are on hold, we have more down time. Trying to take advantage of this time when we aren’t needed for operations, the marine technicians have been showing Avery, Benny, and me the components of being an at-sea technicians and the responsibilities they have during their 12 hour watches. 

Sunrise on the fantail. One of the perks of waking up at 0100

On the last few survey/transit days, we have been tackling all things networking and cables. Because of the central role that the ship’s server plays in all of the operations, networking has become a major component of the MarTech role. 

So far, Liz and Andy have gone over the basics of networking and how it is applied to the ship and their day to day activities. Once we have an overall concept of how things work, they give us tasks to apply what they taught us in scenarios similar to ones they would be responsible for troubleshooting. Andy started us out with a switchboard troubleshooting assignment where we had to reconfigure a switch and the setup of 2 laptops so that we were about to communicate with them through a management computer. Liz Then had us working with network cables starting out with terminating ethernet cables and splicing and soldering wires together. More recently, we had the task of taking an ethernet cable and terminating one end into a converted DB9 connector. 

Successful data stream from converted ethernet to DB9 cable activity

We have been very grateful to the technicians for going out of their way to introduce us to their jobs and keeping us busy, especially during these quiet survey periods. 

Bonus! A Booby impeded our Maggie deployment this morning. He was quite irked when we interrupted his feather cleaning