Well it has been twelve days since I arrived in Gulfport Mississippi and boarded the R/V Point Sur. Over these past days I have had many great experiences and have learned a lot. The first trip that we went on involved working with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). After leaving port we had a 40 hour transit to Galveston Texas where we picked up more scientists then an 18 hour trip down the coast to the Corpus Christi area. During the transit I was able to learn about the CTD, help change out the control bottle on it, troubleshoot why it wouldn’t talk to the computer and fixed the issue. I also had time to do some networking of computers on the boat. When we finally arrived at the testing site we took sediment samples, dredged for worms and clams, and photographed cross sectional views of the bottom.
We arrived back in port and the next day we took out a group of students from the University of Southern Mississippi out to do some research.
The crew on the Point Sur are wonderful to work with. The food is amazing.
This was my first time on a boat in the ocean. It is not much different than being on the Great Lakes. I did not realize how many oil rigs were really out in the Gulf of Mexico. At night it looks like a city on the water.
Right now we are getting ready to head back out for 11 days. The boat is being loaded with a bunch of gear. There is a rov and two big wave gliders and a few smaller ones. This trip is going to be exciting, it is geared toward what I want to do when I get out of school. When I get back from this next trip I will give another update.