Author: Emma Shannon

Today is the last day of my internship. I am flying out early morning tomorrow July 5th. It is bittersweet as this internship has been such a great experience and I have learned so much. The captains, crew, and marine techs have all been absolutely wonderful and have taught me so much. It was a great experience getting to further my skills that I have learned in school and I feel confident in my abilities as a marine technician to enter the workforce. I will surely miss Bermuda and all the wonderful people I have met. I think this internship is an excellent opportunity and I would recommend it to anyone. I feel lucky to have been chosen to participate in a MATE at-sea internship aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer. 

This week is my last full week of my internship. The beginning of the week started with testing the altimeter. We have had issues lately with our altimeter not working correctly and although it gives us an accurate reading of how close we are to the bottom, as we get close to the bottom sometimes it would jump all around with numbers. We were lucky to get a spare from Seabird in the meantime so we could send them our altimeter to be fixed. We performed tests on the spare just to double check the spare since we are leaving on Wednesday for a cruise. On Tuesday we were lucky that our other altimeter that was at Seabird for repair was sent back to us. After performing tests on this one we were able to install it on our CTD and it was working great. Now we have a working altimeter, a spare in case we need it, and our other one sent off to be looked at. We left on Wednesday for a Hydrostation cruise. This cruise was only until Thursday evening. We conducted CTD profiles at the Hydrostation, different spatial station, and at the BATS location. We also collected water samples at these locations. This is my last cruise which is definitely bittersweet because I have enjoyed so much working and learning aboard the RVAE. We arrived to Penno’s Wharf on Thursday afternoon and we were offloading one of the UNOLS shared lab vans there because our crane is not suited to lift the van off of the vessel. A crane met us at the dock and put it aboard a truck so then they drove it to BIOS where is will be onshore until November. We had to wait at Penno’s Wharf for a few hours before going back to BIOS becasue of the tide. The day on Friday was spent working on projects on the boat such as doing tests on our JLR212 GPS and properly labeling the wires. We also were working on the phones that are onboard the ship. Some of the phones are not working properly and the phone in the tech lab was not connected and needed a RJ11 termination. After doing some tests to ensure we had the right wires figured out to make the termination we were able to make the RJ11 termination and the phone began to work again. It is a lot of fun to do electrical work throughout the ship and to better my skills with electronics. This weekend is a three day weekend for us because it is Labor Day. I am heading out on Thursday September 5th and I am certainly sad to leave this place. 

Monday through Thursday we were still on the BATS cruise for this week. On Monday we deployed a production array which was great to be apart of because it is a more complicated deployment and we will leave it out sampling for a few hours while we go to another location to conduct CTDs. We also deployed three zooplankton nets off of the A frame on the back deck and they go down to 250 meters and fish for around 30 minutes. The next few days we deployed in situ pumps that go to different depths and are in the water for four hours pumping water through these special filters. There were more small boat operations throughout this week for the scientists studying trace metals to be able to sample away from the ship so there is no interference. We recovered the sediment traps that we deployed a few days ago and there was a pretty strong current so we could actually see Bermuda from afar while we were recovering them. In the sediment traps there is a special solution the scientists make to trap the sediment. They have an 85 ppt salinity in them so as the water circulates they go into the traps and get stuck in the solution because it is so dense. We went to different spatial stations so sometimes there were a few hour transits in between. We got back to the dock on Thursday around 1400 and that morning was pretty stormy and rough seas but besides that the rest of the week was great weather and sunny skies. We were having some discrepancies between our primary and secondary TSG (SBE45 MicroTSG Thermosalinograph) so when we got back to the dock we took it apart and conducted some tests on it. This is my last long cruise as we will be back at the dock for a few days and then leave again on Wednesday and Thursday for a Hydrostation cruise. It has been such a great experience working on the RVAE and I hope to come back and visit in the near future.

My last post was on August 11th and we were getting close to the end of the Gonsior cruise. The rest of the time on the cruise the weather was still rough, rainy, and overcast. There were frequent squalls with winds reaching 37 knots at times. We deployed and recovered the CTD using three taglines throughout the cruise because the weather was so rough and we wanted to ensure that we were able to deploy and recover safely. We got back to the dock early around 0845 on Tuesday August 13th. Demobilization happened very quickly for some of the scientists as they were set to fly out later that afternoon. Of course when we get back to the dock it is sunny and hot which was a nice change after being in stormy weather for the whole cruise. On Wednesday the Gonsior team finished demobilization and the BATS team started mobilizing because their cruise started Thursday August 15th. We are going to be going to the BATS location and also a few different spatial stations throughout the next week for the BATS study. The first day of the cruise on Thursday consisted of safety drills and CTD deployments along the way to the BATS location. Along with the BATS team, there is the BAITS team and a few other scientists studying trace metals. We bring along a different CTD and rosette that will be deployed using the MASH2K winch and wire so they can test for trace metals without contamination from the gear. On Saturday August 17th we deployed the CTD so we could get a profile for the glider. We deployed the small boat so Cordie, Jillon and Ronnie could recover the glider Anna. Anna was brought back onto the ship and there was a special frame made for her that we could attach to the rosette to send down with the CTD to compare the data the glider gets while attached to the CTD to the data the glider gets while it is out at sea on its own. They had never done this before so there was a lot of team work and effort put into lifting the glider up and properly attaching it to the rosette. We sent the CTD down with the glider attached and also collected water samples. It was a success and we redeployed Anna off the back dack. After this deployment we went to the site where the other glider Jack was. Cordie, Nick, and Ronnie went on the small boat to Jack’s location to adjust the weights and redployed him. Unfortunately, after they redeployed him they lost connection with Jack and he was not responding by satellite. Cordie wanted to pick him up and bring him back on the boat so we would not lose him. I was fortunate enough to be able to go on the small boat with them and help them recover Jack. It was truly a wonderful experience being on a small boat 50 miles out in the middle of the ocean and to see the R/V Atlantic Explorer from that view. We headed back to the BATS location and the next operation was a small boat operation again. The trace metal scientists needed to get a water sample far away from the boat so they could have no interference of their sample from the boat. We deployed the small boat and the scientists brought along a niskin bottle. I was fortunate enough to be able to go on the small boat operation again. I did not think I would be able to participate in small boat operations during my internship and today I was able to go on two! Later that night we were in the process of deploying the trace metal CTD and frame. Unfortunately the tagline trying to assist the frame going out got snagged and the welds on the frame broke and the rosette got a little bent out of shape. With some teamwork we were able to get it bent back and attached using stainless steel ratchet straps. It was unfortunate that this happened but the important thing is that no one was hurt and we were able to fix it enough to still be able to be used and take samples. On Sunday August 18th, we deployed in situ pumps and conducted deep CTD casts down to 4500 meters. We are going to transit to a site called spatial station #2 to deploy the CTD multiple times. We have had beautiful weather on this trip and it has been a great cruise so far. We will be out till Thursday August 22nd. 

This week we are on a cruise called Gonsior cruise. Michael Gonsior is the chief scientist that is why the cruise is named that. There are a few different groups of scientists all conducting their own experiments. The scientists come from the east coast mostly from Maryland. A few of the groups are looking at water samples and using different filtration techniques (such as Tangential Flow Filtration) to study bacteria and viruses. They are taking water samples from different depths. The only piece of gear they are putting in the water is the CTD with the rosette and the Niskin bottles to collect water samples. The location we went to sample is the same location where the BATS study is conducted about 50 miles south of Bermuda. We were supposed to mobilize to St. George’s at the beginning of the week but there was some issues occurring with the engine that needed to be sorted before the cruise could be conducted. We ended up mobilizing to St. George’s Wednesday (08/07/2019) afternoon and left to go offshore Thursday (08/08/2019) morning around 0700. We will be offshore until Tuesday (08/13/2019) morning. There were a few shallow casts that were conducted but most of the CTD casts went down close to the bottom around 4500 meters. These casts take around 4 hours from the time we deploy it, fire the bottles, and recover the CTD and put it on deck. The weather was not in our favor this trip with winds getting between 20-30 knots at some parts of the day. There were different swells coming from different directions so most of the trip the boat was rolling a lot. I actually like it when there are some big waves because I love seeing how powerful the ocean can be. All the scientists did pretty well on the trip only a few people got sea sick. Usually we use two taglines when deploying and recovering the CTD but since the weather was bad we used three taglines to ensure the CTD came up safely and efficiently. Overall it is a great cruise and I am learning a lot from the scientists and more skills regarding marine technology. We will get back on Tuesday and have a few days of work at the dock while getting ready for the next cruise that leaves on Friday. The next cruise that will be going out is the BATS (Bermuda Atlantic Time Series Study) that goes out once a month. 

Below is a picture of Mike the Chief Engineer teaching me about one of the engines.

I am one month into my internship and I am so excited to have another month here. It has been such a great experience being on the boat with all the crew, getting to know the other employees at BIOS, and experiencing life in Bermuda. This week was a short week for us. We started the week with a one day cruise on Monday leaving at 0730 and getting back to the dock around 1900. The cruise was to a location called Hydrostation S. Here is some information about Hydrostation S taken from the BIOS website that explains what the location is. “Approximately every two weeks the BIOS-operated research vessel Atlantic Explorer brings students and researchers to the Hydrostation S location off Bermuda. Hydrostation S, the world’s longest-running hydrographic time-series with a location offshore Bermuda. Hydrostation S provides the longest record of the rate of natural and human-caused change to ocean warming, including impacts on salinity, marine life, and oxygen content.” It is great to be apart of the research being conducted about the changes happening in the ocean over time. The information conducted from this research not only benefits the researchers located at BIOS but also researchers from other places around the world. We had pretty good weather and calm seas but there were scattered storms all around us that we could see but it didn’t rain on us until the very end. It is really cool to witness storms out at sea that you can see but not get hit by. When we got back to the dock one of the scientists noticed that there was some growth occurring inside the spigots of the Niskin bottles which if it got worse, has the potential of contaminating future water samples. The next two days we took the spigots off and the o rings scrubbed the spigots, let them soak overnight and then acid washed them for a few hours. We then rinsed them with Milli-Q water five times and then let them sit for the weekend soaking in Milli-Q water so they will be ready to be put back on the Niskin bottles on Monday morning so they are ready for the cruise next week. We completed different projects throughout the next two days but one specific project was testing our altimeter. The altimeter was acting up so I took it off of the CTD and brought it to our tech lab for testing. I then got it connected to the computer and ran different tests on it. It was a good experience to troubleshoot and look for problems and test a sensor that I am familiar with but don’t have too much experience with. Of course the other marine techs were there to assist me but it was a good experience to try and figure it out on my own first and then if I was really stuck ask for assistance. We were able to get the altimeter up and running and working well and got the problems resolved. When we tested it, it worked well but we noticed the cable that the altimeter was connected to and then connected to the SBE 9 was a Y cable that was reterminated. Although it worked, it was pretty big and clunky because the new termination had this block of a resin like substance around it. The other side of the Y cable was not connected to another sensor so we decided to find a new cable that would work and not take up so much room. After pinning out the cable we found what was required of a new cable and the new cable we found needed some wires to be switched to match the right pinout we needed. We were able to make a new termination and connected it together through a junction box or as Rory calls it a chocolate box. We connected it to the altimeter and it worked correctly. On Monday we will splice the wires and put an inline resin splice mold over top of it to ensure it is water tight. Thursday-Sunday we had off because this weekend was a holiday in Bermuda. Thursday’s holiday was Emancipation Day. Slaves were freed and slavery was abolished in 1834. During this day starts the two day cricket match. This is one of the biggest holidays in Bermuda and there is a raft up with a band playing and so a bunch of employees of BIOS and from the Atlantic Explorer took a boat together and went swimming during the raft up. It was really fun to hang out with all the employees and to see how happy and excited all the local people from Bermuda were. Friday was the second day of the Cup Match and the holiday was called Somer’s Day. This is a historical day because in 1609 Bermuda was discovered by Admiral Sir George Somers. I decided to go to the cricket match because I have never seen a match before. I went with some of the employees from BIOS which was a lot of fun. The two teams that played each other are St. George’s and Somerset. The match’s location alternates every year and this year it was being held in St. George’s which was exciting because that’s close to BIOS and so we were able to walk and we were rooting for St. George’s to win. It was a fun event although I must say cricket is a very slow sport and hard to understand the rules since I have never seen a game before, but it was still really fun to watch. Everyone that was there was wearing beautiful outfits it was almost like a fashion show. There was a lot of cheering and spirit going on and you could feel the energy of the crowd. Definitely a good event to be at and to witness.

The beginning of the week started with going through the vessel and making sure we had everything ready for the NSF inspection. This inspection occurs every two years and it is where members from NSF and JMS Naval Architects come aboard the ship and go throughout the ship making sure everything is in working order and we have all the proper safety requirements established. We continued to work on small projects throughout the week but our main focus was assisting the inspectors with anything they needed and wanted to see. They came aboard Wednesday and toured the whole vessel and examined the condition the vessel was in, all of the gear, winches, cranes, etc. that is aboard. They were making notes of anything they think we need improvement on or anything on the vessel that needs to be fixed. They do this to ensure that our vessel is in good condition and is suitable to keep on going with our research cruises. Wednesday evening we mobilized to St. George’s so we can get an early start to going out to sea at 0730. When we got to St. George’s there was another vessel docked in front of us called the DSSV Pressure Drop. I was lucky to be invited aboard to take a tour of the vessel and the submarine they have aboard. They have a mission to go to the deepest point of the five oceans. They’re mission is called the five deeps. They have gone into the Mariana Trench multiple times and they are the only submarine that can go as deep and as quickly than another other submarine created. They have completed four locations and they are on their way to go to the fifth location. If they succeed, they will have completed something no one has done before. There is a film crew aboard and they are filming a show for Discovery Channel called Deep Planet. We left Thursday morning to head out to sea with the inspectors on board and we also brought along thirteen students. We deployed a CTD and the MOCNESS as well as an XBT and it was good for the inspectors to see us working with science groups and what our day to day operations are like while we are on a cruise. We went through all the drills and tests for all of the gear and the winches and cables. The inspectors split up and went with different groups of the crew to examine different things. For example there was an inspector with the marine techs, one with the engineers, and one with the crew, and one with the captain himself. At the end of the day we all gathered in the galley so the inspectors could relay to us any problems they saw that needed to be addressed and an overall assessment of what they saw. This boat is a little bit older so its bound to have some things that need to be fixed. All in all the inspection went well and they were happy with what they saw and gave us approval to keep operating normally and keep going ahead with our research cruises. The rest of the weekend we had off of work. I explored this trail that goes along the coastline called the Railway Trail. It is one of the most beautiful trails because you get to see the aqua blue water the whole way of the trail and at the end it gets to Whalebone Bay. I cannot get over how beautiful it is here. 

This week was my second week for my internship but also my second cruise. This week was for the BATS team (Bermuda Atlantic Time Series Study). We left Sunday morning July 14th and returned Friday morning July 19th. The BATS team does a cruise once a month so they have got it down to a routine and very structured where they sample and what they are looking for. ?”They have collected data on the physical, biological, and chemical properties of the ocean since 1988” as said on the BATS website. ?They are learning about the role of carbon in the ocean and about the effects climate change has on the ocean. This cruise is incredibly interesting and important for understanding how our earth’s climate is changing over time. We did a very deep deployment of the CTD to 4500 meters. It is really amazing to feel water from the bottom of the ocean it is so cold and it is really cool to experience being out in the ocean in such deep water. We did a lot of CTD deployments, water samples through niskin bottles, sediment traps, and plankton nets. Along with all those other pieces of gear, we deployed the MOCNESS 3 times which was great because our last cruise we were having issues with this piece of gear. We were able to fix it in time for this cruise and it worked every time we deployed it which was very exciting. In the early morning on wednesday we deployed a production array that has a solution in each flask and we attach floats and a spar buoy so it can sample in the ocean all day testing amounts of carbon. We retrieved it later that night. This piece of gear is a little more complicated with the depoyment and recovery than the other gear so it is great to learn more about different kinds of gear and how to properly deploy and recover so that there is a successful sample. There have been the most beautiful sunsets while being out at sea as well as the full moon this week. The colors of the ocean are gorgeous and its great being out at sea with nothing around and experience the beauty the ocean has to offer. We had great weather the entire time and calm seas. We got back to BIOS on friday morning and began to make sure we have everything prepared for the NSF inspection. The crew went through a refresher on SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus) training to have a refresher on how to use them so if there was a fire or a dangerous situation and there needed to be an escape through dangerous atmospheres. This was conducted just to make sure they would be prepared. They all have been through this training before but it helps to go through a refresher and they let me participate as well. The picture attached is of me learning how to use the SCBA. I’ve only been here for two weeks but it has gone great so far and I am learning so much. I cannot wait to see what the rest of my time here has in store. 

I arrived in Bermuda about a week ago. A beautiful island with gorgeous clear aqua blue water and the most beautiful flowers and plants. It is truly paradise. When I arrived at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences I was blown away at how beautiful the institute is. The buildings are structured in a way to collect rain water as that is their main source of drinking water and used for showers. It makes you appreciate and conserve as much water as you can. When I arrived the ship was gone for the night so I was able to stay in Wright Hall which was very comfortable and surrounded by nice people. There are many different programs, research, and classes that are taking place here and people from all over the world. I am lucky to be here and be surrounded by people from all over the world and learn from their experiences. BIOS is unique where everyone becomes friends instantly and hangs out all together. I have only been here for a week and I have made so many friends. I moved aboard on Saturday July 6th and we left on Monday for a research cruise with BIOS-SCOPE (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences – Simons Collaboration on Ocean Processes and Ecology). They focus their research on the ocean’s smallest life forms. There were scientists from all over the world studying microbes and zooplankton. We used Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) rosette to document the environmental conditions of the sampling site and had 24 niskin bottles attached collecting seawater to be studied at various depths. Other gear was used such as WTS-LV (Large Volume Pump) which collects suspended and dissolved particulate samples in situ into a membrane filter which is used to sample a number of things including phytoplankton. We attempted to deploy a MOCNESS (Multiple Opening and Closing Net, with an Environmental Sensing System) but unfortunately it did not work properly but after hard work we were able to get it working again and ready to be deployed on the next cruise. Being aboard this vessel is such a great opportunity to further my marine technology skills. I am learning a lot more about marine electronics and how to assess and fix electrical issues aboard the vessel. The crew and everyone aboard the vessel is absolutely amazing, welcoming, and funny. The food is some of the best food I have ever had. It has only been a week and I am having such a great time and learning so much I cannot wait to see what the future holds. I am glad to be in Bermuda for so long because it is definitely going to be a hard place to leave. We are leaving again today July 14th and will be gone offshore until Friday July 19th. This upcoming trip will be for the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series Study.