Author: Lauren Kowalski

Hi all,

It’s been 0.286 weeks since my last blog and since I’ve completed another cruise. AR22 was super short but super intense at the same time.

We pulled away from WHOI around 0830 Saturday morning and we docked at WHOI at 1400 Sunday afternoon.

AR22 was an MIT – WHOI Joint Program student orientation cruise. A handful of 3rd year graduate students planned the cruise while the 1st and 2nd year students experienced sailing/oceanographic research with WHOI, some even for the first time.

My job was to supervise deployment and recovery of the CTD and make sure they didn’t hit the bottom during the cast. It was different and a bit more complicated than normal casts because one of the instruments the science party brought on board was strapped to the CTD. The VPR is a video plankton recorder and it is really heavy – that meant we had to closely monitor deployment and recovery of the CTD.

Because of the short nature of the trip, Joe and I didn’t do typical SSSG on call hours. We alternated casts at the beginning so that we both got used to deployments and recovery with the VPR,  we took cat naps throughout the cruise, and were mostly both available to the students because with it being so short we wanted to optimize our presence to them.

Right when we pulled up to Station 9 it turned midnight – which meant it became my birthday!  My birthday day continued on like the previous, and we worked until ~0600 when we finished all 12 stations. I then proceeded to sleep like a rock.

It was an intense and exhausting 30 hrs, but it was an amazing learning experience!

This about wraps up my internship. I want to thank everyone who followed me on this adventure; I gained a lot of experience. This internship definitely solidified my drive to be a marine technician in the future.

Thanks again!

~Lauren

Hi all,

This past week aboard the Armstrong was spent in port while we prepped for our next cruise and did some routine maintenance.

Monday, I reviewed instrument instruction sheets for the instruments that we will be primarily using during the Labor Day Weekend cruise. We’re doing a whole bunch of CTDs, but during transits between stations the science party is planning on using acoustic instruments, like the ADCP, EK80, Knudsen depth sounder, or the multibeam.

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of doing routine maintenance on the -80°C freezer in the main lab where while cleaning it out the inside I accumulated a bucket full of snow.  My other focus that day was completing the data disc (which I did!). Joe and I notified the chief scientist from AR21, so that he knew the disc was ready.

Wednesday morning, the R/V Atlantis departed WHOI to chase storms in the Atlantic Ocean. It was a unique experience to see the boat off because typically I’m the one who is on the boat sailing away.

The R/V Atlantis departing WHOI. Photo credit, me.

Since the data disc was finished, I started the new cruise process by running a newcruise command in our servers which mounts all of our instruments to the server and makes sure that data for this next cruise is collected in the appropriate locations on our servers. I set up the science Elog for the new cruise and Joe and I completed and sent in our SSSG cruise report from AR21.

Science started loading their equipment aboard for this weekend’s cruise on Thursday. This proved to be a busy day for me. I created packets of the updated instrument instruction sheets for the science party to reference throughout the cruise. The end of the day was hectic because I was the primary contact for the science party so I was running around making sure they had everything they needed, etc. This short cruise is going to force me to learn at a wicked fast pace.

And lastly, today is full of final cruise prep. I started off Monday with a to-do list that was barely half a page long however, now it is spilling over a page, so my goal is to have everything checked off today (its about 95% checked off already).

Stay tuned on Monday for a post about the Labor Weekend Cruise which departs early tomorrow.

~Lauren

Hi all,

We have made it back to WHOI a smidge early. Now that I’m connected to the shore network, I can finally share some photos!

R/V Neil Armstrong docked at WHOI. Photo credit: me.

Sailing through the North Atlantic. Photo credit: me.

Supervising CTD recovery. Photo credit: Rebecca Travis, WHOI.

Surface mooring deployment. Photo credit: me.

R/V Neil Armstrong and long finned pilot whales during surface mooring deployment. Photo credit: James Kuo, WHOI.

Operating the a frame during an instrument deployment. Photo credit: Rebecca Travis, WHOI.

Rebuilding the Saturn V Lego rocket that was damaged during transit. Photo credit: Joe McCabe, WHOI.

Working on the incubator pump. Photo credit: Vasile Tudoran, WHOI.

Cleaning behind the rack in the main lab. Photo credit: Rebecca Travis, WHOI.

Using the rescue boat to attach a tag line from the ship to the glass floats at the base of the old surface mooring. Photo credit: me.

Helping recover synthetic line used at the base of the surface mooring. Photo credit: Rebecca Travis, WHOI.

More pics to follow in regularly scheduled blog! 🙂

~Lauren

Hi all,

This week was full of transiting back to WHOI. I finished up my 10pm – 2am ice watches, which was nice because I got to go back to a regular schedule. In the morning, around 0700ish , the bridge spotted a LARGE ice berg that was miles away. I was asleep at this point so I didn’t see it, but I saw pictures from the crew.

On August 21, we were near Halifax, Nova Scotia and scientists predicted about ~40% complete eclipse at that location. The best time to view the solar eclipse was at 3:55pm. The morning was foggy, but thankfully throughout the day it cleared up and it turned out to be a beautiful day and an even better day to see the solar eclipse! Around 3:45pm I went up the bridge to take a peak, and one of the scientists had special eclipse glasses so I could clearly see the partial eclipse! Later that night the sky was still clear and it was perfect for stargazing. I saw the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, stars that may have been planets, satellites, shooting stars, and so much more. It was a nice clear and not too cold night.

We finally finished installing the incubator pump and it works and the area looks great!

Because we had time during the transit, Joe and I started some end of cruise tasks like prepping our data disc that we give to the science party and starting our SSSG cruise report.

Fun fact – my internship has been extended to include a short 2 day cruise over Labor Day Weekend! Since that doesn’t depart until 2 September, I’m going to be working in port next week prepping for the cruise and doing some other SSSG tasks.

We docked yesterday but we didn’t start doing the majority of the demobing until today. Because we had some down time yesterday Joe showed me around the R/V Atlantis. The Atlantis, for those of you who do not know, is the sister ship to the University of Washington’s R/V Thomas G. Thompson, and it’s home to HOV Alvin! I got to see Alvin! My oceanography dreams are coming true!

Posing with the R/V Armstrong, while on the R/V Atlantis! Photo credit: Joe McCabe, WHOI.

~Lauren

Hi all,

This week we finished up mooring recoveries and have started our transit back home. We’re heading home early because we had great weather during science operations and needed no weather delays. There’s a hurricane coming through the North Atlantic and we have altered our route so that we can avoid as much of the bad weather as possible. Because of that we are sailing through a big chunk of ice country, and the captain has requested that I assist watches on the bridge from 10pm to 2am so there are extra eyes looking for ice.

The last flanking mooring recovery went as usual, however, operations changed when it came time to recover the surface mooring. Typically we bring the buoy on first and then the cable, however, since the surface mooring has  a large buoy and it’s the last buoy to recover there wasn’t much deck room. So we triggered the acoustic release and deployed the rescue boat to attach a tag line to the end of cable to bring the cable up first and the buoy last.

During deck ops for the surface mooring recovery I helped pull in the synthetic line that was at the base of the mooring as well as operate the winch that was spooling up the mooring’s cable.

Once those operations were over and we were transiting back to WHOI, I finished a label project that I had started earlier in the cruise. In the transducer room, where most all scientific transducers are, I created permanent labels to show type of water (fresh or seawater) and direction of water in the pipes. (The new labels look pretty good, if I say so myself!)

We’re hitting some weather today, but we plan on being back at WHOI in about a week’s time!

~Lauren

Hi all,

This first full week of science operations has been a busy one!

On Day 8 we finally made it out to the Irminger Sea Array and deployed our first mooring – the surface mooring. During the deployment, the first mate called me up to the bridge two times because there were long finned pilot whales all around the ship – I swear they were following us! One of the scientists, has a drone and he flew it out during the mooring ops and  got some great footage of the whales and the R/V Armstrong (and of course the mooring ops)!

A scientist adapted a spare acoustic communications device so that his modified one can be deployed in the water and talk to the moorings and collect data  autonomously. After mooring ops are done each day we have been deploying his instrument to test its range and how good it can collect the moorings’ data.

Between mooring deployment and recovery three sea gliders were deployed with the intent of collecting and transmitting mooring data over the course of a year.

The night before we started mooring recovery, the night of Day 12, we did an EK80 survey of the mooring locations to make sure that the buoys and instrument cages were at their respective depths. The EK80 is a sonar and when in use over the moorings there is a strong return at each of the buoys/instrument cages. We can then see what depth those returns occur at and verify with what they should be based on the mooring structure and water depth at that location.

So, by today, Day 14, we have deployed all of the new moorings, deployed all sea gliders, and have recovered two of the old moorings.

A couple days ago, a leak was noticed in one of our underway seawater pump’s housing, so we need to replace the whole pump. I have been helping out the third engineer with replacing this pump. We first removed the pump and are now cleaning up and priming the stand where the spare pump will go. In the next couple of days we will actually replace the pump.

Joe and I have started having daily Linux lessons to help familiarize me with the system as well with the servers that we work with on a daily basis. I have also been reviewing and editing instruction sheets for operating and data recording on some of the acoustic instruments, like the multibeam and the EK80.

In my down time I have been watching Planet Earth II with some the crew!

We still have ~3 more weeks  to go – stay tuned.

~Lauren

Hi all,

Although we have been transiting for a week and there has been hardly any science operations, myself and others in the SSSG (Shipboard Scientific Support Group) have had a lot to do. Not necessarily because we’ve been swamped with work but also because we have had the time to work on things since there hasn’t been any scientific operations. I’ve helped:

• Fix leaks in underway seawater systems
• Re-terminate the CTD cable
• Turn on the acoustic instruments and edited procedures on how to turn on, operate, and save data from the instruments

Personally, I have been familiarizing myself with the Linux system, as well as its formating and commands.

On Day 5 we made it to deep enough international waters where we could do some tests on the acoustic releases that will be deployed with the new moorings. The science party attached acoustic releases to the CTD and brought it down to ~1000 m where they then attempted to communicate with each release to see if it’s functioning. Then once the CTD was back on deck they checked the release mechanisms to ensure that the acoustic releases are fully functional before they attached them to the new moorings. Everyone was anticipating the CTD station because there have been 0 science operations for the past 4-5 days.

This past night I was allowed to assist watch on the bridge from 1800 – 2400 and received a crash course in bridge related topics/instrumentation from the 3rd Mate. It was a great opportunity to learn about ship operations. I plan on assisting more watches on the bridge throughout the rest of the crews.

On a side note, the most wonderful thing happens aboard this ship at 2:30pm every day, and that thing is Cheese Thirty where we are all blessed with divine cheese and meat platters by our gracious stewards! Also, some scientists are crossword enthusiasts (as am I) and we all have been doing crossword puzzles in our downtime.

Early tomorrow morning we finally arrive at the Irminger Sea Array and can finally start science operations! More exciting news to follow.

~Lauren

P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos, I was having a hard time uploading them with my current internet connection.

Hi all, my name is Lauren Kowalski and I’ll be interning aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong!

Sailing on the R/V Clifford A. Barnes collecting oceanographic data at the mouth of the Elwha River in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Photo credit: Mark D. Stone.

I am a recent graduate from the University of Washington with a B.S. in Oceanography. Up until now I have gathered about 12 weeks of ship time aboard various research vessels as a part of the scientific party. Now as a marine technician intern, I have been given an exciting opportunity to expand my knowledge and experience and work as the interface between the ship’s crew and the scientific party.

My internship will be focused on recovering and replacing moorings and other scientific instruments from an OOI site off the coast of Greenland called the Global Irminger Sea Array! (I really hope we get close enough to see land!) OOI stands for the Ocean Observatories Initiative, where ‘underwater observatories’ have been established at different locations across the globe. Each site includes a number of fixed scientific infrastructure at the seafloor and throughout the water column to collect real-time data. In addition to the fixed infrastructure there other scientific instruments deployed by scientists aiming to collect data on a specific aspect of that site.

Map of established OOI sites. Photo credit: http://oceanobservatories.org/research-arrays.

Quite fortunately, while at UW, I had the privilege of working at another OOI site called the Cabled Array which is located off the coast of Oregon. In fact, I completed my senior thesis using data collected from a methane seep site, called Hydrate Ridge, which is one of the sites within the Cabled Array.

Now I get to continue my involvement with OOI in a different ocean at a new site with different oceanic processes!

I am very excited to have been given this opportunity and I can’t wait to share my experience with you!

Lots of pictures to come!

~ Lauren