Category: Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences & Arizona State University Page 6 of 9

3: Across the horizon

On a clear day, we can see for miles in all directions. The swell is low, but the ship still rolls back and forth as we cruise on.

Our course is set for Hydrostation S; only a few dozen miles south of Bermuda. This site has been visited and sampled every other week since 1954, making it the longest-standing oceanographic time series in existence. The sampling at Hydrostation compliments the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series (BATS), another sampling station, even further south, which began in the eighties. Hundreds of cruises have been completed to support this endeavor. In turn, hundreds of research articles have been produced that provide fundamental understanding of issues such as oceanographic processes and global climate change.

 

Sunset at sea.

The BATS team is our primary client. The scientists that run this operation are based at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), the same research facility that the Explorer docks at. Some members of the lab have been part of the BATS team for decades and are very familiar with the ship and crew. Time aboard Explorer is incredibly pricey. Depending on the demands of the cruise, costs can run as high as a thousand USD per hour. Every second aboard the vessel is incredibly precious, and the BATS scientists know very well how to make the most of every moment.

As soon as we reach Hydrostation, we prepare for our first cast. To monitor the physical and chemical properties of the water column, we use an instrument that measures Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD for short). Much of the research and operations during the BATS cruises revolve around its successful deployment and recovery.

The name, and instrument itself for that matter, is clunky and large. Looking down from above, the CTD is a rosette of collection tubes around a metal skeleton. We prep the bottles by cocking the ends into a locking mechanism, leaving each tube in an open position. To do this, I hoist myself up on the frame just to reach the latches. With closer inspection, the instrument is decorated with sensors galore, which monitor essential elements and nutrients such as oxygen and light. We remove caps and syringes from the sensors, and Nick radios the bridge to request permission to deploy.

Using a coordination of machine and manpower, the CTD is lifted from the deck of the ship and suspended over the water. It pauses at the surface, then dives down into blackness and out of sight. Now a thin metal cable is the only connection between us. As it sinks, data is collected in real time. This information is communicated upwards through hundreds of (and up to six thousand) meters of water to the ship. From the comfort of the tech lab, I can see that a thousand meters below me, the temperature is 5? C. Nearly ice cold.

 

Deploying the CTD.

Nick tells me that prior to modern GPS, a constellation of Long Range Navigation (LORAN) outposts were used to find Hydrostation. In place of a CTD, scientists would cast a spruced-up segment of glass to the bottom of the sea floor. As the glass sunk and conditions changed, a needle would scratch its surface. From this piece of information, scientists could interpret depth and temperature and create an informative profile of Hydrostation. I find that incredible.

Operations on deck continue throughout the day and night. We split into shifts to cover all hours. The weather is calm and I have my fingers crossed that it remains this way for the rest of the cruise.

Until next week,

Emily

 

 

Minnie & me.

From my window seat I watch the tops of clouds pass. Underneath them: the infinite ocean. I feel my stomach lift as we begin our descent. We land in Bermuda at sunset. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Landing in Bermuda. 

Bermuda is not a single landmass, but an archipelago of nearly two hundred islands. They rest together upon a massive platform in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, parallel to North Carolina. North of the islands, the platform is shallow: perfect for reefs. To the south, the platform drops off immediately to hundreds of meters: perfect for oceanographic research. 

It is dark when I arrive at the dock, but the crew is still up and about. I am immediately welcomed aboard, given a tour and settled in. My stateroom is adorable. It is outfit with a bunk bed, closet, and sink. A sign on the porthole reads: Do not open. Tempting. 

The Explorer is spacious, well kept, and among research vessels, she is elegant. Of course, she has her fair share of quirks: stairs that are a few inches too large and a companionway with a downhill slope. She’s got character, and a crew to match. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Explorer dockside.

The next cruise is scheduled to depart in five days’ time, and there is a lot to prepare. In the morning, I meet Nick, my mentor, up in the tech lab. We hit the ground running. The tech lab is the brain of the ship; it houses a stack of computers that pull data in from a variety of sensors and then send information back out to be processed and viewed throughout the vessel. All of this communication is achieved through an incredible network of cables that weave in and out, through walls and ceilings, and converge in the hub of the tech lab. Over the course of the past few years, cables have been added, rerouted, but rarely removed. 

Behind the rack of computers and switchboards, I find Nick hidden in a waterfall of cables, weeding out all of the unnecessary ones and laying them into a nest about his feet. He says he is giving the lab a haircut. I do my best to keep up as he darts around and spouts off a litany of acronyms and technical jargon. By the end of the day, the rack is condensed and organized, and I have a much greater sense of how the data collection process operates. 

Over the next couple of days, I start to gain my bearings. I know every crew member by name, I can find my way around the ship, and whenever I get the chance, I take time to explore the island. Things around me are starting to take shape. 

All of a sudden, Sunday is here; a week has passed! Dock lines are cast and we are off. Our movement churns up sand and clouds the turquoise water. We push on through the channel, out to open ocean! Conditions are perfect today. The ocean is calm and clear and Explorer moves steadily onwards. Even though it has only been a few weeks since I last sailed, it feels good to be at sea again. My first shift begins and will continue well into the night. The sun sets and the last glimpse of the island shrinks into darkness. 

“Skylark¹,” Jessie calls at me through the wind. I lift my head and watch my crewmate as she shimmies toward the shrouds and climbs down the mast. I step aside and allow her to pass, but for a moment she pauses beside me and we look around in silence. There is no sight greater than the ocean from above. The water is clear clear clear and I bet we can see a hundred feet beneath the surface before the blue and green turns to complete darkness. The bow of our ship splits the waves and brings forth white ocean spray like torrents of sea glass. Evening renders the clouds pink² and crisp against the setting sun, and there are tears in my eyes from the wind whipping my face and hair about. The air is clean and dry and warm. Everything is perfect. I turn and Jessie is gone, already on deck, another sixty feet down.  

Emily at the helm.

For the past few months, this elegant brigantine has been my home. Our homeport is San Pedro, in the heart of the Port of Los Angeles. The surrounding cranes, cargo ships and industry are a stark contrast to the wooden hull, canvas sails, and thick fibrous lines of our tall ship. Every morning, we depart our berth appearing to be caught in the wrong century. With calloused hands we spend the day hauling lines; lifting sails we hope will fill with wind. By day we coil lines, furl sails, mend tears, scrub the deck, and at night we bunk up side by side in our humble crew quarters. It is a unique lifestyle: definitely out-of-date, but probably kept alive for its uncanny ability to build character in just about anyone and the unparalleled beauty of it all.

Crew leaders after their completing our first voyage. 

I am leaving this boat and heading East³ where I will spend six weeks aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer as a MATE Intern. It has been three years since I was aboard a Research Vessel; in college, I signed up as a volunteer scientist through NOAA to survey Atlantic Scallops on the R/V Hugh R. Sharp. In fact, it was on that cruise that I first heard of the MATE program and internship, and first became interested in the role of a Marine Technician.

My formal education is in Biology, although through my college, I was fortunate to participate in opportunities across the globe that also touched upon Geology, Oceanography, Art, Religion, and Anthropology. My interests span across many subjects, and one of the reasons that I find a career as a Marine Technician so appealing is because it combines my love for travel and life at sea with my interest in high quality, peer-reviewed, ground-breaking marine and oceanographic research. Above all else, I thrive when I am in an environment that challenges me to learn and problem solve. As a Marine Technician in training, I hope to do just that.

My day of departure creeps closer and closer. My bags are (almost) packed, my work visa is secured, and my passport has been located. Soon, I will be on a plane headed towards new adventures, new challenges, and new seas!

Fair winds,

Emily

 

 

¹ A term used by mariners to describe the act of playing around while working up in the rigging of a ship.

² Red skies at night usually indicate moisture to the West. Unfortunately, in Los Angeles vibrant sunsets are more often than not, attributed to smog and pollution instead of weather.

³ Travelling 4,879 miles by car and plane from San Pedro, California to St. Georges, Bermuda.

Things have been going great aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer. We left for sea this morning, and we will be out here until Monday. I have met so many great people while I have been here.

This past week I was given the task to change out the LCI-90i winch display (see attached picture). I was a little nervous at first, but I was able to learn a lot from it. The Marine Techs have shared a lot of their knowledge with me, and I greatly appreciate it. 

I hope to work with people as great as the AE crew in the future. 

 

Unfortunately, this is my last week at BIOS, but what a week it has been! I have to say, the time I have spent here in Bermuda has not been wasted. Plus, I think I got the best of both worlds during my stay in Bermuda. My first week started right off the bat by meeting everyone and then shipping out to sea for five days. Week two, we stayed at the port, and I got to see how the marine techs handle their “8am-5pm” lifestyle at home.

To finish off week one, we got back to port on Friday and helped unload the scientist’s gear/equipment for the first four hours. After 12 pm, the fun began. Everyone needed to decompress from a stressful cruise. Networks went down, Gyro-compass streaming was faulty, a MOCNESS deployment failure that led to re-terminating within an hour to re-deploy successfully and a seawater pump, to all the labs, explosion: to name a few things that transpired on the cruise. But, on the lighter side, I got to deploy and recover the CTD, help deploy pumps to various depths and I also got to help deploy a MOCNESS!! The CTD and pumps are generally common among most cruises but the MOCNESS is a more of a rarer deployment, so I am incredibly fortunate to have taken part in that.

So a lot happened on that cruise, which means we (the Marine Techs) had a lot of work to do before the next scheduled cruise in seven days. Our first objective was to re-terminate the CTD. By the way, if anyone was wondering what “re-terminating” means it’s essentially cutting out a section of wire, connecting “fresh” wire to the plug end of the wire and then protecting it by making it water/pressure proof. By re-terminating cables, you ensure corrosion near the plug doesn’t affect the performance of data streaming from the instrument to the computer on the ship—where Marine Techs and scientists analyze/record the data. And to give everyone an understanding of the amount of time it takes to properly re-terminate a wire, it took us roughly six and half hours to place the molding that would protect the new connection. Granted the Marine Tech was doing the re-termination was explaining and showing every step carefully so that I could understand the whole process, but generally, it’s no quick task.

Once we completed the re-termination for the CTD, we started on re-terminating our COM7 winch (another type of cable used to connect to different types of instruments). We had to stop half-way because BIOS took us on a field trip! We got to visit an island named Nonsuch where we snorkeled and visited a terrestrial protected island where ornithologists use this area to help bring back an almost extinct species of bird named Cahow.

Overall, a week at port leads to projects that focus on fixing systems that failed or gave issues during the most recent cruise. Once those projects are handled, there are always more things to do—you can count on it. When I believed we were in a good place, we had five more things to work on. But, it’s needed, and everyone encouraged each other to stay focused and accomplish the goal(s) at hand.

I would say the first week of my internship taught/developed my deck handling and problem-solving skills while the second week improved my research and wire handling skills. I am truly honored to have received this internship because it showed me a world I never knew existed. Plus, I got to meet some incredible people and have some amazing experiences while improving myself as a worker. The life of a Marine Technician is not an easy one, but it’s a great developing position that could project you into something else. Or, it could be your career, everyone is different.

The people I met at BIOS showed me how to have fun while being efficient when I work. Especially, when you think the world is ending, we support each other enough to at least smile and somehow get the job done. I hope our paths cross again BIOS; you have instilled more than just skill improvement in me, you sparked passion for pursuing work in Marine Science—something I thought I lost. Thank you for everything.

Take care.

 

Taken by me. I was standing on Nonsuch looking out to our anchored vessel.

 

Taken by me, this is the Marine Tech Lab where we monitor multiple feeds that go throughout the ship. Apologies for the image format, I can’t figure out how to adjust the picture to portrait. 

Taken by Mason, one of the Marine Techs at BIOS. I was pulling out all the rusted COM7 wire that was eventually cut off. Apologies for the image format, I can’t figure out how to adjust the picture to portrait. 

Taken by Jillon, another Marine Techs at BIOS. I am recording data from an active CTD cast to 1000 meters (roughly 3000 feet).

 

Such an incredible first week to this internship. I got the VIP tour of the R/V Atlantic Explorer from my mentor Nick Mathews the moment I arrived at BIOS (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science), I got to meet the crew, my bunkmate Mason (who is level two technician that works for BIOS), and all the responsibilities a marine technician are supposed to oversee. Immediately starting the work day, I was helping scientists get gear placed on the R/V Explorer, and I helped with the pre-launch protocol for a cruise we were shipping out for in the next 18 hours. The research cruise was funded by a group of scientists called BIOSCOPE, compiled with scientists from six different research institutions. After pretesting all of our equipment and going through some safety briefings, we were off to explore the Atlantic!

Our transit to BATS (Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study) took only five-ish hours to reach. Once we reached our way-point (GPS specific location), on the Atlantic, we immediately began operations. Marine Technicians have 12-hour shifts. I was scheduled to shadow Jillon (a level one technician) from 12:00 to 00:00 hours, while Mason handled the “night shift” which was 00:00 to 12:00 hours. So once we arrived at our desired location around 12:30, Jillon and I went to work.

Our 12-hour shifts were always filled with tasks. If we weren’t conducting a major operation, we were either helping out a scientist with a lab issue, or assisting the bridge with GPS connection issues, or just organizing our equipment in preparations for the next major operation.

My first operation was a CTD deployment/recovery at 14:30. A CTD is an instrument used to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth with various other devices connected to it. After deploying this behemoth of a tool, Jillon and I went up to the bridge to analyze and monitor the data. Our job was to make sure the data stream contained a good connection with the vessel so the scientists could use that data for their experiments. Seems simple enough, but when you have to send an instrument full of water sensitive devices and have to send them down to 1000 meters (roughly 3,000 feet) things can go wrong really fast.

Overall, my role as a Marine Technician on the Explorer was to assist with operations and fix/maintain instruments as the research cruise was underway. We were also responsible for Wifi, seawater flow, instrument success, transporting the data to the scientists, safely deploying/recovering VERY expensive instruments, and not contaminating any samples gathered at extreme depths.

By day seven, I was feeling extremely confident in my deck skills and getting familiar with the ship operations. The ship works as one unit, but within that unit contains more units that handle various responsibilities. Everyone is incredibly supportive of one another, and if someone is struggling, there is someone else there either trying to assist or just trying to help in whatever way they can. Several significant problems popped up on this research cruise that Mason or Jillon struggled to handle. But with the support from the crew and other personnel, they managed to complete the cruise with excellent results.

A special shout-out to the ships cooks SUCH INCREDIBLE FOOD! I could not believe the food Dexter, and Reggie made for the ship. Sushi, steak, lasagna (maybe the best I have ever had), perfectly crisped bacon, unbelievably fresh cookies, the list goes on and on. They really made every meal count and bolstered everyone’s spirits. The crew on the R/V Atlantic Explorer is a solid one. Given some hardship in the past, they are making some excellent strides in what they are doing.

That’s all I got for this week. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attach any pictures because the site is buggy, but I will try to upload some in the near future! So I’ll attach a picture of me in action and try to upload later! Until next time everyone!

 Such an incredible first week to this internship. I got the VIP tour of the R/V Atlantic Explorer from my mentor Nick Mathews the moment I arrived at BIOS (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Science), I got to meet the crew, my bunkmate Mason (who is level two technician that works for BIOS), and all the responsibilities a marine technician are supposed to oversee. Immediately starting the work day, I was helping scientists get gear placed on the R/V Explorer, and I helped with the pre-launch protocol for a cruise we were shipping out for in the next 18 hours. The research cruise was funded by a group of scientists called BIOSCOPE, compiled with scientists from six different research institutions. After pretesting all of our equipment and going through some safety briefings, we were off to explore the Atlantic!

Our transit to BATS (Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study) took only five-ish hours to reach. Once we reached our way-point (GPS specific location), on the Atlantic, we immediately began operations. Marine Technicians have 12-hour shifts. I was scheduled to shadow Jillon (a level one technician) from 12:00 to 00:00 hours, while Mason handled the “night shift” which was 00:00 to 12:00 hours. So once we arrived at our desired location around 12:30, Jillon and I went to work.

Our 12-hour shifts were always filled with tasks. If we weren’t conducting a major operation, we were either helping out a scientist with a lab issue, or assisting the bridge with GPS connection issues, or just organizing our equipment in preparations for the next major operation.

My first operation was a CTD deployment/recovery at 14:30. A CTD is an instrument used to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth with various other devices connected to it. After deploying this behemoth of a tool, Jillon and I went up to the bridge to analyze and monitor the data. Our job was to make sure the data stream contained a good connection with the vessel so the scientists could use that data for their experiments. Seems simple enough, but when you have to send an instrument full of water sensitive devices and have to send them down to 1000 meters (roughly 3,000 feet) things can go wrong really fast.

Overall, my role as a Marine Technician on the Explorer was to assist with operations and fix/maintain instruments as the research cruise was underway. We were also responsible for Wifi, seawater flow, instrument success, transporting the data to the scientists, safely deploying/recovering VERY expensive instruments, and not contaminating any samples gathered at extreme depths.

By day seven, I was feeling extremely confident in my deck skills and getting familiar with the ship operations. The ship works as one unit, but within that unit contains more units that handle various responsibilities. Everyone is incredibly supportive of one another, and if someone is struggling, there is someone else there either trying to assist or just trying to help in whatever way they can. Several significant problems popped up on this research cruise that Mason or Jillon struggled to handle. But with the support from the crew and other personnel, they managed to complete the cruise with excellent results.

A special shout-out to the ships cooks SUCH INCREDIBLE FOOD! I could not believe the food Dexter, and Reggie made for the ship. Sushi, steak, lasagna (maybe the best I have ever had), perfectly crisped bacon, unbelievably fresh cookies, the list goes on and on. They made every meal count and bolstered everyone’s spirits. The crew on the R/V Atlantic Explorer is a solid one. Given some hardship in the past, they are making some excellent strides in what they are doing.

That’s all I got for this week. My apologies for posting late in my first week. Right now the ship’s network (WiFi) went down when we were at sea. We got back to BIOS and finally made a breakthrough today! Until next time everyone!

 

Image taken by Jillon (one of the marine techs on the R/V Atlantaic Explorer).

 

Testing…testing…testing. Are you “reading” me loud and clear? Get it? Because I’m writing this post and you have to read it. Alright, enough with the poor humor. My name is Dominic Rodricks, a recent graduate from California State University of Monterey Bay, with a Bachelors degree in Marine Science. I discovered MATE by taking my upper division service learning class at my university. I volunteered at high schools teaching kids the basics of electronic safety and how to build a simple ROV. I furthered my curiosity in robotics by taking an introductory course in Robotics for Ecological Research. After graduating from CSU-Monterey Bay, I decided to pursue this career path and I’m honored to participate in this internship. I am flying out tomorrow (June 30th) to Bermuda where I will be interning at BIOS (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences) where I will be working on the R/V Atlantic Explorer. I am excited to see what I will learn and gain from this experience. Until next time!

Dom

Hello everyone!

I have learned so much during the first two weeks of my internship. I made a huge accomplishment yesterday! The NTP time server on the ship, was only syncing the time to the computers every two days, I made it so that the time syncs every 5 minutes! My mentor, Nick, is awesome and he already taught me so much. I know by the end of my internship I will have so much more knowledge than when I started. I will be back next week to write my third blog!

Morgan Hudgins