It has been such an incredible opportunity to work with scientists from Woods Hole and Scripps Institute in sending down instruments which have never been used for our purpose in mapping freshwater deposits under the seafloor. Working in 12 hour shifts from midnight to noon I have helped to assemble the Ocean Bottom Electromagnetic instruments and outfit them with batteries, hydrophones, and fluxgate magnetometers along with other instruments that will be recording the changes in frequency of electromagnetic waves as they travel through the ocean floor. We deployed those at specific intervals on the ocean bottom off the coast of NJ and then towed a dipole behind the boat that sent current through the water and generated a complex wave form which was then recorded by the OBEMs and also recievers also towed behind the boat. I have also participated in logging every deployment and recovery including Latitude and Longitude, boat and wind speed, course, depth, and have taken readings from echosounders, GPS recievers, Direct Positioning systems, and other complex multibeam sonar. The geophysics is a little over my head, but I get mini lectures from the enthusiastic scientists on board while we sit and tow our array for days, monitoring all systems on computer screens. I’ve also had tours of the bridge and engine room by the excellent crew. I’m loving it so far. We have now picked up the OBEMs after towing for a few days and are now en route to the continental shelf below Martha’s Vineyard, where we will deploy another kind of Ocean Bottom System which will sit below for 8 weeks and again deploy the OBEMs and tow our array before picking them up and heading back to Woods Hole on the 14th.