R/V Marcus G. Langseth,
19-June-13, The Study Site
R/V Marcus G. Langseth: A Daily Routine on the Boat
Hello everyone! I thought I would use this blog post to talk about what my daily routine on the boat is like. Since I last posted there hasn’t been a lot going on besides the regular data collection, we did have to weather our way through a storm but other than that life has been proceeding as normal and hence why I am now writing about what life is like on the boat.
So, my work shift is from midnight to noon every day. As such, my day begins about an hour before work. I get up and get ready and then head down to the galley to get some food before my shift. The first meal that is served by the crew isn’t until 7:20 am so I grab something small to eat and then go to the main lab. Once there I talk to everyone to see what is going on and if everything looks like it is going well. Oft times there is not much happening besides the routine monitoring, but sometimes there are problems that need to be attended to. When there aren’t problems, I head over to an open seat and begin monitoring the data.
Monitoring the data isn’t all that exciting but it is a necessity. If there is an open chair at the guns monitoring station then my job is to watch the gun data to ensure that if a problem with a gun occurs it is recorded and if for some reason a whole shot is missing that it is recorded as well. If I am at the navigation station, my job is to make sure that our streamers are in the correct position. If they aren’t then I have to steer the ship into the correct position using a plus and minus button to move the ship closer or farther away from the line. This station involves the most work as the currents can more our streamers into very different positions from the ship and requires nearly constant monitoring. The final monitoring position is the data position where I monitor the bathymetry data being collected and keep a log of data about our positions, speed, ocean conditions, and the weather, every 30 minutes. Personally, I like the navigation position because it keeps my attention and I get to steer the ship.
While monitoring equipment, I also help Carlos, one of the gun mechanics, every two hours. Because there is such strain on the cables that hold the doors close to the boat, they need to be moved a little bit so that the same portion isn’t being strained. As such, I go up to the vein deck and help Carlos move the cables in and out. I also sometimes lend him a hand preparing the guns and also cleaning and repairing the trolleys that hold the guns up on deck.
Other than my meals of which usually occur at 3:00 am, 7:20 am and 12:00 am not much else really occurs during my shift, unless of course there are problems. My meal at 3:00 am is a dinner from the night before that the cooks have saved me while the 7:20 am meal is breakfast and the meal at 12:00 is lunch. After lunch, I usually go back to my cabin to relax a bit, do laundry if needed, and then go to bed and get ready to start the next day.
Well, that is pretty much my daily routine on the boat. For my next post, if no major events occur, I plan on talking about what life is like on the boat. I will also talk about the crew, grad students, and principal investigators that I work with during my shift and how all of us work together to make the data collection a reality. Take care everyone.
– This is Tyler Poppenwimer, signing off –