Hello again from the R/V Sharp! It has been quite a crazy week on board. Last Saturday was quite rough, and many of the scientists were out of commision with sea sickness as the habcam was towed once more. Showering was quite an ordeal! I had to take a pill when I felt it coming on…but luckily soon afterwards I was fine. I learned how to terminate, or put the end plugs on, ethernet cables that we might need when we figure out what is wrong with that internet. After a little trial and error, we got our terminations to work! Dinner was amazing, where Paul, the cook, prepared seafood alfredo featuring the some of the scallops we caught yesterday. Sunday was another gorgeous day weatherwise with the seas lessening, as we reached the northern Jersey shore with the cam. The water began to change color from slightly translucent blue to the more opaque sea green I am used to. The scientists showed me a habcam image of a dolphin, which they happened to get a very clear shot of.
Monday was calm but rainy, so we spent the day inside fixing code for the winch plot graphs, which were not reading tension porperly. These are important because we need to know how much strain the habcam is putting on our deck winch. It took a while, as Christian and I are both relatively new at coding, but we talked out and worked thorugh the problem together until the front office was happy. Tuesday we got a task via e mail from KG, the senior tech who was not on board, to design a flowchart for the internet system so we can more quickly find the problem when we get back to port. It was a long day of tracing wires throughout the entire ship, and even then we did not have a complete chart! As we were working on the bridge, we got a chance to talk to Jimmy, the captain, who was very nice. He told me to stop by his office some time so he could give me a crew shirt, affirming that I was a true crew member.
Wednesday we went back to port in Lewes, Delaware a little early to avoid an oncoming storm. The cruise was a success, with scientists processing over 3 million images that will be used to estimate scallop populations. I helped tie up the boat, then worked with Christian to turn off the flow through system. KG and Tim Deering came on board and we all worked on the internet, adding to the flowchart. When we all ran out of ideas, it was time to call the IT company on shore that we work with. I had the rest of the day off, and felt quite landsick once I left the boat as I was not used to standing on solid ground. Yes that is a thing! Christian invited me over to his place for dinner, where we talked about his previous experices as a science volunteer on other research ships and what working on the Sharp was actually like.
Thursday it was raining once again, as all hands were on board to get set for the second leg. I helped the crew load a sediment grabber, and worked with Drew to drill into metal plates that will be used to better anchor the CTD. KG, who will be working with me on the next leg, showed me a little about how the multibeam scanner worked. We will need it to get an accurate profile of the bottom on portions of this leg. Pam, the cook for this leg, arrived, causing me to have to vacate the room I had been sharing with Paul and move down with a scientist. I spent the last few hours working with Pam and Joe, one of the shoreside workers, to load food and distribute clean linens.
Finally, Fiday morning we casted off again to begin the second leg, heading north along the shelf towards Massachusetts. Once I helped with lines again, I worked with KG and Drew to start the flowthough system, lower the keel and start the various systems for data logging like the SMS.
After a while of steaming, during which time I worked on a spreadsheet describing all the sensors we own, taking pictures of them, and linking them all to their digital manuals. The CTD is much more complex than I thought! In the evening we deployed the habcam again, and after that time it was my day on the rotation to clean the boat and empty trash. I then was told to see Sean, the Chief Mate, who told me I have to move rooms again tonight because all of science wants to be dowwnstairs together. Since our job is to keep them happy, I told him that I would move to a pullout sofa in the conference room. I felt that I had to be willing to be flexible. At least now I have control of the ice cream freezer! I am looking forward to this next week, an learning much from KG who is an incredibly knowledgeable marine technician.
Until then,
Huxley