The stars aligned this week with the annual RVTEC conference in Honolulu while Hunter and I are on land here in Oahu. Our mentor, Carolina, was incredibly generous and let us attend the conference on Monday and Friday of this week to learn and meet marine technicians from other UNOLS ships. The first day of the conference was exciting and intimidating all at once. The theme of the day was cybersecurity and networks which was almost entirely new information for me but it was great to learn where the field is going in the future.
On Tuesday, Hunter and I helped Brandon clean most of the sampling bottles from HOT 345 in preparation for next week. We worked through the pile of bottles, rinsing each with a hydrochloric acid solution and then deionized water to ensure any microorganisms were all rinsed out and would not contaminate our new samples next week.
After our day of lab work, we rejoined the conference networking event in the evening. I loved meeting techs from other ships and hearing about their experiences as MATE interns and how they transitioned to a job afterward. Connecting with the alumni and current techs from boats like Scripps and WHOI has been a highlight of my internship. I feel reassured that this is the right path for me and it reinforced my enthusiasm to start applying for marine tech roles on these ships when I return home.
On Wednesday, we worked in the CMORE (biogeochemical research) labs on campus with Brandon analyzing chlorophyll samples with the fluorometer. The instrument we used was built in the 80s and is incredibly accurate and reliable…however, it took almost 3 hours to analyze a single rack of samples. Sometimes the older technology has pros and cons.
After work, we attended the conference dinner at the Waikiki Aquarium which was unbelievably beautiful! The dinner was wonderful and I loved meeting even more people in the community including a technician visiting from Australia. It warms my heart to see a community of people who usually are all working in different oceans of the world all gathered in one place.
Thursday was our particulate inorganic carbonate analysis day. This was my first time doing a gas analysis to measure the CO2 as a proxy for the calcium carbonate in each sample—very cool! Hunter and I spent the afternoon carefully working through each sample from our sediment traps. It is amazing to see the data after everything is analyzed because you can gain more context for the work we do out at sea. The magic is absolutely in the data we collect and it is even more rewarding to collect samples at sea when you have the bigger picture in mind.
Our final day this week was a half-day attending the intro classes by Tom Wilson at the conference. Even though these classes were a bit more intense than I expected, I still learned a ton about electronic design and serial communication. I am excited to continue learning independently online and out in the field in my first job. One of the biggest takeaways from the week at the conference was that everything is specific to each ship. I can barely contain my excitement to get started in this world and learn how these systems are tailored to the next boat I have the opportunity to work on.
I’m looking forward to another week on land preparing for the HOT 346 cruise departing next Saturday!
Jenn