Happy Saturday! We are back on the R/V Kilo Moana for the last cruise of the internship—just 5 more days of sea-time and adventures in the North Pacific Ocean until I return home to Seattle. The nice part about the cruise is I know exactly what is happening this time and feel more confident assisting with deck operations and asking better questions. Most marine techs I have met have explained this exact feeling—each cruise gets more familiar and you will feel more confident with your skills as you continue to settle. I am counting down the days until my next cruise, wherever that will be!
The days of the cruise tend to blur together for me but I remember the exact moment the excitement happened. I was assisting Trevor with a CTD deployment in choppy waves and decently strong winds. I held the walkie-talkie and was communicating with the bridge when the CTD was starting to drift under the boat. Almost immediately, Trevor took back over control and was not-so-calmly asking the bridge to move the ship ASAP because the wire angle was too much and he worried the CTD would get stuck in the prop—an expensive issue. From that point on, the weather dictated most of our operations and made it difficult to fall asleep with the crashing waves between the hulls of the ship. The big waves and strong winds halted operations for 8 hours while the science and OTG teams created a new plan.
The following 3 days blurred together with deployments and recoveries happening back-to-back to make up the time we lost. Lots of CTD casts, trace metal casts, net tows, and VPR casts kept us busy. Kelsey, on the science team, was armed with a camera through most of it. To wrap up my blog for this internship, please enjoy many photos of my last few days on the Kilo Moana.
I absolutely loved my time on board the ship and created many great memories throughout the internship. I would like to give a huge thank you to the HOT team, OTGs, and the crew of the Kilo Moana for hosting me and supporting me through an unforgettable 5 weeks in Hawaii this fall! Thank you so much!
Jenn
(Dan Sadler, Fernando, me, Hunter, Carolina, Dan Fitzgerald)