First Time At Sea

10th May 2011

My name is Andrew and this is my first cruise. I began doing oceanographic research in Colorado in 2009 and earlier this year I began a project on the acidity of the Southern Ocean, which I’ll continue for another year if not longer. My interest in the Southern Ocean comes from the “summer bias” in data collected here because the winters get too rough for measurements to be taken. The ocean isn’t too rough yet, but it should start to get pretty crazy tomorrow as we approach the first station and I look forward to the craziness. I’ve always heard about seasickness and I’d like to understand what it is all about. I’ve not been sick yet and the motion of the ocean is nice. Last night I imagined I was sleeping on a giant waterbed as the waves rocked the ship and me to sleep.

I’m here to assist with the paleo projects collecting, sorting and analyzing fossilized corals and to complete any additional tasks that I’m asked to do. One of the tasks I have taken on for the cruise is photographing the work that is being done and documenting what life on a research vessel is like. So far that task is going smoothly and it has given me the opportunity to meet everyone on the cruise - a poster has been made with a photo of everyone on it so we can get to know each other better. All of the people I work with I met less than a week ago and they are all very nice.

We are divided into a 00:00 to 12:00 shift and a 12:00 to 00:00 shift and I am the 12:00 to 00:00 shift (day shift). I was in charge of keeping the log today, which entails writing our location and the depth of our location in a logbook every hour. Anyway, I should get going because I have some photos to get ready for the website. Thanks for reading!

By Andrew

Weather: 42F (21F wind chill), 15 knots wind, sunny!

Everybody on board is gearing up for arrival at the first station in the early hours of tomorrow morning. Here Chris, Eric and Michelle work in the biolab, preparing for the first sampling station coming up tomorrow in the early hours (A. Margolin).


Eric helping to prepare one of the more sizable aquarium tanks where live deep-sea animals will be kept until they can be processed (R. Waller).


Michelle and Sebastian making boxes in the cargo hold for storing and, ultimately shipping all the lovely samples we will be collecting on the cruise! (R.Waller).


John and Tina at the mulitbeam station. The multibeam allows us to map the topography of the seafloor as we sail, which helps us decide where to sample (D. Case).