Day 1 - Senior Cruise 2013

Day 1 

The beginning of any journey can be an exciting and stressful time. The beginning of oceanographic cruise amplifies all the normal sensations that you experience at the start of any journey and adds to it many rich layers of expectation that are hard to duplicate in other settings. If you ponder the nature of what a scientific cruise really is it is hard to not feel that we are enjoying an extremely rare opportunity.

Watch 1- 6:00-10:00, Madison Shipley

Big Events: Science meeting, LEFT PORT, safety briefing

Today was the first official day of our senior cruise! The day began very wet, with rain all morning. The first watch was very quiet with no science operations. Breakfast was at 7:15, and people were in and out of the main lab setting up equipment. After a science meeting to discuss the general schedule and procedure for science during the cruise, we cast off into a rain storm at around 09:20. Several students and advisors gathered near the bow as we left port, and the static electricity from the storm on the horizon had everyone's hair literally standing on end. This was also where we experienced the first rolling waves of the cruise. Besides saying goodbye to the beautiful island of Tahiti the biggest challenge, for myself and others, was adjusting to the rocking of the ship. Holy sea legs! Our watch ended with an emergency drill where the ship's bell went off for one long ring and we gathered in the main lab with life vests.

I jumped the gun a bit this morning with sea sickness meds, and in an attempt to prevent any possible issues, I failed to read the side of the bottle with the warning "may cause drowsiness." Needless to say I passed out for a couple hours after lunch. I awoke to students readily working away out on the fan tail. Though I was not out there personally, I heard that there were some technical difficulties with the CTD water samples, as they had to wait for mud to settle after taking a Box Core. With the exception of a couple failed attempts at the box cores, which came up empty, things appeared to run smoothly though a little behind schedule.
Now for the bad news. Initially, I was planning on doing my stimulus-response experiment in a shallow reef area in Bora Bora. However, we were informed that small boats would not be allowed inside the barrier reef, likely due to tourism competition and fees. This pushes my sampling to Tutuila in Samoa. I'll be doing sound checks in a small boat in deep water tomorrow, but I'll have to wait for the behavioral part of my experiment. Nicollete and Lauren will be helping me, and I them, as we run our preliminary tests. On the positive, I learned how to splice a line tonight! And we're in Tahiti, so life is sweet. OCEANOGRAPHY FOR LIFE! 

Watch 2,  Paul Russell

Hey everyone, I’m Paul, the watch leader for the noon watch on the first day of the cruise, December 28, 2013. Our first day out was a great success. We sailed from the port of Papeete to the south side of Tahiti. The rain poured down for the first hour or so, but cleared up as we went further south. The air is extremely humid, with the temperatures reaching into the low eighties. Everyone seems to be having a good time on board. Aside from a few minor cases of seasickness, and the usual assorted collection of cuts and bruises that occur over the course of any adventure, the entire science party is in good spirits. The food on board has been amazing so far, and with the weather forecast saying nothing but clear skies ahead, hopefully morale will stay high.
The only science that happened during the noon watch was a box core sample. The box core works by lowering a box with an open bottom onto the ocean floor. Once it hits the bottom, a large piece of metal weighing several hundred pounds of metal drives it into the sediments. As the box core rises back out of the sediment, a boom swings down to keep the sediment for flowing back out of the core. Once we get the core back on deck, we can take samples for a variety of use, such as looking at an X-ray of the sediment, determining the age of the sample, or looking at how the grain size of the sediment vary across the sample. The operation went well, and we recovered a nice muddy core, which will give us great data to work with. There was more work done with during the rest of the day, including some other, less successful box cores, but since that happened after my watch ended, I will leave it to the afternoon watch leader to detail those activities.

Watch 3, Elise Baldwin

The weather continued to be cloudy through out the day, although it did not rain after about 12:30. The stations originally set for today were both around Tahiti-Iti, the southern part of Tahiti.

Watch 2 continued working on recovery and processing of the box core because the watches overlapped while sample was still being removed and box core secured.

Once the box core was secured on deck watch 3 began CTD deployment. The CTD was deployed but had to be recovered due to an extra block and wire on the winch rubbing against the block being used to lower the CTD. At that point we learned that CTDs should always be done before box cores because the mud interferes with the various samples being taken on the CTD. Specifically, the mud would interfere with the oxygen measurements being taken at this station. Once the CTD was recovered we moved 500m south-west in order to move away from the influence of the mud. The CTD was then cast and recovered at the new station 2 where Teos, Rhys, and Chuck took water samples.

After the CTD was recovered the Jake’s wave buoy was deployed off the fantail and remained in the water for 30 minutes. During this it was decided not to move to the original station 2 but to move to remain in the same area but move to shallower water (500m depth, now called station 2a) to do another box core. The second CTD cast and the second wave buoy deployment were both canceled because of loss of daylight.

Both box cores taken at station 2a did not trip although mud was visible on the box core as it was recovered. Brandy and Dax concluded that the bungee used to trip the box core was wearing out and would be repaired in the morning. The box core was secured and we began transiting to Bora Bora.

Notable bits:

In order to fix the CTD the crew used the man basket, which I have never seen used before. Michelle drove the crane used to maneuver the basket and Brian was in the basket and removed the second block from the CTD winch.

During this I learned how to tie a bowline to attach tag lines to hooks used in equipment recovery. Towards the end of watch I taught Tianna and Kiely how to tie a bowline. I was able to remember how to do it this morning as well. Due to the delays caused by the CTD and the box cores the third watch ended at about 20:00 rather than 18:00. This did give us the opportunity to watch our first sunset of the cruise, although it was mostly blocked by clouds and not too spectacular.

Being watch chief on the first day was a little hectic due to delays and sorting out communication. However, during our evening science meeting we discussed what worked and what didn’t and hopefully watches go more smoothly for the remainder of the cruise.