Bermuda appearing on the horizon

Land Ahoy!! It is both surreal and exciting to finally spot land on the horizon, when you’ve been surrounded by nothing but ocean for 9 days.  We spent the prior 24 hours working through the nights so that we could squeeze in the last two stations and get in our last plankton net tows and CTD casts.  Then we sped off for Bermuda.  We needed to get to land by

The harbor pilot jumping from his ship to the Atlantic Explorer to help guide us to the dock

high tide because at low tide the water becomes too shallow for a boat as large as the Atlantic Explorer to dock.  That would have meant spending the night on the ship and waiting for the next high tide.   By the time we spotted land we were all very tired, but the excitement of watching our harbor pilot jump from his ship to ours while they were both still moving woke us up a bit.

The Atlantic Explorer as Captain George puts her in a 180 deg spin to dock her with BIOS waiting for us in the background.

The docking area is a difficult area to get to, and an even more difficult job to dock such a large ship in such a small area, but Captain George was up to task and we had a reception waiting to welcome us at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS).  There were even several small Barracuda waiting to greet us.  It’s a bitter sweet ending to our trek across the Atlantic Ocean.  We are all glad to see land and looking forward to seeing our friends

Barracuda waiting by the docks for us

and families.  However, we will miss the sea, doing the work we love, and miss the friendships and family-like ties that you can’t help but form when putting so many great people together (scientist and crew alike) on what was ultimately our floating home for a short while.

…But this is only the end of the first part of a research cruise journey.  The second leg will now begin as we all take our data and samples to our home laboratories.  There we will begin to analyze them in every way we can imagine in the hopes of finding pieces of the puzzle that is understanding our oceans.  We feel quite confident that we will find many answers, as well as discover many more new questions.  It is these new questions that drive science, and that will lead us to plan our next research cruise adventure.

Unfortunately, if you can view this post, the blog’s commenting is shut down and we can no longer interact with you.  We got such a large number of responses, and were so busy that we were not always able to respond.  Also, the past few days we have been working very hard on after-cruise activities and getting ready to fly back to our homes, so we are very sorry if we did not reply to your comment.  We want to thank each and every person that followed us on our journey and interacted with us with comments and questions.  What terrific questions we received!!  We have been so excited to see how interested and engaged everyone has been.  We hope that we have given you some idea of what it is like to be an oceanographer, a member of a ship’s crew, and to live and work at sea on a research vessel.  Possibly, we’ve even encouraged a few of you to be oceanographers.

Thank you, 

From the crew and science party of the 2014 CST Research cruise aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer

Sam preparing the CTD for deployment

Steve Tuorto operating the CTD from the bridge of the ship

For example, many of the microbiologists are interested in collecting the bacteria and phytoplankton that live in the water. To do this we will filter water so that it will trap most of the microbes on the filter. This allows us to concentrate the bacteria on the filter and take them back to lab for further investigation.

Lauren collecting water to filter

Seawater Filtration System

A clean filter next to a filter containing bacteria and phytoplankton from seawater

Barbara is interested in studying how carbon-containing compounds are different in the deep ocean. To do this she can collect these compounds using special columns designed to trap all of these carbon-containing compounds.   Sam and Violetta are also looking at how different chemicals change at different depths over long periods of time.  All of this together will help us to better understand our oceans and how humans impact them.

Barbara and her organic matter column

-Molly Redmond, Stephen Techtmann, and Steve Tuorto

Sam, with today’s book.

Time spent on a research vessel can be very busy, especially while working at a research station. With all the different projects going on at once, the ship is often bustling with activity. Still, there are often long stretches of time between stations when there isn’t much work to do. Even the crew gets some time off from running the ship to relax and unwind. So, what do you do when you’re in the middle of the ocean and you’ve got some time to kill?

If the weather is good, you’ll often see scientists and crew alike out on the deck enjoying the sunshine. Some sit and talk and watch the water. Others take time to stretch their legs and walk around the deck. Walking on a ship as it rocks back and forth can be really good exercise!

Our ship’s library.

We also have a small supply of books that people can borrow to help pass the time. Technician Sam is often seen with a book in his hand. He is such a fast reader that he usually finishes one every day! On nice days many of us like to lie outside with a good book.

There is also a comfortable lounge on the ship, equipped with a large flatscreen TV and a stock of DVDs, including movies and TV shows. Unfortunately, we can’t get cable out here in the deep blue sea, and the internet connection is too slow to stream from websites like Netflix or Hulu. So if you’ve already seen all the movies we have onboard, you may want to bring your own supply.

We currently only have one computer onboard the ship with an internet connection. During downtime, many of us take time to email our friends and family and let them know how things are going on the ship. We also use it to update the blog, of course!

Sometimes, if the crew spots a school of fish or expects to see one near a mooring, some of them will get put out some lines and go fishing. On our first day out, Ronnie caught a huge mahi mahi. He and Jacob had their lines out yesterday over the stern, but didn’t have much luck. Maybe next time…

Me, hard at work!

There are lots of other activities you can come up with to keep busy on a boat. The other day, Karen S organized a game for the scientists and crew to play. Some people bring musical instruments to play, or crafts to work on. On this trip, I’ve brought along a very special project: I’m sewing my wedding gown! I’ve been working on it for several weeks and it is almost finished. It is almost entirely sewn by hand, and I can’t wait to wear it this September. Once I get home, I’ll be finishing up the groom’s suit, too!

Of course, it’s not all fun and games. There’s a lot of work to be done, but when you love it as much as we do, the science can be just as fun as our time off.

-by Lauren Seyler

Can you guess the animal based on their eyes?

Baseball great Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” If you don’t know who Yogi Berra is, just ask your grandparents.  One of the things I enjoy most on a research cruise is to look very closely at a zooplankton net tow sample that has just come from the water.  You can watch the little creatures swim, and

Answers

after a while you can begin to identify them just by seeing how they move through the water.  You can also pick them up and observe them under the microscope.   One thing that jumps out at you when looking at them in the microscope is the diversity of their eyes.  Above are some pictures of zooplankton eyes taken through our microscope on the R/V Atlantic Explorer.

In the pictures above there are:

fish (2 of them), hyperiid amphipods (2 of them), krill, copepods (3 of them), squid, heteropod, and an alciopid worm.

Can you tell which eye belongs to which animal? You might need to do some research to learn about these amazing zooplankton.

Jon Cohen, Ph.D.

As a pteropodologist (or science person who studies pteropods), I am also an artist…one of my pieces per se.  And, as science and art are synonyms (type the word “science” into your word processor then select it and press Shift + F7 on your PC to be sure) it is a pleasure to photograph the thrills of discovery each day of this research cruise.  From photographs of small animated ocean animals, to charismatic mega-fauna, images help tell an engaging story.  Here is a small collection of photographs I have taken during this research cruise and I invite YOU to tell me creatively, scientifically, and constructively what you think the story is behind one of them!

Paul Suprenand, Ph.D.

I in the Iris

Ladies of Science

Night into Day

Atlanta inflata

A Shot of Jon with Krill

Here is a little video we took yesterday evening.  It is a little squid that came up in the 500 micron plankton net.  You can see the beating hearts and its chromatophores.  Enjoy!

A major goal of mine on this cruise is to collect samples of Saharan dust desert which blows across the Atlantic, most efficiently in the tropics carried from the east by the trade winds. As we move further north we are getting out of the influence of the trade winds and my filters are starting to look different colors! Still south of the influence of the westerly winds from North America, it appears we may now be in an area of relatively pristine marine air, where most of the aerosols are made up of sea salt from waves breaking over the ocean. Toward the end of the cruise, we may potentially see more “gray” filters, indicating aerosols that come from typical “air pollution” sources like burning coal and gas. What color will come up next on my filters?!

–Christopher Hayes (MIT)

Chris securing his aerosol sampler

Justin, Jon, and Paul with the mesopelagic optical package on the back deck.

Tony getting the A-frame wire ready while Justin sets up the instruments for deployment.

One last check of the optical package before deployment.

Tony making sure everything goes smoothly.

Last chance to look things over before descent to 500 meters!

- Violetta Paba

A flying fish cruising over the waves.
Photo by: Paul Suprenand

Flying fish are not just cool; they are also tasty! They are the national dish of Barbados, where you can find many a vendor selling flying fish sandwiches.

A man in Barbados prepares flying fish fillets. Photo credit: Paul Suprenand

Here is a poem I wrote about flying fish:

Flying fish, what a delectable dish,
but also pretty cool flying in a school.
These little guys really do fly,
bouncing from trough to crest.

When the bow wave bulges from ship or shark,
the flying fish heads away from the dark.
Out of the blue and into the sky,
away from sharp jaws glittering fish fly.

Most fish jump, then hop and then,
Plop! Back into the water and
met with inevitable slaughter.

Not the flying fish, no!
Up and away they go.
shooting toward the sun.
Away from danger into a world
all the more stranger.

An ironic twist for our favorite fish:
they cannot breathe air as one might wish,
if one were hurdling over the waves.
And instead of gliding to safety,
may end up on deck as a dinner quite tasty.

- Karen Stamieszkin