For some reason, sitting on a boat that’s stationary and tied up to the dock is just torture. Probably because it feels like you SHOULD be at sea going somewhere and doing something cool, but you’re not. Or you could be in town enjoying a beer, but you’re not. Instead, you are just sitting in a weird nautical purgatory. But a very informative purgatory (with a great cook, too)! We had a full day of great lectures on Thursday about UNOLS, how to request ship time, how to plan a cruise, etc. These were excellent and interesting lectures but were not good blog post material. However, now we are at sea, where everything is good blog post material.

This first day was mainly focused on getting everyone on the same page in regards to procedures and sampling plans. For example, see the picture below of the science party going over the procedure for running a CTD.

We’ve taken 2 CTDs and 2 multicorers so far, and multicore number 3 is touching down as I type this. All of these things will deserve further discussion in the future, but for now it’s 3:30 in the morning and we have a core to extrude before breakfast.

Also of note, it was Taco Night tonight.

Posted by Chris