back on land....if that's what u call this..

So we got into Dutch Harbor, but this really shouldn't count as land. I can't send texts unless I pay a rando server guy ten dollars and there are two restraunts....one at each of the hotels. I was gonna stay and hike, but it would be a lot more fun to do that if there was someone to hike with. I'm going to see if I can catch an early flight into Anchorage, because they at least have a town that I can go into and maybe buy some more souveniers...just what I need! If I can't catch an earlier flight, then I'll just make some friends in the airport bar....my liver needs to get back into shape for New York anyway...

Coming to a Close

Well, two weeks and two peices of equipment later, the cruise is coming to a close. We are still sampling, and somewhere between the 20 gallons of water I need to filter I also need to pack up all my stuff and figure out how to get it to New York. Since when do people consider me adult-enough to handle all of this??? I like it better when I'm not trusted with this responsibility and others just do it for me...does this mean I get a pay raise?? :)
So I was looking forward to getting into Dutch Harbor and maybe seeing some of the Deadliest Catch boats, but apparently this isn't their season. I was told there is nothing to do in this town except drink and buy porn...they never mention that on the Discovery Channel. If anyone wants anything from Alaska, this is your last chance for at least a year!!!

Holy Rolling Boat Batman....

Working on a ship is one thing. But I just looked out the window and the waves were so hight that I couldn't see the sky. As I'm sitting in a wheel-less chair typing this, I am sliding toward and away from the computer....this is crazy! I'm running late today because the person filtering on the same schedule as me woke up late. I just caught up, and now his boss isn't ready for me to do a station right now, so once again, I'm late! Not the happiest, thrown around, camper on this boat. Water's falling everywhere, my whole filter rig fell over....working when the boat is flying like this is just not the most accurate science - but I guess that's what you would expect in the Bering Sea. Add this to the list of experiences I won't miss....

70 meter line of death

My schedule - Wake up at 6:30 eat breakfast and then filter for four hours....eat lunch, and then filter for four hours...eat dinner, and then filter for four hours. In between all of this I'm trying to fix the FRRF that does profiles of the water - ridiculous!
We had a day off today because the boat was doing a search grid for a lost buoy, so I got to catch up on my sleep today! We have a CTD at 8:30 tonight, which means I won't be getting the water until 9:00, if you do the Math that means I will only get 4 hours of sleep tonight....gotta love the boat's timing. I'm really hoping the FRRF is all better, because I really don't think I have much energy left to fix it once again


* FRRF = Fast Repition Rate Fluorometer; basically a bench top machine stretched out into a canister that takes live samples as it goes down the water profile...

And it begins...tomorrow

Hi! I wasn't going to post this until the conclusion came about, but I love Alaskan people (is that the correct grammer?)! I left my Ipod at the hotel I was staying at and got my mom to call them...lo and behold my Ipod is being mailed back to my home. Any other state (not including Maine) it would be in a pawn shop right now - yaayy Alaska!

Ok, back to the boat. I'm going to get a full nights rest because when I wake up tomorrow until probably next Thursday, I will be working 18 hour days of nonstop water filtering and microscopy. And as scientific equipment usually goes on research cruises, I started with four instruments and am now down to two. The profiler is acting up, and I'm about to retire it if I can't get it to work in the morning. So now that I think about it, after those two instruments failed, I'll be doing the same amount of work even if my boss was here...so much for being able to handle a cruise on my own - blah

But I did get the new pictures on my blog...enjoy!

PICTURES

My blog won't let me put them on yet, but if you click on the slide show, you'll be able to see my pictures from Alaska...there are more, but I need to go take apart an instrument bc it's not working - so much for getting my nap in after an all nighter :/

same old same old

nothin new to report, we have our cast at 2 today and another cast every hour after that, so I'll be working til midnight probably...and it finally begins....

equipment problems

This post is boring, so if you're looking for excitement in the Bering Sea - come back at a later time :) I'm doing four things: filtering a hell of a lot of water, dropping an insturment to take a profile of the water, constantly having a flow through system with another instrument, and running a flow through microscope (that's my favorite). So far everything has been working except for the flow through system, which has been on and off and driving me crazy. Today the whole computer crashed and I gave it to the tech...out of sight out of mind, and I am loving life lol we are currently transitting to our next station and we won't be there for another 12 hours. In the meantime when I'm not making phytoplankton libraries from the microscope, I'll try to load on some of my pictures from my time on land....no promises though :P

blah...transit

Today I was in bed all day, because we are transitting to the next station. I tried to do some work, but transit means the ship's rolling so much that you can do nothing but sing "What do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor?" when you walk around the ship. I don't even think I stumble this much on my Friday and Saturday nights :) ! So anyway when I tried to do work, my whole body cried out in sea misery so I just got back in bed and slept. We have our next station tomorrow morning and after talking to my boss I have a reasonable amount of work now (which is still a lot - but I'm on a boat and beggers can't be choosers) and I should be given the right amount of water from each depth in order to do it! YAY FOR DATA...or something like that, right?

So more about this boat

The boat I'm on is called the Oscar Dyson, and I've never seen so many female crew members on a ship before...I don't know if it is a NOAA (National Oceanographical blah blah) thing or just this boat. Also, the backround of my blog is literally the background of what I'm seeing - only we aren't near any mountains at the moment. This boat r0lls like none other I've ever been on (which is only two, but I still think that's saying something), and I'm considering downing the drowsy pills just to get through the first couple of days. I am the youngest one on this ship, with the least seagoing experience and am the only one in my group trying to do just as much or even more than other groups. I wrote my boss today to see if we could dim down some of the filtering, because I just don't think this is realistic.....
The food, like the Melville has been delicious so there goes my hopes of losing a lot of weight these two weeks - overrated....We are currently travelling to where the ice is (which will take about 3-4 days, because we are picking up and deploying moorings...) and then once we get there there will be a station every 10 miles, which means every 50 minutes. I am going to try to accomplish getting data from every 3 or 4 station...Ok, I'm off to bed...pictures later in the week but since it's only a 2 week cruise you might be able to wait until I get back home....

A week in Kodiak

So I've been in Kodiak for a week now and there are some things I have learned: there is no such thing as a lite salad dressing, there are 11 bars within 1 square mile of each other - so if you get cut at one bar there are plenty more, camoflauge (that's hard to spell) is appropriate attire, and although New York doesn't agree it is completly acceptable to look strangers in the eye and smile! The one day I expolored the island was more than enough to get some amazing pictures, and see a lot of wildlife! It was too windy out so we couldn't go kayaking with the otters and seals, so instead we searched for animals on land. I saw lots of mountain goatss cows, buffalo, bald eagles, and even a bear. We climbed a mountain to get an amazing view of a killer whale chasing two fin baby wales into the shallow waters to escapes, and lots of other spouts every 4 - 5 minutes or so. On our way home was where we saw the bear - a small-ish, brown, female bear! So we decided to go after it to get a closer picture (it seemed like the only logical explanation at the time...) By the time we got to the place where we saw it - which mean climbing through shrubs, getting stabbed by devils clubs (sneaky sticks that have very spiky, thorny tops), and getting hit by trees - the bear was gone. We saw it's den and got some cool pics of that too, but loading pics is gonna take a while, so I need to set aside some time to do that (if I ever get any free time after this). We are about to leave the port and head to the Bering Sea. I'll tell you more about the boat after our first cast....miss you all!

ALASKA

Here we go again! I just got to Alaska for my cruise in the Bering Sea. We are studying the change in phytoplankton with the melting ice in the artic. This is my first cruise where I'm going to be the only one from my group, so I'm gonna be really busy....Until then - the boat doesn't get to Kodiak until the 12th so I'm gonna go check out the area i.e. kayaking, and bear sight seeing - if I can afford it...I can see beautiful mountains and will be putting pictures up once I take them :)