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 :)