The last couple of days have been crazy busy- so sorry that the blog has not been updated! We each work twelve hour shifts, and there usually are breaks in between the stations such as the thirty minute trawl time. However, yesterday the stations were so closely packed together that we were on our feet for around seven straight hours- hauling in trawls, going through our catches, CTD's, etc. My feet were about to fall off- I can't remember the last time I worked that hard. Probably never...doing all of that labor. Even though it was exhausting and strenuous, we had a good time and made the best of it. We finally were able to turn on XM satellite radio- so we have been jamming to the 80's and 90's for the past couple of days.

Every time we pull up our trawl, it's always a surprise to see what kind of catch we have in the net. Since this cruise is mainly for monitoring the commerical shrimp and red snapper populations, we get A LOT of shrimp, but also a lot of other really interesting species. And we also get a ton..I mean a ton of crabs. When the deckhands haul up the net, we bring it over to dump it into baskets for us to weigh and carry them back into the dry lab. Sometimes when the catch is extremely large like 100 + kilos, we will dump it on the conveyor belt outside, which will bring it into the wet lab. We all stand around the belt, picking out all of the shrimp, red snapper, and any other unusual species. Therefore, we don't always measure and count everything we caught in the trawl. Depending on the weight of the entire catch, our watch leader will take only half, a third, or even a fourth of the catch. From there we will meticilously pick out every species into different allotted baskets and count each organism. Before we start weighing and measuring each individual, we have to enter everything into the computer. After an hour or two when everything is accounted for, we dump the catch and prepare for the next trawl. For the most part we try to keep all of the commercial shrimp, pretty much just browns and whites. In every catch we will at least get 200 shrimp- some catches almost 2,000, and others are in the low hundreds. Needless to say, it's alot of shrimp to count and measure and weigh. I have also become a pro at de-heading the shrimp as well. It would be such a waste to throw thousands of dead shrimp back into the water, so we usually try to save and freeze most of them. Often, the deckhands, engineers, and cook crew will come out at the end of each trawl to help pack up the shrimp. Most of it is saved for the crew to freeze and bring back home, but we have dined on some delicious shrimp in gumbo, etouffe, and just boiled shrimp in the galley. Although, I don't think I will be able to eat shrimp for a while since I am surrounded by them all day long.

Let's see...any crazy things that we have caught so far on the trip. A couple of sharks (dogfish...not great whites!), lots of stingrays, cow rays, skates, a sea turtle (which they quickly took out and set free), hundreds of different types of fish such as red snapper, mahi mahi, butter fish, puffer fish etc., blue crabs and other crabs galore, scallops, tons of shrimp, sponges, sargassum, and the list goes on. I asked some of the NOAA scientists the craziest things they ever caught while trawling, and everyone responded with kilos of cocaine. Apparently, one day during a trawl, they pulled up a large plastic bag and inside, it was full of these packaged like blocks with multiple layers of wrapping. One of the deckhands cut it open, and to their surprise, cocaine! After keeping it under lock and key, the coast guard sent a boat out to retrieve their catch! Other than that, they have also caught rays with their wingspan of 5-6 feet. In order to save it, they would attach a rope to its tail and hoist it up with a crane to release it.

I have two more days of working, and then we will be pulling into port Monday morning! I'll try to write again before we dock!

Shrimp, Crabs, and Shrimp oh my!

Sorry for the late update! It has been crazy busy since we actually started working! Luckily, I have the day shift which is 12pm to 12 am, and the four others on my shift are great. We all get along really well, and don't mind getting covered in mud and fish scales and goo all day long.
The sail out here wasn't too bad, but we ran into some rough weather. Despite the constant rolling and sea-sawing of the ship, I managed to avoid seasickness. But it was hard trying to sleep when your mattress was sliding up and down, up and down all night long. We have had clear, beautiful weather since then!

I'll try to give you a little overview of what goes on during the day shift. We have a map that has randomly set points for us to do CTD's, Plankton- Bongos and Neustons, and Trawls. So if you look on the satellite map of the Oregon, you might see sort of a zig-zag motion as we sail from station to station. At every stop, we have to do a CTD- Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth system. It is this really large contraption that has auto sensing mechanisms to take samples at different depths, measure temperature, chlorophyll level, salinity, and turbidity. Pretty much everything here runs on the computers and through radio, so we are constantly in contact with the bridge, deck crew, and the lab. During plankton stations, there are two nets we use- Neuston and the Bongo. The Neuston runs right along side the boat for about 10 minutes collecting whatever is in the waves and top of the water. The Bongo collects samples within the water column it self at different depths. Once we have the collections from both of those nets- which usually consist of different phytoplankton, zooplankton, sargassum, fish, crabs, larvae, etc., we then have to put them into jars with formaneline in order to prevent the specimens from decomposing. The night shift will them transfer the sample into jars with ethanol only. After we get back to land, the samples will be shipped to Poland to be analyzed. Apparently, Poland has a great plankton laboratory- who knew?

Pretty much all day yesterday and today, we have just being doing the regular trawl. Here, a 35 ft. net will trawl at the bottom of the sea floor for thirty minutes, capturing a plethora of different organisms. After the alloted time, we bring the net back onboard and dump all of the catch into baskets. We weigh the total catch and then dump it on to this large conveyor belt that runs through the wet lab inside. From there we put each species into different baskets, and we enter the species name and total weight into the computer system. After all of the catch is accounted for, we then start the tedious process of measuring each individual organism. Only on the commercial shrimp do we have to length, weigh, and sex each organism- which can be a really long process since we can do up to 200 per trawl. We catch an enormous array of organisms, and you can really see the difference in ecosystems just on the depth of the trawl. At certain stations we will get hundreds of squids, and at others we will catch hundreds of crabs and shrimp. One station yesterday we had over 430 individuals of this one type of small crab. We also catch skates, sharks, starfish, snapper, lots and lots of shrimp and squid, blue crabs, and soo many different types of fish. Everything is classified by scientific name, so I am trying to get at least some of the names down! Our watch leader, Brittany, is constantly quizzing us on them so we are starting to pick some of them up. We come up with little memory devices to remember them, and pretending that they are harry potter spells makes it a little more fun.

After my shift is over at midnight, I take a wonderful shower to try to get rid of slime, scales, and mud. I then proceed to crawl and bed and pretty much sleep till lunch and my next shift. It's alot of work, but its been really fun and a great learning experience. I've been trying to capture pictures of everything we do- but I won't be able to post them until I get back!

A Picture Post!

 Finally! I head back out to sea Thursday morning! I forgot I took some pictures of the ship before the oil leak last time. So here they are!
And if you want to follow our ship at sea, here is a tracking link! It's pretty sweet!

http://shiptracker.noaa.gov/ship.aspx?ship_code=ORSCSACQ&XMIN=-92.17658546123103&YMIN=27.3912382125854&XMAX=-86.85811302509715&YMAX=30.962212562561&timeframe=cc&mapservice=st_imagery

This is my bed! I have the bottom bunk, and there is a little curtain for privacy and tiny reading lamp. For the most part it was pretty comfortable. I just had to get used to the constant see-sawing of the ship!

This is my little sink and closet! On the other side is another closet where you store the survivial suits, and the tiny shower and toilet. But it's nice that we have our own private bathroom.

This is the survivial suit that we had to put on during our "abandon ship" drill. They are pretty intense!

And this is my little window!

This is just a view of one starboard side of the ship facing the stern (like my use of ship lingo)

During my days of freetime, I would often just relax outside and watch the sea for anything interesting. I just so happen to be gazing out on the horizon when I saw a huge pod of dolphins swimming in the waves our ship was making. They were pretty small, and I think they were either Spinner or Bottlenose dolphins. There were at least 20 of them swimming all over.

One of the deckhands saw me taking pictures of the dolphins, and he offered to try to take my picture with them. This is just one of many pictures, but I don't think he ever got the dolphins in the picture. ha

This is just a view of the a part of the stern from the third story. Lots of satellite and radio equipment.

Remember when I said there was a workout room on the ship. Well, this is it! There are a couple pieces of equipment scattered throughout the ship. A treadmill in a closet in the basement, weights in another store room, and on the third level there's this bike!

So I had alot of free time on the ship (almost five days), and this is where I would spend most of my days, up on the top deck, in a pull out chair, just relaxing and reading! Not too shabby of a life!
Can't wait to update ya'll on what life is like when I actually start working! Hopefully, we won't have another oil leak!

I'm Not On A Boat

        So here is just a little update about my adventures at sea......i'm not actually at sea anymore. It all started when I woke up Wednesday morning and I realized we were sailing in the opposite direction of our original trajectory towards the coast of Texas. I soon found out that the crew discovered our ship had an oil leak, and we were ordered to head back to Pascagoula to the dry dock. We were almost to our first station when we had to turn around. Therefore, it took us another two days to get back to land...so it was technically like a cruise! I didn't have to work....I slept, read, watched movies, and repeat. This unexpected change of plans was actually a blessing, and I was able to get back to see Samantha and the Greenleaf family. We are supposed to depart again on Friday for the 2nd Leg where I hope we won't have another oil leak!

Life at Sea

    I'm on a boat! So I survivied my first day at sea. It really isn't that bad, but I will definately have to get used to living in such close quarters with 30 other people.  Once I got to Pascagoula, I was brought down to the ship where I was then directed to my room. It is literally across from the mess hall, so I don't have to walk far for food (but the ship is only 170ft, so everything really isnt that far). My room is actually pretty big, much larger than I was expecting. And the great thing is that I have my own shower/sink so I don't have to walk down the hall and share it with everyone else. I got lucky! My roommate, Savannah, is really sweet, and she let me have the bottom bunk (score!).

      I actually won't have to begin working until thursday night because we have to wait until we are off the coast of texas. So that means for two days we can do anything, and I have been watching movies all day long. Did you notice that I said thursday night? Yep, I got the night shift...ha so I will start tomorrow night at 12 and work till 12 the next day. I like the crew I'm working with on that shift so it should be fun. I'll let you know how adjusting to a different sleep cycle is in the future.

     The ship has its entire crew on the boat so that consists of commanding officers, engineers, deck hands, cooks, etc. We had a run down yesterday of what life on a boat is like and the "to do's" and "not to do's". The rules are pretty much common sense. 

      So far the food is pretty good so I can't complain. In the mess hall there is not enough seats to sit the entire crew so you have to eat and run, no diddle-daddling. Also, there are two seats- one for the commanding officer (CO) and one for the chief engineer. Those are always reserved for them so if they happen to come in and you are sitting in their spot- guess what, you have to move. I'm just avoiding those seats.    

      One thing that I am still trying to adjust to is the constant moving back and forth. Like right now as I'm typing...back and forth, back and forth. You just have to ignore it, and if you constantly think about it, you will just get sick. Mom- its not as bad as the boat in Key Largo, but I am still pretty sure you wouldn't like it. 

      Overall, I really like life on the ship so far. I love going outside on the bridge and just looking out at the ocean. I mean we are literally in the middle of the Gulf, no land in sight. We have passed lots of oil rigs, and I am constantly keeping my eye out for oil from the spill. I've seen lots of dolphins so far just swimming along the boat, and my goal is to see a shark which I am pretty sure we will catch when we start working. Well, I'm about to go curl up in my little bunk, read, and go to sleep! I'll keep you updated! 

Pre-Cast Off!

     Most of you know that for the month of June, I am participating on a summer groundfish cruise with NOAA in the Gulf of Mexico. The job entails 12 hours shifts, getting really fishy, and living life on a boat! So I'll try to keep you updated on my adventures at sea and experience with NOAA. I'm sailing June 7th out of Pascagoula on a 170 foot research vessel with 30 other scientists, engineers, deck hands, cooks, and officers. Check below for our projected cruise! We will be "cruising" throughout the gulf pulling a large 40 foot shrimp net in order to catch different marine organisms. From there we will weigh, sort, measure, and sex individuals of each species. Apparently, we will get lots of neat by-catch...a shark perhaps?
     So what will life be like on a boat? I'm not really sure yet, but I know that there are two full time cooks, a work out room, satellite tv and internet, and apparently, a huge movie collection. It's going to be a lot of hard work, and I'm sure a lot of fun! Hopefully, this experience will allow me to gain connections in the marine science field, and finally, get my foot in the door!

The Boat!

The Projected Groundfish Survey