by Alexis Brianna Ruiz
October 3, 2018
One word: seasickness. Everyone, including the instructors, are getting hit by this terrible epidemic. People are eating more saltine crackers than they ever ate in their lives, and some people are throwing up with the taste of candied ginger. Most of us, the students, are trying to sleep off the sickness. The instructors are about to show us how to “taco” our beds, so we don’t roll off them. The reason why the rocking is so bad is because we are trying our best to safely make it around the typhoon in the Baltic Sea. The waves are about 6-15 feet high, and our bodies are taking the heat. It has gotten so bad to the point where the crew secured the deck, which basically means that we aren’t allowed on the deck for safety reasons. My hypothesis is that it’s not only seasickness, but also jet lag, the lack of sleep, and maybe even homesickness. Besides our physical being, we are all very thankful and happy to be here. We found some time to do science in between the rough currents. We worked hands-on with a CTD and with a sediment grab. We were able to see how Oceanographers measure salinity, fluorescence, density, pressure/depth, temperature, and cloudiness of the water. Many students found this exciting, especially when we went into a room where the data was placed there for us on the computer. The Oceanographers, and the other crew, helped explain to us how the charts work and we were all fascinated with it. For the sediment grab, we were able to get a small sample of the sea floor with a shovel that most resembkes a crane on one of those money-stealing stuffed animal machines. When the Geologists brought it over to the wet lab, we ran the sediment through a sieve until the water came out clear. The sediment felt very smooth and sticky, and it had a very dark color to it. We were able to filter out the very fine particles of sand, and we plan on looking at those fine particles under a microscope in the next couple of days.
