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We’ve set sail! We left around 7:30 on Monday morning, April 29th and are on our way to Reykjavik, Iceland. We’ve had a pretty smooth and easy transit so far and have already finished two huge days’ worth of activities.
After our initial departure from the docks we had our safety drills, including learning to put on our immersion suits. This is always fun for first time sailors, and the scientists aboard enjoyed it.
We then had a great lunch, and began our second half of the day. We started with a tour of the ship by the Captain and it was fantastic. We saw the ship from the top down and the tour was helpful in gaining our orientation while onboard. We then saw the obligatory safety video and cheese:30.. a small cheese break that was much needed!
Finally, we had a mini lesson from Tim on sonar theory where the students were introduced to some of the general math and concepts involved in this aspect of ocean exploration and research. This was exciting for me, since multibeam bathymetry is what I’m most interested in – I definitely cannot wait to take this information back into the field with me.
Our next day at sea started with a fantastic breakfast, followed by a lesson in longitude and latitude. We learned how to convert between decimal degrees and degrees minutes seconds, and how to plot our course on a map.
Right before lunch the students went to help set up two exciting events – the first was to help the onboard marine tech, Amy, in prepping the CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) Sensor and the Niskin bottles for routine testing. The other was to help Tom and Tim to set up their test of hydrophones. This was most students’ first experience with deck work on a large research vessel.
After lunch we were able to deploy SeaSense water quality test kits to provide feedback to the company on usability and set up. The students had a great time doing this, and were able to compile great feedback for the company – especially since this product is meant to be used by untrained citizens to do water quality analysis and testing in their local communities.
We finished our second day with a great lesson in one of the most basic, but possibly one of the best, pieces of knowledge – how to tie knots. We learned the square knot to begin, and plan to learn a new knot everyday to build on our knowledge base. Sometimes on boats more is asked of the science crew than just running the equipment so knowing certain knots is a huge help to the crew and makes the entire operation run smoother. I can’t wait to learn more at the end of each day.
- Trey Gillespie
