by Our journey so far has been full of ups and downs, quite literally, but today we were lucky enough to wake up on our fifth day to a beautiful clear sky and fairly calm seas. As we hit the halfway mark of our trip it makes me look back at everything that has happened so far. The first day we had a lot of fun getting to know each other and getting our feet wet with SeaSense. The second day we said goodbye to San Diego and started our journey to Seward. We kicked things off with a lecture about oxygen isotopes and glacier influences on sea level. That night we got a remarkable view of the stars with a crystal-clear sky. I got an early start the next day with my watch shift on the bridge, where we were lucky enough to see a whale right below the tip of the ship! We also got to know some crew members who were nice enough to teach us the point system and pass on some other words of wisdom to help us newbies get our sea-legs. We got to see some dolphins later on in the day and a few more whale spouts, but then things started getting a little bit rocky. Although many of us got seasick we still got in some lectures and activities graphing the differences in salinity, temperature, and oxygen versus depth. This helped us understand how different water masses can be identified. We also got a brief introduction to geodesy and different techniques used to map the movement of the ocean floor. I think we are all looking forward to getting to see the deployment of a wave glider later this week. Once we were all finally up and moving again we got to have lectures from Dr. Hall about heavy metals and Anne-Lise about DNA sequencing. So far this trip we have really learned to be flexible and things are working out for us. We were lucky enough to experience the thrills of stormy pipetting. As well as preparing samples for DNA sequencing on the MinION and looking at a model sediment core. Each day has had amazing new sights and has been jam packed with new knowledge. I cannot wait to see what the rest of the trip has in store as we head into another low-pressure system!
Alyssa Snyder
