August 8, 2012
Back in LA
Touched down in LA a couple days ago. Sorry I am a little behind on my posts! Ever since new science stopped on the boat I have had less time than I thought I would.
I love being in other countries; it’s always an experience. Barbados is actually one of my favorite countries to go to. Not just because it is a tropical island with very interesting weather, but mostly because the Bashians (people from Barbados) are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Now part of this is because one of Barbados’ main sources of revenue is tourism, but they don’t have to be this nice all the time. People are very helpful especially with directions. They always ask how your time has been and if you have seen this attraction or been to this area. They are just outright nice. One day we were walking at night and a drunken person came up to us asking for money. Another Bashian from across the street started yelling at the guy to leave us alone and shooed him away. That would never happen in LA.
So I had a good time in Barbados. Saw some sites. Visited the Mount Gay distillery. Laid at the beach and swam. Visited some Bashian establishments. Took in some culture. And tried to recover from the cruise. Maybe I’ll be back again some time.
But I am glad to be back in the states and home again. I missed my girlfriend and our cats a lot. Received a warm welcome from them all. Now I just have to try to get use to society again; no more boat time. I have a lot of data to work up and samples to process. I am going to be busy for awhile…
August 4, 2012
Dry land is not a myth!
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- View from apartment balcony in Barbados
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- View from apartment balcony in Barbados
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- View from apartment balcony in Barbados
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- View from apartment balcony in Barbados
And I’ve seen it! Now I am on it. We are back on land and living it up in Barbados. Everything is packed and the ship is on its way back to Massachusetts. Now we are going to enjoy a little r and r before heading back home. It was a successful cruise on all accounts. Congrats to everyone that took part. For now I’ll just enjoy the view…
August 1, 2012
Spa night!
There is not much to do on a research vessel. Things can get old pretty quick. So we try to change things up every now and then. The other night was one of those nights. Some of the scientists dressed up in bench coat (stuff we put down on our lab benches to soak up spills) outfits and setup different spa stations. In the picture above we can see one such station. This was the mud facial station and this mud is very unique. It is from 4500 meters deep in the ocean!!! One group out here is collecting sediment cores and they had some left over mud for us to use. There are a lot of little shells and tests in it so it can help exfoliate our tired faces and since it is from mud that is under really deep water it has very little to no organic material in it so it’s not smelly at all. So after you get your mud you can move to the next station where you can get a massage. Once all that tension is gone there is a nail painting station and on this cruise even the guys took part in it. This was because we crossed the equator and as part of the ritual we had to paint our nails (at least one on our hands and one on our toe). More about this later. I probably would have done it anyway just because its fun to take part in everything. There is music and dancing going on as well. Something to take our mind off of science for a while. Finally you can get some ink from a fellow cruiser at the tattoo station. I got a squid.
I attached few pictures to give you an idea of what went down. Now that I am off the boat I have real internet and can do that now.
All pictures were courtesy of Lance.
July 29, 2012
The final station
WE JUST FINISHED THE LAST STATION!!!!!!!! The final station of the cruise is done and we are steaming back to Barbados. There is still a lot of work and clean up that needs to be done but the hard part is over. Everyone is pretty psyched about how things went and emotions are high. Another successful cruise for the books.
Once we get back we have to process a lot of samples and data. This can take a really long time, some times years to get through it all. When you are out here you try and do all you can and take all the samples and data possible because who knows when you or someone else will be back. I have a lot of work ahead of me myself. Collected a lot of samples and data. Next goal is to make sense of it all and figure out what is going on out here. Try and answer some of these questions. Even come up with some new ones.
But for now I am going to relax!!!!
D. D, D, As. D, D, As. D, D, AAAAAAS!!!
Another milestone is reached. This cruise has definitely been a fruitful one. On the first of the three ANACONDAS cruises (the one that I was not on), tons of DDAs were found. That information, along with previous cruises to the ocean further north of here, lead to the hypothesis I discussed earlier. That the DDAs were helping to draw down CO2 from the atmosphere making the Amazon River plume a net sink and therefore possibly affecting climate change.
Last cruise however we did not see many DDAs and the few times we did there were not many. However we did see lots and lots of Tricho throughout the cruise and they were in areas that you would not normally expect to find them. They tend to like the low nutrient, high salinity open ocean but we found them in the mesohaline (kinda middle of the road for salinity) plume where the nutrients can vary but are usually high. I was able to measure nitrogen fixation and they appeared to be limited by phosphorous because when I added some to my incubations they would fix more compared to Tricho I did not add any phosphorous. This combined with finding them in areas we did not expect was pretty interesting. But not finding DDAs where we thought they would be was perplexing.
This cruise we found lots of Tricho in the open ocean areas and the plume again. They were fixing but did not seem to be limited by phosphorus. An interesting finding though is that they are fixing when there are other sources of nitrogen in the water. Fixing nitrogen costs a lot of energy so it is thought that they would not waste the energy to fix if they did not have to. Pretty cool.
Anyway, we had been looking for them all cruise again with no luck. I was kinda thinking that they might not exist. Then just to top off an incredible cruise we find them at the last station! What luck! They were pretty abundant as well. We found two diatoms, Hemiaulus and Rhizosolenia, with the nitrogen fixing symbiot Richelia inside. I was able to concentrate a water sample and measure a rate of nitrogen fixation. This is the first time I have ever measured nitrogen fixation on DDAs!!!! It was a great day. Now hopefully my stable isotope probing incubations work as well and then I will win twice brother. We will see. For now things just seem great.
July 26, 2012
I did not know what I was getting into
So I said it would be interesting; I was wrong. It is hell. I am being overly dramatic but it’s really tough. I have to admit that I was not properly prepared for this at all. There is so much mud in this water. Even water from the surface that is nowhere near the bottom is full of sediment. I filter my water that I incubate onto a filter that is 0.2 µm mesh (really really tiny) because I want most of things that are in the water. Plankton and bacteria. Pretty much everything but the viruses. Normally I can filter about 2 liters of coastal water in about one and a half hours. The water near the mouth took forever. I had to change the filters seven times and it took 6 hours!!! Plus, only 600 ml filtered which is about a forth of what I normally can filter. This is discouraging because I need a certain about of DNA to do the stable isotope probing that I discussed earlier. Unless the biomass is really high here I don’t think my methods will work. Higher biomass (more organisms in the water) will mean more DNA is less water. But this in relatively unexplored territory so if any experiment works around this area it would be unique results that would be publishable in a scientific journal so I am going to try my hardest and tough it out. Even though sometimes I just want to quit and get some sleep for once. It’s worth my time and effort because the reward is so high. Plus what else am I going to do…
In the mouth
Same applies for this post. After 3 years of trying we made it. We are at the mouth of the Amazon River and it was spectacular. The water is completely brown, like coffee with some milk in it. Nothing like I have ever seen before, especially in the ocean. But the most amazing part was that the salinity was less than 1 ppt (parts per thousand) at about .05. The average for the ocean is about 35 so that is really low. It is basically fresh water. What makes it even crazier is that we were about 12 miles from the river itself, out in the ocean. Now this may not seem that cool at first but it is difficult for me to wrap my head around. The ocean for miles and miles and miles around us was brown and fresh. The ocean! Goes to show you even further how much influence this river has on the ocean out here. It made the trip even more worth it. Thanks Tish and Doug! Dr. Patricia Yager is co-chief scientist on this cruise (the big cheese) and she is the person that gave me the berth on this cruise and Doug (my advisor) sent me out here.
Anyway, it’s pretty muddy out here. I just filled some of my bottles with “water” (and I am using that term loosely) to start my incubations and there is about an inch of mud sitting on the bottom. Should be interesting trying to filter these samples…
July 22, 2012
Hump Day!
Now get your mind out of the gutter! This is a great and sought after day on any cruise. It is the midpoint of the cruise. You are halfway home…kinda. This usually picks up the spirits of the cruising party. This time however, spirits are pretty high already. We are in heavy plume waters now. Even though we are still a hundred miles away from the mouth, you can see so much silt and mud that the water is brown, not blueish greenish brown, but brown. It is amazing! The river has such a huge impact on the areas that it feeds into that it is able to change the entire ocean (well as far as we can see) around us. Just think about that for a second. We are no where near the mouth of the river and the OCEAN is a different color. Can’t wait to see whats next.
Also, I got my first 5 hours of straight sleep last night. Most of the entire cruise! I am feeling much better.
July 20, 2012
We are in Brazilian waters!!!!!
WE DID IT!!! This may not seem like a huge feat at first glance but for us it really is. We have been trying for three years now to get samples in Brazilian waters and now it is happening. There is a huge hole in our data set that we can now finally fill. Everyone is in pretty high spirits. We just got done with our first set of sample collection and now we are processing. The last station (We call each part of the ocean that we sample at a station. They are based on GPS coordinates and each station gets its own number.) was an open ocean, blue water station (high salinity with not a lot of life in it) and now we are heading back into the plume. Soon we will start zigzagging in and out of the plume until we get the mouth! I am pretty excited!!!! Then we will cross the equator. More about that later…
Also, I feel a little bit better. Still sick though.
July 19, 2012
I am sick…
I usually have trouble sleeping. I am a very light sleeper and I can only go to bed when I am really tired. Can’t just lay down and go to sleep because I have to get early; can’t nap. I don’t understand how other people can do it. So when I go out to sea I have to get up around sunrise because the Tricho I talked about earlier get up around then and they will not wait. Everyone else that gets up with me for the net tow usually just goes to bed early the night before so they can be up and ready to go. I, for some reason or another, do not have this luxury. I try to go to bed, don’t get me wrong. I will lay there and lay there and lay there. Then my mind starts racing, Did I set everything up? Did I remember everything? I start thinking that even though I could not sleep on the last cruise in the beginning, this one will be different. Then I start pleading with myself. Listen brain, I don’t like you and you don’t like me. We have to get up at 430 a.m. no matter what time we go to bed so lets just do it. This seldom works. My brain does not listen. I toss and turn. Sometimes because I am not comfortable, other times because the boat is rocking and rolling. I try not to look at the clock anymore, that just makes me sad to know how little sleep I am actually going to get. Maybe I should have laid down earlier, I never do though. I get caught up in preparation, double checking things, and the casual conversation. Maybe one last glimpse of land; won’t see that for awhile. Then acceptance. It is happening again. Almost no sleep the first night. Things are starting off badly. You need to be alert on the first day. The boat is rocking back and forth and you are not used to it. Things always go wrong somehow during the first day of sampling. Here I am again, laying in the dark, hours before I have to get up thinking, here we go again.
This usually continues for at least another night. I am used to it by now. The way I deal with it is to run myself ragged. Work hard all day. The little amount of sleep the night before plus a full days work may do the trick. I’ll be so tired tonight I will have to sleep. Usually works. This time it has not. The first three nights I barely slept at all. I was taking a couple hours to fall asleep and then I would just keep waking up. I don’t think I slept for more than four hours any of those nights. It was not fun. I got something from another scientist to help me sleep and even that did not work completely. Still took awhile to fall asleep but when I did I slept through the night. I was beautiful but still not enough.
Another scientist was sick. And now I am. Sickness spread rapidly on a boat. You are always at least 270 feet from another person. I have a sore throat, I’m all stuffed up, my head and sinuses feel like there is a lot of pressure building up, plus I am a little groggy. But I still need and want to work. We only get a few chances like this. This cruise can never be repeated. The waters are constantly changing. This is a short cruise; only 17 days. And at $30,000 a day for ship time, I better give it my all. Plus, I do want to graduate one day. Anyway, enough complaining. I have to go to bed. Not sure when the next post will be because I have to try to sleep more and there is always work to do. There goes what little free time I have. I’m complaining again. Goodnight.