June 30, 2009

6-30-09

During last year’s summer cruise the ship crossed the international dateline. Crossing the line going in the western direction takes you into the future a whole day (Land of the Rising Sun). When you cross back you have to make sure not to interact with your past self or you could tear a whole in the space-time continuum. Very confusing. I was hoping we might get the same opportunity, but this summer’s cruise track does not take us that far west. Apparently, on the latitude we are currently at, crossing the dateline would take us into Russian waters. For my money, I would take safe national waters over becoming a golden dragon (golden dragon is the honor bestowed upon someone who crosses the international dateline by military vessel, in which case this does not apply to us since the Knorr is a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute vessel).

Our nightly krill tow was a relatively deep station, on the order of thousands of meters, but surprisingly there were still jellyfish in the water. I had learned earlier that jellyfish generally prefer warmer, calmer, shallower waters. Normally this would not have been too big of a deal since we had run into them plenty of times before at all types of stations, but the size of the jellies was particularly alarming. When we pulled up the nets I could feel a good sized clump of jelly caught in the bottom. I figured it was multiple jellyfish packed together. When I tried to shake them out they wouldn’t budge. I hung the net over the side of the ship and shook it up and down for almost a minute until a single large jellyfish slid out. It splattered in the water and drifted away (smeared a bit from the shaking). It was by far the biggest jellyfish I had seen so far on the cruise, in or outside of the net. The jellyfish looked to be about eighteen inches across.

While this was the largest jellyfish I had encountered on the cruise so far, I had mentioned earlier about lion’s mane jellyfish that live off East Asian coasts that can grow up to 6 feet wide. Jellyfish of this size wouldn’t cause too much of a problem for someone in a boat, but the idea still makes my skin crawl. Somehow my fear of being eaten alive is enhanced when it comes to a school of giant jellies. I could envision a panicked version of myself pulling out a gun and firing round after round into the water yelling at the jellyfish to “Die you gelatinous monsters!” At this point I am willing to admit I have a jellyfish phobia. My bizarre sentiments toward jellyfish have raised a few eyebrows among my friends.

“What kind of marine biologist dreams of killing animals?”

To which I reply,

“This is why I study molecules and not whole organisms. Even the molecules get fragmented to pieces in the instruments I use to observe them.”

Maybe some day a jellyfish will save my life and my opinion will change, but for now it is probably best for me to observe them from the ship and not create any invisible predator-prey relationships. I guess it turns out that avoiding the East Asian coast isn’t such a bad idea after all.

-Eli