Bering Sea Summer 2009

You Can Go Home Again

2009-08-03T15:03:00.001-07:00

7-14,15-09

“Sing me another song of the sea, it’s the only thing left that comforts me.”

-Dylan Summers, My Life in Black and White

Here we are. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. The day had finally come for us to fly back to Maryland. Just as quickly as we arrived, we were now departing the ship that carried us across the Bering Sea and back again. I was thankful that we had already done all our packing and cleaning because it wouldn’t have been too much fun with the headache I had from the fun of the previous night. As we loaded our luggage into one of the pickups, I thought about all of the incredible people that I had met on the trip. I knew it would be difficult to leave, but it’s all part of the game with scientific field work. In order to keep my sanity, I kept thinking about the warm summer weather and regular sleep we would be returning to. As we waited for the plane I fell asleep leaning against my back pack. Once again Rachel saved my butt by staying awake and letting me know that it was time to board.

As the plane started up to take off, I remembered the wild feeling I had when we arrived. Leaving civilization and going to sea was almost like traveling to another dimension. The world may be getting smaller in the sense that we can connect and share information from anywhere around the globe. But, the more we explore the natural world, the more doors we open for further exploration. Until humans can absolutely describe every natural process on Earth, the knowledge of the planet will always be getting larger. Looking out the window we can see mountains of the Aleutian Island Chain. Huge Glaciers can be seen slowly making their way down the face of the mountain. There may be discoveries within an Aleutian volcanoes down the road that provide new insight on the formation of the continents or the history of life. So long as we don’t loose our curiosity, the world can be as big as we want it to be.

Landing in Anchorage the air is an inviting 80 degrees. At last I finally feel like summer has arrived. This is also a good transition to the 90+ degree high humidity weather in Maryland. Normally we would be able to pick up our bags and head to the next flight, but waiting for luggage from a PenAir flight is always an adventure. We were hopeful that the cooler would make it on our flight because it was only half full. It could be a big problem if it took any extra time to get the valuable samples back to the freezers at the lab. After all of the available luggage had been unloaded, our cooler and none of our suitcases made it on the plane. In my frustration I thought back to Pop Star Aaliyah’s tragic death from a plane crash in an overloaded jet, so I guess it is not so bad to have strict weight limits. Rachel in all her wisdom gave us a five hour window between flights so we have time to wait for the freight airplane to bring our luggage. Thankfully it was only an hour or so until the next freight flight and all our luggage arrived safely. I don’t remember much from the next flight back to the lower 48 states. Only that I fell asleep in a couple minutes and had no interest in watching the in flight movie.

Our final leg from Minneapolis to DCA was one of the most anxious flights I had been on since I was a youngster. I was not quite tired enough to fall asleep, inspired by all of my new experiences, sad to be leaving such an amazing place, and excited to get home and start looking at all the samples we had collected. Our cooler was intact after the long travel period and Rachel and I breathed a collective sigh of relief. Our lab mate Jessica Faux picked us up at the airport in one of the lab’s state vehicles. While loading our bags into the van I had never so thoroughly enjoyed the DC summer humidity. I could feel my blood temperature rise back to normal. First thing returning to the lab was stashing the sample cooler into one of the walk in freezers. Amazing to think about the time and effort put into collecting these samples. Considering the amount of money that goes into a research cruise, I don’t want to think about how much money they are worth, otherwise I might be too nervous to ever look at them. Rodger welcomed us back, and I was finally clear to sleep for a couple days.

Several months before our cruise the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences received its new research vessel for studying the Chesapeake Bay and Surrounding Atlantic Coast. The ship was given the name “Rachel Carson” after the famous author who changed the world and started the contemporary environmental movement with her ground breaking book “Silent Spring.” Carson worked a great deal around the Chesapeake Bay during her career as a marine biologist, and wrote regular articles for the Baltimore Sun. Her other books include “The Sea Around Us”, “The edge of the Sea”, and “Under the Sea Wind.” During the cruise I proudly wore my R/V Rachel Carson t-shirt around the Knorr for which I received many comments. “Great name” people would say. The amazing success of Carson’s work, which has stood up against intense scrutiny by polluting entities, and witnessing natural miracles like the survival of the short tailed albatross show us that despite the rapidly growing force of civilization, we can hold onto the natural world, as long as we are not afraid to work for it.

“For all at last returns to the sea – to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the everflowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.

-Rachel Carson

“There’s no control in life. Wherever you go, wherever you hide, there’s risk… Safety is the greatest risk of all, because safety leaves no room for miracles, and miracles are the only sure thing in life.”

-James Mcbride

-Eli

2009-07-28T08:36:00.001-07:00

7-13-09

“When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.”

-Samuel Johnson

Land ho! Those words have new meaning after being at sea for a month, especially knowing that once you reach shore you will be getting off. I am feeling the whirlwind of excitement to be heading home soon, sad that this incredible experience will be ending, anxious that all our gear and samples will be unloaded and shipped successfully, and stoked for a night on the town with the crew and scientists. The mountains of Unalaska Island look even more spectacular than when we set sail. For the moment I am trying to take in the landscape. Who knows when I will see it again.

We waited just outside the Dutch Harbor Port for a tug boat to come and escort us in. It didn’t actually pull us, just made a brief pass. I guess it is all part of procedure to check out each ship before it docks. As we pulled up to the dock everyone headed onto the deck to get their gear ready to be unloaded. There were several men on land waiting to secure the ship to the dock and pile our equipment into trailers for shipping. Crew members operated both of the cranes to unload the many pallets of gear that had been used throughout the trip. Rachel and I held our collective breath as the HPLC instrument crate was hoisted up and set onto the dock. As I was carrying a pile of cardboard off the ship to be recycled I took my first step back on land. “Success!” I thought. “I survived the cruise!” I owe the credit to Rachel and the crew for keeping aware enough not to get knocked overboard. Now I just had to survive one night in Unalaska.

After everything was unloaded and we had completely cleaned out our lab space, all of the cruisers started moving towards the bars. I had heard plenty of stories about the craziness that ensues at the end of research cruises, and had been looking forward to finally getting to party with all of the scientists and crew on the ship. The first bar we headed to was in the Grand Aleutian Hotel. It was a small group to start but others started to trickle in as the evening progressed. Most of us were starving and quickly ordered food.

Looking out the window we saw a juvenile bald eagle. I actually had no idea what a young bald eagle looked like, but they have patchy spots on their feathers. In a way they actually look more grizzled at a young age than at adulthood. I guess you could say they become more refined with age. I was able to get within a few feet of the youngster sitting on the hotel deck without it flying away. I moved very slowly so not to startle the eagle. Unfortunately, as we walked to the next bar, my patience had diminished and I scared several adult eagles away as I tried to photograph them up close. There were bald eagles everywhere, sitting on top of pieces of scrap wood, fish processing warehouses, apartments, ship masts, and of course all over the surrounding hills and cliffs. The natural living symbol of America’s rugged wilderness made me feel more patriotic than any flag or national monument ever had. In that way Dutch Harbor was the most American place I have ever been.

The thick smell of fish billowed out of the processing buildings filling the roads with a strange mist. There were several apartment buildings that provided permanent and seasonal housing to those who worked at sea and in the warehouses. I try to imagine what it must be like to live this isolated lifestyle surrounded by fish fog. Many people feel more comfortable out in the wilderness than in civilization and others just take remote jobs to support their families. Whatever the reason, it is certainly a big change from the lifestyle that most Americans are used to.

We arrived at the Unisea Harbor View Bar and Grill. Apparently this was a real dive bar several years ago and was recently renovated because of the popularity of “The Deadliest Catch.” We spotted a number of other scientists and crew members hanging out playing pool, having a beer, and unwinding from the cruise. Tracy Smart informed me that there is a horse shoe pit behind the bar. “We should start a horse shoe tournament!” she proclaims. In order to get the horse shoes I had to give the bartender my ID. At that moment I wasn’t worried about getting my ID back because I didn’t think the horse shoe game would last very long…

Each horse shoe game would last about three rounds of throws before someone would get distracted. Ebett (University of Alaska, Fairbanks graduate student) and Lucas (3rd Engineer) had numerous cartwheel and handstand contests that would always draw our attention away from the horse shoe pit. I made a few ringers and I think I won a game or two, but the scoring was not very official. The party eventually moved inside to the dance floor. Monday was karaoke night, which made for some excellent entertainment. The highlight was seeing Kent (Captain) and Dee (Chief Mate) sing together. I have no memory of what song they sang, but I’m sure I cheered extra loud. After the song I danced with Dee in what was, thanks to me, surely some of the worst dancing ever seen at the Unisea. Dee told me that “If you don’t lead I will.” I decided to try my best to take the lead, but I don’t think it helped at all.

Some locals really showed off their pipes on the microphone. I think one guy might have sung four or five songs. There were up tempo rock songs, slow ballads, beat boxing, and some pretty good break dancing. It was one of the most lively Mondays I have ever spent at a bar. After the last call at the bar I realized I had not recovered my ID from the bartender. To do this I had to find the horse shoes. For the first time that I could recall, since I had not stayed up till 2 AM while in port, it was actually dark outside in Unalaska. I sifted around in the sand of the horse shoe pit for all the horse shoes. In my “slightly” intoxicated state I was certain that I would not be given back my ID unless I found all four shoes. Otherwise the bar owner would certainly throw me into the harbor for causing him all the trouble of loosing their valuable horse shoes. Luckily I found all the shoes without too much trouble and proudly returned them to the bar to receive my ID. We recovered as many people as we could find (Wes, a grad student from University of Alaska, Fairbanks wondered off and helped some fisherman sort fish) and everyone piled into a couple pickup trucks and rode back to the ship for our last nights sleep on board. There was still a lot of energy in the group so we all ended up talking and joking for at least another hour on the dock.

As we all headed to bed, the only thing I could really think about was falling asleep for as long as possible before our three leg flight back to Maryland. But looking back on the cruise, I thanked my lucky stars that the Bering Sea was still conserved and managed at a state that allowed it to remain such a productive ecosystem that warranted so much scientific interest. If not, we would likely not have come together to study and experience this amazing place, and I wouldn’t have been able to meet all the incredible scientists and crew on the Knorr. After seeing the natural beauty, economic benefit, and American majesty of a well preserved ecosystem, I have new perspective on environmentalism. I always thought conservation and restoration was the smart plan of action, but now more that ever I see it as the patriotic choice as well.

-Eli

"To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them."
-Theodore Roosevelt

7-11,12-09 Last Full Days at Sea

2009-07-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

7-11,12-09

Sunday, our last full day at sea. Somewhat fitting that on the seventh day he rested, and we continued packing up our gear for the long trip back to Maryland. In the last two days the weather has gone from foggy, to clear, to windy and choppy, and then repeated the cycle. Our last time point in the phytoplankton degradation experiment was this morning. It was truly gratifying to collect all the planned samples from the experiment without any major errors. I had trouble sleeping last night thinking about all the ridiculous things that could go wrong before we came into port, but as the final hours unfold I am relieved to see everything go smoothly.

Our lab area is looking almost as bare as it did at the beginning of the cruise, as the supplies are packed into boxes for transport. Rachel’s experience fitting everything together nicely in the available space is more and more evident as I struggle to get things together. Many on board have asked if I am having trouble adjusting back to the regular daytime schedule. It’s actually not that hard when you are already tired to begin with, and can’t sleep because you agonize over insignificant details.

Eating in the mess deck throughout the cruise I have looked constantly at a picture of the Knorr next to the Sydney Opera House. In 2007 my father, sister, and I went to Australia and New Zealand while my sister was on a semester abroad at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ. We even saw a concert at the famous Opera House. In over 40 years this ship has likely traveled the globe many times over. It is humbling to think that I got to be on a small part of the Knorr’s fantastic voyage. One of the other students aboard wondered from which room the explorers located the Titanic with their navigational systems and deep sea cameras. Since I have been around all of the common areas of the ship, I’ll go ahead and tell myself that I have successfully retraced all of the history that has taken place here.

-Eli

7-10-09 Last Bongo Tow

2009-07-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

7-10-09

As we continue to head south we are following the 70 meter isobath, a fancy way of saying that the ship is being navigated to stay at a constant depth of 70 meters. The purpose of this is to observe the hydrography (physical characteristics like temperature, salinity, and density) along a constant depth. These types of physical trends in the water column during the summer are set up by the ice cover of the preceding winter and spring. “Everyone (all the organisms in the system) has to play by the rules set by the ice for the entire summer” as it was put by Chief Scientist on board, Ray Sambrotto. This past spring a large mass of ice detached from its original sheet and headed much further south than expected. An observation mooring was moved miles from its original location by a southward iceberg, and had to be recovered and tagged with a GPS unit for later repair.

I looked at the schedule board for the time of our last bongo net tow. For each station we have the time and, which sampling activities will be taking place. From the board I could see that we were arriving at our station, 70m29, at 1:30 AM and that the bongo net was the fourth sampling procedure of the station. As we set up the nets everyone was a little quiet at first. We were anxious to get our last catch of krill and finish up, but sad that our duties on deck were coming to on end. As we waited the MOC-NESS was being received and the operators were looking to see what they had collected. The MOC-NESS (Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sampling System) is a series of nets that can be opened and closed at different depths so that one can collect many samples from specific depths. While they did collect some jellyfish, including one huge one held up by Dr. Tracy Shaw in the picture, they also had healthy collection of krill from about 10 to 20 meters.

It was reassuring to know we would at least get some krill during our last tow, and to spice things up a few jellyfish as well. While the bongo was in the water I did my best to will the jellyfish away from the openings of the nets. Each time I would see a jellyfish approach the nets looking like it was heading dead center into the opening, it would just slide past the edge above or below the net. It looked like we might avoid a lot of the stingy tentacles that could damage our sampled krill. When we emptied the cod ends into the cooler we had plenty of krill and only one small jellyfish. We decided to do a second bongo tow for grad student, Jared Weems (also studying krill). Once again our good fortune held up. Lots of krill and only one small jellyfish. After plenty of ups and downs, we got a final taste of favorable catch. It’s probably best that we end now before our luck runs out.

-Eli

July 9, 2009

2009-07-12T18:48:00.000-07:00

7-9-09

The end of the cruise is drawing nearer and it is now starting to sink in. We have finished our last east-west cruise line and are heading south back to Dutch Harbor. Tracy alerted us that this was the penultimate (or next to last) bongo tow. Since we had some poor luck the last two nights I was hopeful that we could bring in a nice haul tonight and tomorrow. We had a bad omen as we looked out into the water, before the bongo nets were deployed, and saw numerous jellyfish drifting about. Considering that we had some decent catches of krill when there were jellyfish in the nets, it wasn’t a sign of complete despair. When the nets came back we had the usual tenticles wrapped around the net line, as was customary when many jellies were in the water. However this time we had a whole jellyfish hanging from the line is the nets were pulled up, something we had not seen before. It made pulling the nets aboard especially tricky so not to get stung in the face by all of the dangling tentacles.

Carrying the nets to the cooler we could feel the gelatinous material collect at the bottom of the nets. Unfortunately, our low expectations were validated. When everything was dumped into the cooler, all you could see was a mass of jellyfish squished together. As we tossed them all back we counted 22 total jellyfish, including the individual wrapped around the line. Certainly a record for most jellyfish caught in the bongo nets at one station. And at the bottom of the cooler, zero krill. We had only one more night to get a good final sampling before calling it quits. At this point we had plenty of nice krill catches, but you always like to finish on a high note.

We noticed in one of Dave Shull’s sediment cores from the previous day, there was a soft coral sitting on top of the sediment. Dave said that no one had noticed it at first when collecting the cores. He could understand why, since the core was collected at 3 AM, much earlier than their normal collection time of 8 or 9 AM. The coral looked like something covered in snow from a Dr. Seuss book. I learned from my sister that Dr. Seuss received much of his inspiration for peculiar vegetation from the Yucca Trees of Joshua Tree National Park. She showed our family pictures she had taken of the Joshua Trees in winter, and there was definitely a slight resemblance to the coral.

It’s interesting to think about nature repeating itself in vastly different environments. Some scientists have theorized that life began at the bottom of the ocean as organisms getting their energy from chemicals spewed out of deep sea hydrothermal vents. With that in mind it is likely that something resembling the soft coral came along well before the Joshua Trees. One can only imagine what types of organisms will come in the distant future that might resemble the coral and Joshua Tree. What ever it is, after watching “The Matrix” again last night for the 25th time, I just hope it isn’t a machine based life form.

-Eli

July 8, 2009

2009-07-11T05:15:00.000-07:00

7-8-09

Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7, 8, 9. At the beginning of each century there are always a number of fun dates that come around. Yesterday was the two year anniversary of 7-7-07, and today I thought it would be a good idea to pick things up with a lighter blog. You can only be serious for so long. My favorite pun joke is one that I made up myself. It’s a timeless classic: Why can’t a female bovine work in the postal service? Because she’s not a male cow. Get it? Male? Mail? Pretty slick, I know. That little gem has ended conversations since I thought it up in high school.

As far as our cruise activities were concerned, Wednesday morning was another dismal bongo tow. No krill again! The otherwise uneventful morning was made more interesting by another trip to the red light district to sample from our degradation experiment. This being the third day of the experiment, I am hoping that we will start to see some interesting changes in the diatoms and other phytoplankton once we are able to do some analysis.

This was also the last day that Dave Shull and the sediment group would be collecting sediment cores. Sure enough, they encountered some good mud and had an extra core for Rachel and I to slice up, and take some samples from. To our amazement, there was a brittle star at the surface of the sediment in the core tube. Considering who gave us the core, I thought of it as the brittle star of David. Two of the star’s legs were shortened by the coring process, but not to worry, Ophiuroids can readily regenerate lost arms or segments (unless all arms are lost). I was a little worried at first as the brittle star disturbed the sediment surface by moving its arms around. Rachel reassured me “Don’t worry, it’s all part of the natural processes that affect sediment.” We carefully picked up the brittle star and sent it back into the water to sink down to its natural sedimentary environment.

After slicing and collecting sediment I was compelled to eat some mud again to compare the taste with the deep core (~3500 m) that was collected earlier in the cruise. To be quite honest it wasn’t as palatable as the deep station sediment, it had a higher silt content as well. That didn’t stop me from having fun and smearing the sediment on my teeth for a nice picture. It was still better than pond mud. Since it was still the 8th day of the month I thought of a new joke: Why was the brittle star afraid of Eli? Because Eli eight sediment.

-Eli

July 7, 2009

2009-07-09T19:34:00.000-07:00

7-7-09

On July 7th, 2007 (luckiest day of the century) there was a worldwide global warming action concert series featuring some of the biggest musicians in the world. The event was put on by a coalition of groups including the Alliance for Climate Protection, chaired by Al Gore. Performances took place in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, and Hamburg, with special events broadcast from Antarctica, Kyoto, and Washington, DC. The 24 hour event set a record as the largest global entertainment event ever held, reaching 2 billion people in seven continents.

July 7th, 2009 was a relatively uneventful day as our activities on the cruise were concerned. The weather was foggy and eerily calm. At 3 AM it was still a little light out making me feel like I was in the twilight zone again. There were zero krill in the bongo net tow, something we had not seen since very early in the cruise. This meant that we had no water to filter for the night’s sampling station. And finally, I didn’t have any incubation water to filter until the following morning. The time did give us the opportunity to catch up on some sample processing with krill eye removal, lipofuscin extraction, and analysis. There is always plenty to do on the ship, even if you are not currently collecting samples. The methodical work does give one time to think about what the future may hold for this ecosystem (uh-oh, here I go again).

One half of the fish caught in the U.S annually, and one third worldwide, comes from the Bering Sea. The Bering Sea’s unusual productiveness comes from diatoms (the same type of organisms we are observing in our degradation experiment). Diatoms are large fast growing phytoplankton, which support large zooplankton. The large zooplankton, are then eaten by large fish and marine mammals. A recent study in Marine Ecology Progress Series from the lab of marine ecologist Dave Hutchins, found that a warmer Bering Sea will support smaller phytoplankton, creating a less productive ecosystem. The study was done under temperature and carbon dioxide levels predicted for 2100. Scientists are already seeing massive die offs among marine mammals and birds in the Bering Sea, potentially due to changes in the area.

According to Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center NASA satellite data shows that there has been a 50% decrease of perennial Arctic Ice from February, 2007 to February, 2008. While this is sea ice, which won’t cause sea level rise, it does pose a problem because of the change in albedo or reflectiveness of the region. Ice is light colored and reflects much more light than seawater does. With so much extra exposed seawater there is a greater capacity for the Arctic Ocean to absorb energy and continue to warm. These changes could lead to the type of scenarios described by Dr. Hutchins lab.

On June 7th, 2007 I was actually driving from New York back to Maryland after celebrating successful passage of my comprehensive exams for my graduate program. I got a big jolt of optimism from listening to the Live Earth broadcasts on the radio. It certainly felt like a lucky day to me. For the planet, it looks like 7-7-07 will only be the luckiest day of the century if we are willing to work for it. Otherwise, it will just be like any other day that passed by while we watched the world change at an unprecedented rate.

-Eli

July 5 & 6, 2009

2009-07-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

7-5,6-09

I think it’s safe to say that at this point the regular blog schedule has gone out the window. Because of our cruise path timing, a large collection of work has presented itself as we arrived at the spring phytoplankton bloom site. We were able to get another sediment core, courtesy of Dave Shull and company, and collected a hundred liters of water for a phytoplankton degradation experiment.

After our usual nightly krill tow the nets returned from the water covered with phytoplankton. While everyone else was a little annoyed to have to deal with the slimy algae all over the nets, I was ecstatic! “Yes!” I thought “more material to observe in our degradation experiment! Cha-ching!” The CTD cast returned with ten Niskin Bottles, ten liters each, for us to use for the degradation. Three twenty liter carboys were filled with seawater from six of the Niskins. The additional four of Niskin bottles were filtered to about a half a liter each and added to two of the carboys to increase the amount of phytoplankton in the carboy. The carboys were then placed in a cold room at a realistic environmental temperature.

The cold room was nicknamed “The Red Light District” for all of the riskay science going on inside, and that fact that the lighting is actually red to limit the amount of light on sediment samples. Despite this, the carboys are covered with garbage bags to prevent the phytoplankton from photosynthesizing (if they continue to harvest any light they will continue to grow and we will not be able to observe any degradation in the time remaining in the cruise). We will take samples of water from each carboy at various time points for the remainder of the cruise to observe how the protein in the carboys degrades. Do certain classes of protein degrade faster than others? Do proteins degrade differently during different seasons? (A similar degradation experiment was conducted on the spring cruise by Rachel and our advisor, Rodger Harvey). Very interesting stuff for us marine organic geochemist types.

The whole process required a lot of water filtering (and little sleep) over the last day and a half, but it will prove to be very useful once we get the samples back to the lab in Maryland for analysis. Rachel’s performance was by far the most impressive, as she stayed awake for nearly two days strait organizing the filtering effort and analyzing dozens more krill eyes at the same time. A true champion at crunch time.

Once we had finished all of our experimental setup and preliminary sampling/filtering, the sediment core was available for slicing. The busy schedule did not yield any time for pictures of the sediment processing, but we encountered a small worm in the surface sediment and a small sea star (about 2 inches across) a few centimeters down the core. The core was taken from water 135 meters deep. I am certainly accustomed to seeing worms and sea stars in tide pools, but not hundreds of feet below the surface. It just goes to show how diverse the life is in this dynamic system.

-Eli

July 4, 2009

2009-07-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

7-4-09

Happy 4th of July everyone! I would like to celebrate our nation’s independence by not shooting off any fireworks. That would be a safety hazard. To make up for any lack of explosive-excitement, the ocean wave action has continued to pick up. Nothing dangerous, but certainly enough motion to make deploying the bongo nets a little more exciting. Simply carrying the nets across the deck to the deployment location was more work as you had to stop periodically to regain your balance. As the nets were lifted up into the air we all had a hold of the support lines and long dangling nets so nothing would start swinging around and get tangled or hit someone in the head. When we let go of the cod ends over the railing they blew around in the wind a bit and clunked against the side of the boat. The nets lowered slowly down into the water, which stopped them from blowing around in the wind, but caused them to bob up and down in the water slightly as the slack on the line tightened and loosened with the rocking ship.

The easy part was waiting for the nets to reach their desired water depth of 70 meters and then return to the surface. Once again we had to be very methodical securing all the loose lines and cod ends as we pulled them onto the deck. More than any other bongo tow, I was anxious to see what we had caught because of the extra effort that went into tonight’s catch. We emptied the cod ends into the cooler and sure enough, we had a decent catch of krill. It was the closest I think I’ll get to “The Deadliest Catch” type conditions. The poor blurry quality of the pictures from my camera makes the weather look even more dramatic. In reality, there were no waves falling on our heads, just some unstable footing. Rachel told me later in the day that we had analyzed 330 krill. She had done the lion’s share of the work while I merely filled the supporting role, but it was a nice result for a productive three weeks of work at sea. I had seen fireworks on just about every other 4th of July. This time the deckwork was much more exhilarating.

July 2 & 3, 2009

2009-07-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

7-2,3-09

I was convinced that I would be able to keep up with my pace of a blog a day, but work, uneven sleep, and confusion has slowed down my otherwise pedestrian writing. My mother always said “The Bering Sea is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Okay, she never said those words, but it seems to fit in this unpredictable ecosystem. As we were waiting for the bongo nets to return to the surface of Thursday’s tow, I saw something jump out of the water and dart out of view. I initially thought “Whoa! It’s a shark and it’s trying to bite my arm off!” It was unlikely a shark could jump 10 feet out of the water to the deck of the ship and get a hold of my arm, but it seems I have a knack for jumping to extreme conclusions. At least I didn’t go as far as to think it was a giant squid.

A few seconds later the mysterious animal reappeared. A full leap out of the water revealed that it was a fur seal. I was surprised to see a seal so far from land, but apparently fur seals can spend months at sea hunting for food. Perhaps that is why you always see them sleeping whenever you spot them at the beach. Even without the choreographed jumps and behaviors I was accustomed to seeing from seals and sea lions at Sea World, this fur seal seemed just as playful. It disappeared for a few minutes and then returned for an encore. As usual, I was unable to get a picture of the fast moving seal. Needless to say, Rachel and Megan were thrilled at the sighting. Even they were difficult to photograph at night with the reflective strips on their life jackets.

The bongo nets yielded a very healthy collection of amphipods, the dark colored animals swimming in the cooler. At first I thought it was an unsuccessful tow for us, but looking a bit closer there was also a nice amount of krill. The following night the bongo net tow looked very different. There were enough tiny copepods to make the water appear brown. Plenty of amphipods could also be seen swimming in the water, and once again there was a nice collection of krill once they were scooped out of the crowded container.

The seas had become choppier in the last few days, probably contributing more to my disorder than anything else. Once we were done with filtering water, I thought I would head up to the bridge and stare at the horizon for a while. I ran into our other resident bird expert, Sophia Webb. She had been kicking herself for briefly seeing a pair of short tailed albatross without having her camera available. The birds were out of sight before she could capture their image. Short-tailed Albatross were hunted to the brink of extinction for their feathers up to the 1930s. Numbers were estimated to be as low as two hundred. Since the ban on hunting they have made a recent recovery.

I had never been a huge bird enthusiast, but I still thought it would be exciting to see such a rare species of large sea bird. Sophia went down to get something to eat and I was joined by biogeochemist, Pat Kelly. We sat looking at the water when he said calmly, that looks like a Short-tailed Albatross. Having just gained a new appreciation for the bird, I raced down to the lower deck to get a better picture. On my way I saw Sophia and alerted her of the sighting. Sure enough, she identified the birds as our elusive Short-tailed Albatross. Two individuals were sitting in the water while another soared over our heads. The Albatross, with its huge wingspan (up to eight feet), reminded me of prehistoric flying reptiles like the Pterodactyl and Pteranodon. I felt a little like a kid again as I looked up at the winged giant.

We were observing juveniles, as one could tell by the dark colored feathers (adults have more white feathers). The juveniles will spend years at sea before reaching maturity when they return to nesting grounds to breed. This behavior may be what actually saved them from extinction. After WWII the Short-tailed Albatross were not observed at their normal nesting grounds and were presumed to be extinct. A handful of juveniles returned from years later to continue to breed after hunting had been outlawed. I had been spending my time leading up to the cruise thinking about whales and porpoises, but now here we were observing one of the largest, and at one time rarest, living bird species in the world. Birds that had cheated death, and overcome extinction to sit calmly in the water next to our research vessel. I had heard that there was a possibility we might see Albatross during the cruise, but I didn’t think seeing them would reveal such a remarkable survival story. In the Bering Sea, you never know what you’re gonna get? Or, in this case, you can never understand it until you get it.

-Eli

July 1, 2009

2009-07-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

7-1-09

“He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man”
-Bill Shakespeare

I figured I would throw in a beard update picture. I had foolishly brought my electric razor on the cruise, without the charger. Once the battery went dead I asked around a bit to see if others had brought an e-razor that I could borrow to give myself a quick trim. Wisely, everyone else brought strait razors leaving me without any options. Now that my neck has stopped itching, I decided to just let it go until I get home.

We are now embarking on our longest west bound cruise path, the MN Line. You can see our current location on the cruise path image. The path is laid out in order to study as many important features as possible in the allotted time. I am particularly excited for the MN Line because it takes us by the spring phytoplankton bloom location. Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of the plankton community. The name comes from the Greek words phyton, or “plant”, and plankton meaning “drifter” or “wanderer”. Phytoplankton get their energy from the sun by photosynthesis, just like land plants, and are the base of the marine food chain. They are the primary food source for the krill we have been collecting and studying throughout the cruise. A bloom refers to a rapid increase in phytoplankton population in an aquatic system. Bering Sea phytoplankton blooms typically take place in the spring after the sea ice melts allowing sunlight to be harvested. Phytoplankton can live below the ice, but in much lower numbers.

One bloom location in particular was visited by the spring BEST (Bering Sea Ecosystem Study) cruise. Water particles and sediment were collected from this spring location. We will be returning to this same location after completing the MN line, allowing us to collect more water particles and sediment to see how the spring bloom material has changed and degraded over time. Of particular interest to me is the protein fraction of the water particles and sediment. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are routinely measured in marine sediments. The source of these amino acids has been elusive. We are using proteomic techniques to unravel this mystery. Once we collect the samples they will be frozen at -70 degrees Celsius to be analyzed back at our lab in Maryland.

At each sampling station one task is carried out at a time. Often times, our bongo net tows are done after other tasks, like water collection, have already been carried out. At our last station, those of us operating the bongo nets, were the first sample collectors. This allowed us to collect water from the CTD Niskin bottles at the same time as everyone else who was collecting water for different analyses. It was a welcome change to collecting water in smaller groups of people. This time it was like a Niskin party as everyone filled up their respective containers. It is not clear yet exactly what time we will be returning to the spring bloom location, but the more I get to interact with the other scientists and learn about the past cruises, the more excited I am to fill in my piece of the Bering Sea puzzle. Seeing as how it can be commonplace on a cruise to let one’s beard grow out a bit, I am fitting in little more with each day’s growth.

-Eli

June 30, 2009

2009-07-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

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

June 29, 2009

2009-07-02T06:47:00.001-07:00

6-29-09

Most evenings on deck we have been able to encounter a part of the Bering Sea wildlife that I had not experienced before. Last night’s krill tow was no different. While we were waiting for the nets to be pulled back up, a bird possibly caught in a strong gust of wind swooped by our heads and almost ran into the cabin of the ship. We were a bit concerned, but our winged friend corrected its path and rejoined the flock cruising next to the side of the ship. Tracy informed us that the lights of the ship can sometimes disorient the birds as they fly at night. That made sense to me since I have opened the bathroom door into my face more than once while my eyes adjust to turning on a light in the dark.

I looked down at the deck and noticed another bird that had landed onboard and was crouching beneath some stairs. Tracy picked it up and said some comforting words while stroking the birds head to calm it down. It was unclear if the bird was hurt or was just resting from the windy weather. The bird was a petrel, dark grey with some white stripes on its wings. It almost looked like a seabird version of a pigeon, with a little more grace and class. Tracy placed the bird into a box to rest for a bit to see if it could build up enough strength to return to the air.

My mother has always been a big bird enthusiast. I remember she would pull the car over to the side of the road if she saw a majestic individual hunting quietly in a pond or marsh. “Shhh, it’s a great blue heron” she would say, despite the fact that we were in the car unable to make a loud enough noise to disturb the bird a hundred feet away. “Look at how still it is while it waits for food.” Since I was five and couldn’t stand sitting still for more than two seconds, I thought it must be awful to be a great blue heron and have to wait hours to catch something to eat. I had always thought it would be much more thrilling to be a plunge diving bird, like many we have seen here at sea. At least hunting would be a source of excitement rather than boredom. If there was a nice sunset at the time of spotting the bird we were almost certain to wait upwards of ten to fifteen minutes to experience the true magnificence of the heron.

A couple hours after I had gone to sleep I heard a loud knock at the door from one of the ship’s crew waking us up for a fire drill. The crew was holding the drill at 10:30 AM, a good time for the majority of the people on board, but an unfortunate time for those who had just gone to sleep after working through the night. Thankfully this morning’s drill went pretty fast. During the last drill I had volunteered to put on a survival suit (kind of like a big wet suit that goes on over your clothes), which slowed things down for everyone. I was certainly not as graceful as a hunting heron.

When I woke it turned out that the bird was okay and had returned to the sea from whence it came. We weren’t sure if it was really hurt or just having a rest. Certain types of seabirds can spend months to years on the ocean without ever seeing land, so I would guess this particular petrel was equipped to handle some windy weather. Still, I couldn’t help but feel grateful to Tracy for giving back to the birds who have given children everywhere so much viewing pleasure, even if they didn’t appreciate it until twenty years later.

-Eli

June 28, 2009

2009-06-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

6-28-09

Land ho! St. Paul, Island. We have reached the mid-cruise change over. For me that means one thing. Success! I have made it through half of the cruise without sustaining any injuries or causing any catastrophes. With all this good fortune, and being surrounded by experts, I can ease up on panic mode and start to get into a little bit of a groove. For example, during a recent bongo net tow I reached for the net too early before someone had been able to get a hold of the weight that is used to keep the line to the net taut while it is in the water. The weight bonked me in the head, but it didn’t do any damage because of the hard hat I am required to wear while working on deck. I just chalked it up to experience and have been more mindful since then while working with the nets.

Despite getting my groove back, or finding it to begin with, it is a little sad to see some of the other cruisers leave the ship. Liz Labunski (Bird Expert), John Allison (IT Expert), and Heather Whitney (Grad Student Sediment Expert, who helped me with sediment coring) all packed up their stuff and loaded onto one the small boats on board and headed into port at St. Paul Island. Captain, Kent Sheasley, got into the boat by himself to test out the motor and did a nice loop next the Knorr. You could certainly see his lust for the water as immediately gassed the boat to full speed, or what looked like close to full speed, and jumped of a couple small wakes before turning around and loading up the rest of the people and luggage. Unfortunately, he was too fast for me to get a picture. Chief Scientist, Ray Sambrotto, rode to port as well to pick up some supplies that didn’t quite make it to Dutch Harbor before we set sail.

The previous night, during some down time after dinner, I sat around with several other cruisers and swapped funny stories about various cruises and other non-marine science related experiences. Stories ranged from strange encounters with animals to watching dramatic drunk friends get thrown out of bars. One individual, who would probably prefer to remain anonymous, even showed off the ability to inter-link their toes without using their hands. Truly beautiful, people from all over the country coming together for a common purpose, investigating the Bering Sea. We’re not exactly soldiers at war together, but being in the field with a group of scientists is a distinctive experience. You certainly get something more living and working together in situ, than you would over the same period of time at home in a lab.

As the small boat glided away towards St. Paul I couldn’t help but wonder when, or if, I would ever see my new Bering Sea colleagues again. If not, I’ll always have my memories of this special time at sea. Then again, the knowledge gained from this cruise will further the scientific communities’ understanding of this dynamic ecosystem. In that sense, it is comforting to know that a part of this voyage will live on forever.

-Eli

June 27, 2009

2009-06-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

6-27-09

We were hoping that the clear weather would last for a good portion of the remainder of the cruise, but we should have been hoping it would last through the night. As soon as it got relatively dark, the clouds promptly rolled right back in. It was like the sea pulled up the covers for a night’s rest. We were approaching the mid cruise change over at St. Paul Island. Several scientists would be getting off, returning home, and replaced by several new cruisers during our stop. Rachel encouraged me to walk around and chat with some people before they left.

In particular, Liz Labunski, the ship’s resident bird expert who records all bird sightings during her portion of the cruise. She does all of her observing from the bridge, a part of the ship I had not been to yet. I figured now was as good a time as any to venture up to the top of the ship and boldly go where I had never gone before.

Despite being nearly 41 years old (launched August 21st, 1968), the Knorr is outfitted with some very technologically advanced navigational and maneuvering systems. I was curious if I would see a characteristic wooden ship wheel for the sake of historical preservation, but the controls looked a lot more like what you would envision in a jet than a sea worthy vessel.

At the helm was Third Mate, Alyson Paz. She had the ship on auto-pilot for the moment until we reached the next station where she took control to maneuver the ship into the desired position for sampling by the scientists. I asked what the highest seas were that she had encountered during her time on the Knorr. “About thirty foot swells up by Greenland” she replied. “Unfortunately I was scheduled to get off before the ship headed back out and I missed some fifty foot swells.” I couldn’t help but feel surprised that Alyson was disappointed to have missed, what seem to me, as very dangerous conditions. I guess that is the mentality of someone who captains a ship. I would like to think that I would enjoy being on some high seas after a reasonable amount of sea time, but I wouldn’t put a large wager on it.

Liz was noting all the birds that were flying within sight of the ship. The hundreds of birds that had been following us earlier had dwindled to a few random individuals. Since her duties required her to observe the water at all times, she had seen all the whales and porpoise that had swam by the ship so far on the cruise during daylight. The fog was currently limiting our vision to only a few hundred meters, so there was not a lot of viewing area to cover. I could see how, without any type of navigational tools, you could get lost at sea pretty quick.

For me, the best news of the day came from the floor of the House of Representatives. Bill number H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), passed by a vote of 219-212. For the first time ever, America has a comprehensive clean energy and global warming bill with the potential to transform our economy by creating clean energy jobs, improving our national security, and protecting our planet from global warming pollution. Let’s hope it can pass through the senate with its core policies still intact. Sub-polar areas like the Bering Sea are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change. However, I am still optimistic that we can preserve the diversity and productivity of the world’s oceans with significant government and public action. In the mean time another taste of deep sea mud will help ease my trepidation.

-Eli

June 26, 2009

2009-06-29T06:57:00.000-07:00

6-26-09

“Mind you lad, if God ever wanted to be a fish, he’d be a whale”
-Herman Melville, Moby Dick

After many days of foggy weather, I woke in the late afternoon to some of the clearest skies of the cruise. There were hundreds of sea birds still following the ship, so I thought it would be a great time to get a little sunshine. I went up to the second level deck and exited from the cabin on the starboard side of the ship. I stepped outside and immediately saw it, a huge whale spout (about 20 feet high) a couple hundred meters from the ship! I ran in circles for a couple seconds not knowing if I should go inside and tell someone, get my camera, or stay and watch the giant marine mammal cruise by. Since the whale was going in the opposite direction compared to the boat, I guessed that I would not have time to go inside and come back out before it had disappeared. I ran down to the lower deck and told some others looking at birds in a different direction about the whale sighting. Luckily, the whale spouted a few more times before it was out of sight. We could see its huge arching back come out of the water following each breath. Judging from the small dorsal fin, black color, and large body, it was most likely a fin whale, the second largest whale species on earth. They can grow up to 88 feet long and estimated up to 77 tons. Fin whale are common in this area as well (other observers on the ship had spotted some fin whales during a time when I was asleep). It might as well have been one of the fastest whales on earth by how quickly it passed the ship and was out of sight. Even though I didn’t get any pictures, I was ecstatic after the chance encounter of one of the largest creatures to ever live on the planet.

As if the day wasn’t eventful enough, Dave Shull and company, were out coring sediment at a very deep station (3,455 m or over 2 miles). After two multi-corer drops, there was an extra core for Rachel and I to work with. I was finally going to get to slice up a sediment core! I tried to remain as calm as possible so that it didn’t make any horrible mistakes and waste the incredibly valuable sample. My heart was pounding a mile a minute as if I was about to attempt a game winning shot in the state playoffs. Rachel and I set the core on the slicing post and slid the plastic core tube down while pushing the sediment to the edge of the top of the tube. We collected the overlying water just above the sediment, and some 0.5 cm and 1 cm sediment slices (core processing pictures are of Dave and graduate student Maggie Esch). This was done with a clean turkey baster for the water, and some plastic rings, thin plastic cards and a spatula for the sediment sections.

The sediment sections looked like dark brown pancakes, to put it kindly. When it was all said and done we had successfully collected sediment ranging from months to thousands of years old. It felt a little like traveling back in time while we sliced further down the sediment core. While I was watching Dave and Maggie slice their core, I wondered out loud how the sediment would taste. Dave encouraged me to taste some of the discarded mud that they were not collecting. “Grit you can feel with your tongue is sand, and grit you can feel between your teeth is silt. That’s the ‘technical’ way of analyzing sediment grain size distribution.” I didn’t notice any sand, but there was certainly plenty of silt. I was actually surprised at how palatable the mud was.
“The saltiness makes it taste much better than pond mud” I remarked.
“Yes, it’s nicely seasoned” Dave agreed. I guess grey whales don’t have it so bad filtering all their food from huge mouthfuls of sediment.

That night we were treated to, by far, the best sunset of the cruise. It was a fitting end to a landmark day. I remembered getting upset when mud would get in my mouth from our epic pond mud conflicts, growing up. Funny how it turned out to be some of the most valuable career training I had received during my childhood or college days.

-Eli

June 25, 2009

2009-06-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

6-25-09

When a lot of people on the ship were enthusiastic at the beginning of the cruise about the beautiful sunny weather, I though I was just as excited. However, I was not on board for previous summer cruises where grey is the most common weather you see. At this point I am thankful for all the sun we have had because it has been almost a week of consistent overcast. Being from Oregon, I can handle some clouds, and as I long as I keep telling myself that it is summer it feels a little bit warmer than mid 40s. To go along with the mild cloudy weather, the water is extremely calm today. You could probably pull out the ski boat and go wake boarding. Getting the boat hundreds of miles back to land would be the difficult part.

When I have told people that I look at sediment from the bottom of the ocean, a few times I have gotten the question “Ooo, so you go down in those deep sea submersibles to get samples?” Unfortunately, and fortunately, no. No traveling to the sea floor and reaching into the sediment with remote control robot arms to collect samples. Unfortunately, because it would be very exciting to travel to the bottom of the ocean. Fortunately, because it would be challenging getting into a tiny tube for hours on end over and over coupled with the high cost associated with repeating such an expensive endeavor. It turns out you can do almost anything you would ever need from the deck of the ship with the right instruments.

The exciting thing about studying sediment is that it is a historical record for everything that has happened above it. Since sediment accumulates at a rate of centimeters every thousand years in the Bering Sea, you can look pretty far back into the past as you go down a sediment core. This was a shelf break area, where the water depth is increasing from the continental shelf to the deep basin. It was likely an area where not very much settling material will accumulate because it will simply fall down the slope to the basin. However, I am not sure if I will get a crack at another station like this, so I figure why not collect some sediment here if it is available. The shelf break can be an area of upwelling which can lead to some interesting biological activity.

It was a less than fruitful krill tow this morning, and we had arrived at an interesting station for sediment collection. I asked our shipboard sediment expert, Dave Shull (shown in the foreground with the white hard hat), if it was possible to get sediment from him at this site. “Possibly” he said. “If there is extra mud, you can certainly have it. That is, if the multi-corer works properly.” When ever I hear the word “mud” I can’t help but think about the mud wars my siblings, friends, and I would have at our family’s house growing up. It would usually end with someone getting mud in their eye and complaints as we cleaned the scattered mud off the dock. The concern of the multi-corer working properly didn’t register at first, but I got the idea after the first drop.

I got the chance to help deploy the multi-corer so I was not able to get many pictures. The multi-corer is lowered down to the sediment with a crane. The water depth at the station was about 200 m (656 feet). As the multi-corer came back onto the ship it was very clear that this was a difficult site to core sediment. In the picture of a core from a previous station, the far right core with not very much sediment was a very successful collection compared to this station. The sediment was very rocky and sandy making it difficult for the cores to close properly. Some of the cores had little or no sediment, others were leaking, but there were still some good usable cores. After a second drop, there was the same inconsistent success. Closely examining the sediment you could see rocks and pebbles sitting in the sand. With the coring difficulties, there were no extras for me this time. I’ll just have to sit tight until the next station. No problem, we still have over two weeks to go. There will certainly be plenty of mud to go around when it is all said and done. So long as I don’t get the urge to sling it at my fellow cruisers.

-Eli

June 24, 2009

2009-06-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

6-24-09

While I was busy wishing for a dramatic battle between orcas and humpbacks, it turned out that trials of life were unfolding in our bongo nets this early morning. There was another striking collection of bioluminescence, setting the stage for what we were about to find. After we emptied the cod ends into the cooler, Tracy spotted a small jellyfish, and quickly noticed it was eating a krill alive! The krill’s body was engulfed by the gelatinous predator, with only its tail hanging out squirming futilely as it was slowly paralyzed and dissolved into the medusa of the killer jelly. Ever since I saw the movie “Jaws” it has been a fear of mine to be eaten alive. The movies “The Edge” and “Anaconda” didn’t help matters either. At least in “Jaws 3” a victim gets his revenge after death by holding onto the hand grenade via rigor mortis for others to detonate. I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the krill, but that’s the way it goes when you are a big pillar of the food chain.

While one krill was being eaten alive, another was being violently parasitized. At first glance the krill was extremely swollen and dark colored due to the same parasitic ciliates mentioned in an earlier blog. Despite its dire state of being, the krill was still swimming around the collection dish. Minutes later we glanced at the krill again and it had exploded “Alien” style releasing its guts and the ciliates into the water. The innards eruption was actually even more violent than in the sci-fi classic. In the movie the alien would simply break a hole through the stomach of the victim, but right in front of us the tail of the krill had been blown completely off, separating the krill into two lifeless halves! In the picture you can only see the body with out the tail. Two curious copepods are swimming nearby. All of this carnage helped me appreciate the challenges that krill face in their life cycle. They are certainly a hot prey item or host for many different types of animals, not just the giant baleen whales we are all so familiar with.

With my new found respect for our krill samples and their precious eye extracts, we returned to the lab to continue analysis. The autosampler, which was shown last blog, is the third section from the top on the left side of the liquid chromatography instrument. The pump, which pushes the sample extract and solvents through the instrument, is the bottom-right section. The solvents are in the top-right section. The fluorescence detector, which measures the amount of lipofuscin or other target compound in the sample extract, is the top left section of the instrument. After running many samples some of the parts on the autosampler were clogged and had to be replaced. Rachel, cruise rockstar, was on top of things as usual. From big animals, down to the little animals, there is plenty of excitement to witness at sea. Since there are so many more small creatures than big ones out here, the smaller you go, the greater commotion you are likely to encounter.

-Eli

June 23, 2009

2009-06-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

6-23-09

As a consequence of having a radical sleep schedule (radical by my standards), my internal timeline of events is a bit off. Many of the experiences in this blog actually happened later in the day on the 22nd, but they seemed like they occurred during a new day because I had already been awake since before midnight on the 21st. Consider if you will, a confused graduate student, on a boat, in the Bering Sea. Now consider that his sleep schedule has been turned upside down. How would he be able to decipher the date? Would time and space still have meaning? ... Well, it's not exactly "The Twilight Zone," but the confused part is pretty accurate.

After the initial krill eye extractions described earlier, Rachel and I were able to continue processing the extracts to be analyzed with the liquid chromatography (LC) instrument. The extracts were exchanged from one solvent (2:1 dichloromethane:methanol) to another (100% methanol) and then half of the volume was pipetted into small autosampler vials (the other half to be analyzed later). The orange colored liquid in the end of the pipette tip (in photo to left) is the final lipofuscin extract. Lipofuscin is an oxidation product of proteins. As the krill gets older, more lipofuscin accumulates in the eyes. On average, the more lipofuscin you measure from a krill the older it is. Once we fill the autosampler vials with extract, they are loaded into the LC autosampler to be injected, by the robotic arm in the picture, into the instrument. The amount of lipofuscin is measured by a fluorescence detector. Later we can use all of the data to go back and age all of the krill individuals whose eyes we extracted and analyzed.

While the analysis was running I went outside to check out the water. The word on the ship was that there had been an orca (killer whale) sighting earlier in the day 400 m (about a quarter mile) from the ship. When I got outside there were no orcas, but the ship was surrounded by hundreds of sea birds. They look like light and dark specks in the water from the top of the ship.
It was a bit eerie seeing so many birds with no land in sight. I am used to seeing high bird numbers at the beach. I couldn?t help but think about the scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" where a murder of crows covers the jungle gym, while the lead character waits unsuspectingly by the school. Despite my efforts to live inside a movie or TV show again, the birds just circled and waited calmly in the water. They could have been waiting for the latest sampling nets to stir up some potential food. Other scientists onboard mentioned that birds will hang out by boats because they block the wind. I guess my hopes of seeing mid air collisions of breaching orcas and humpbacks in a seasonal battle for Bering Sea supremacy is not very likely. I?m still crossing my fingers, we have 20 days of cruise left.

-Eli

June 22, 2009

2009-06-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

6-22-09

Hey there sea monkeys, back for another round of Bering Sea Plunder with Ensign Blunder. Despite a less that stellar krill tow early this morning (only nine individuals, not enough for any additional water filtration) I was very excited because one of Megan and Tracy's growth experiments had just completed (Megan is shown in the picture standing next to her filtration apparatus). The growth experiment takes place in a rotating incubator with six tinted tubes.

The tubes are tinted to block out sunlight and expose krill to approximately the amount of light they would encounter at their natural living depth. The daily vertical migration of krill is an amazing feat for such a small animal. During the day they essentially hide in the dark from predators who have a tough time seeing and catching them in deep dark waters. During the night when it is dark at the surface the krill migrate towards to the surface to feed on algae. The algae live closer to the surface to harvest sunlight for photosynthesis. The krill can migrate up to hundreds of meters in one evening to feed. Not bad for only being an inch or two long.

The light filter that Megan has on her growth experiment allows 6% and 25% light penetration. This is a good indication of how dark it is around the depth they live during the day. It is also a good explanation why their eyes are so big compared to the rest of their bodies. After Rachel and I collected the eyes from 45 individuals, we submerged them in organic solvent (used to dissolve our target chemicals out of the eyes) in 4 mL vials, and sonicated them for 15 minutes. The sonicator (vibrates samples at a very high frequency to allow the solvent to better penetrate the eyes) is the white box by the right side of the fume hood. The fume hood is the black cabinet with the vertical sliding door holding all the lab equipment. Fume hoods are used for lab work with toxic chemicals. They suck air inward so that fumes stay in the hood and the lab worker doesn't breathe them in. Once the eyes are sonicated they are placed in either the -80 Celsius freezer or the 4 degree Celsius fridge, depending on the type of eye extract. The freezers are the off-white units shown in the picture to the left, and the fridges are the metallic units to the right.

After doing a few rounds of eye removal from the krill, I have a new appreciation for doctors and veterinarians. It is very easy to damage the krill eyes as you are removing them. I imagine it would be much more difficult to work with a patient that is still alive in which you are trying to repair a vital organ. I read a newspaper article recently which stated that there is a shortage of primary care physicians because it is a less popular specialization for medical school students. This is becoming an even bigger issue with health care reform on the table in congress. While primary care doctors may not be as high profile as surgeons or specialists, they are just as essential to the health and well being of all medical patients. Unraveling the mysteries of the Bering Sea is no easy task. It takes a team of scientists from many different disciplines to make real progress on answering tough questions about how all of the nutrients and organisms in the ecosystem interact. Some have said that our problems with healthcare are virtually un-resolvable. Right now it seems that lawmakers are at least on the right track by pulling together a wide range of experts to address all the different issues. Ugh, here I go again. Let's just say that if I had to choose between affordable high quality healthcare and seeing another whale, I would take the healthcare. But another whale never hurts.

-Eli

June 21, 2009 Summer Solstice

2009-06-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

Summer Solstice 6-21-09

Happy Summer Solstice! This will be the longest summer solstice daylight period of my life so far. However, it will not be the most daylight I will see this cruise since we will be heading even farther north than we already are. Check our location under the Current cruise track link on the cruise website: http://www.knorr.whoi.edu/

As you might remember, I took a sea sickness med yesterday (Meclizine, 25 mg). I went to bed around 9 AM and slept until 3 AM the following day for a grand total of 18 hours strait. I woke up briefly some time in the middle, but rolled over and quickly nodded off again (one or both of the periods were well over my target of four hours uninterrupted). I would have slept even longer if Rachel didn't come wake me up for the next Krill tow. Who knows, I could have gone over 24 hours.

Once I got dressed and ate a quick snack, I was back out on deck with everyone, ready for another productive krill tow with the bongo nets. Despite being in relatively shallow water (about 70 m) we got a good haul of krill. In general you see more krill as you go towards the deeper water and less as you go towards the shallow water. We filtered particles from water collected at 18 meters (depth chosen based on a combination of light penetration and the chlorophyll maximum) using our filtration manifold (system of metal tubes with glass funnels attached to them). We would measure water in large graduated cylinders and then suck it through the filters using an aspirator pump (blue and grey box with black tube to the right and behind of the filtration manifold).

The amount of water we filter at each station changes based on how much particulate material is in the water. In general we stop filtering once the filters are so full of particles that they begin to filter very slowly. This morning the big filters (under the funnels on the left side of filtration manifold) were able to handle five liters (close to average) of water before they were loaded with particles. Sometimes the water can be so loaded with material that it is tough to filter only one liter. Other times there is so little material in the water that you can filter up to thirteen liters of water.

When we were done filtering we had some more eyes to remove from krill collected at a previous station. This is done using tweezers and a scalpel, below a dissecting microscope. Once the eyes are removed they are placed in vials to be extracted later (add solvent to the vials to remove certain compounds from the eyes).

As the light was returning and I was waking from my post sleep fog, I noticed our first real foggy weather that we had encountered so far on the cruise. Considering that the majority of the cruise last summer was very foggy, I am glad we got to experience some sunny days. I have always enjoyed foggy weather. Seeing it cover a landscape or skyline makes it seem much more mystical and romantic. Especially around industrial areas. Throw down some fog and even the most polluted oil refinery can look like a charming relic of the industrial revolution. The fog around the ship made me feel a little less like a graduate student and a little more like an intrepid explorer. Now I just need to discover something and I'll be all set. Wait, isn't that my goal as a graduate student as well?

-Eli

June 20, 2009

2009-06-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

6-20-09

After several days of spotty sleep I was determined to make it through a full shift of work without nodding off. In theory, a continuous period of being awake would result in a continuous period of being asleep. Several cups of tea with breakfast would hopefully get me started on the right track. I went out on deck because some cool wind usually helped me wake up and feel a little less queasy. I was blessed to witness another spectacular sunset. The light from the sun shined right up to the edge of the horizon as if it was lighting up the edge of the world. As the sun dipped further behind the clouds a single shaft of light aimed strait up like it was illuminating a path towards heaven. To say the least, all of this radiant majesty was a little overwhelming. I had been at sea for less than a week and I felt like I had experienced enough inward journeys to last my whole 20s.

I thought this might be an interesting krill tow, since we were at an intermediate depth of 460 meters, in between the Bering Sea's average continental shelf depth (70 meters) and depth of the basin (1000s of meters). If my previous encounters with bioluminescent copepods were like grabbing a bag of stars, this tow was more like lassoing the Milky Way. Anywhere you touched the bongo nets, they would light up with small blue flashes. Despite repeated efforts to capture the copepod light with my camera, I was unable to get a good shot. In the best picture you can faintly make out one luminescing individual just above the right corner of my blurry blue glove (blurred because of the movement trying to shake the net to trigger a response from the copepods).

There was also plenty of krill to collect, so we carried the cooler into the light to scoop out the googly eyed crustaceans. There was a small fish that we also collected facing straight down with its face pressed against the bottom of the cooler, continuing to try and swim deeper, despite making no progress. "This is a midwater fish" Tracy commented. "They never encounter boundaries during their lifecycle so they don't know how to react in containers when they are trying to reach their optimum depth."

I couldn't help but compare the fish's behavior, to my reaction of seeing "the edge of the world" at sunset. I was trying to put a boundary on the water because I couldn't see anything beyond it.

Humans establish, and as a result encounter, a lot of boundaries in day to day life. Boundaries like walls of buildings, or sides of rocks, are physical. Other boundaries like social class, or national boarders, are established by society and government. Imagine how big of a risk it must have been to attempt to sail around the world, when the only boundary that anyone had ever thought they knew for certain was that the world was flat. Breaking these types of human imposed boundaries usually results in paradigm shifts that change how we view the world and operate in our day to day lives. Having an African American president, or maybe one day a two state solution for Israel and the Palestinians (forgive me, I finished watching the movie Munich yesterday), has, and may potentially, changed the way much of the world functions?

I drone on as if I am the first person to ever consider the implications of human imposed boundaries. It is a phenomenon that society and nature will likely always be in conflict with. I recall that in my Great Uncle Jim Moore's memoir he stated something to the effect of "in order to be a true revolutionary, one needs to believe that at no point in history has anyone ever comprehended the issues and challenges that the so called revolution is trying to overcome." I'm sure Uncle Jim wrote it much more eloquently than my memory retrieved it. He was coming to terms with his own revolution during labor disputes of the 20th century.

In Jim's honor (thankfully still with us), for the first time in my life I had a specific revolution. I decided to take some sea sickness meds for the first time (graciously given to me by the Knorr's Chief Mate Dee Emrich). As someone who has swam and played in the water a reasonable amount, I thought I should try and go without a 'chemical solution.' Tracy made a convincing comment that helped get me over the edge. "There is no glory in sea sickness" she said. "It is much better to be fully functional than to think you are toughing it out." I was told the meds can make you drowsy so I have waited until before I go to sleep to take the pill. For now I'll put institutions and paradigm shifts aside, and hope I can break the boundary of consistent day to day sleep without waking up for more than four hours.

-Eli

P.S. Happy Father's Day, Dad. I realize it is on the 21st, but I am writing this the day after its post date. I remembered a passage from the section of Uncle Jim's memoir that you asked me to read to the family on a road trip down the west coast to visit potential colleges (for Mary) and graduate programs (for me). Strangely enough, I wound up on the east coast at the University of Maryland. Thanks for passing on family history to your kids.

June 19, 2009

2009-06-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

6-19-09

For the first month or so President Obama could receive nothing but praise from the majority of the national media (excluding the far right wingers). It was all "constitutional scholar this", and "stunning intellect" that. I have to admit that I got caught up in the romance as much as the next "yes we can-er" on the block. That is probably not surprising that an environmental science student would be relieved not to have "drill baby drill" in the white house for another four years. Then as the reality of this administration's challenges started to set in, people started asking questions about how we were going to go about solving so many monumental problems. "The honeymoon is over!" they all said, from FOX, to CNN, and even the Obamanites at MSNBC (although they did put a positive spin on it).

After almost five days of rocking back and forth, I am starting to think that my honeymoon with this cruise is wrapping up as well. The difficulty of shifting to the late night schedule when there is so much daylight has thrown my internal clock into the Aleutian North Slope Current. I thought that the second night at sea I had made the transition by going to sleep at 3 PM and waking up around 11 (pretty ideal sleeping schedule for our peak work hours). Since then it has been periodic four hour sleep sessions followed by lying awake for the next four. Then at about 4 AM I hit the wall and have as much trouble staying awake as Stephen Hawking on a date with Paris Hilton. To make things even trickier, the weather has started to get a little less pleasant. Clouds have rolled in, the wind has picked up (blowing the bongo nets sideways), and we had some rain during the last krill tow. The ship's rocking has intensified making me feel a little like the first time I got off Space Mountain at Disneyland. At least I didn't start crying this time.

At the risk of sounding totally juvenile I should put things a bit more into perspective. The truth is I am enjoying the ups and downs of this expedition even more than a high drama action thriller starring Matt Damon. It would have been naïve of me to think that a research cruise was going to be all sunsets and whale sightings. Like a marriage, or presidency for that matter, any worthwhile commitment is going to have its bumps in the road. It makes the successes that much more rewarding. Despite my nausea we had a very successful krill tow. No jellyfish, good visibility when we poured the contents of the cod ends into the cooler (not too much algae), plenty of krill, and to top it off, a nice haul of our bioluminescent copepod friends. When I shook the cod end it flashed like a blue Christmas tree (unfortunately I couldn?t get a picture because of the rain, but here is a link to a nice photo: http://blog.livebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/chris_linder_bioluminescence.jpg).

Later on when I woke up after a slightly better period of sleep I was anxious to see how the weather was faring. The boat was rocking less, which was a good sign. When I went out on deck I could see clouds again. They were not quite as thick as before so I was glad that overall the conditions had improved. When I went around the cabin to the other side of the deck it was different story. A large patch of blue sky had opened up. I was a bit surprised, but I guess you can?t predict much at sea. The honeymoon might be over, but the voyage is well under way.

-Eli

June 18, 2009

2009-06-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

6-18-09

"The sea -- this truth must be confessed -- has no generosity."

-Joseph Conrad

After waking up and watching another glorious sunset, I ventured into the library to check the computer (caught up a bit on world events, morned another Lakers championship). Two of the crew members were talking about U.S-Russian counterintelligence. One of them, Robbie Laird, described submarine warfare between the two countries and the various tactical maneuvers U-boats would make to follow and evade each other. In order to follow another submarine and remain undetected in its radar shadow, the stalker had to be within several hundred feet while keeping the exact same course of travel. In order to spot a trailing sub, the leader would have to make very sharp sudden turns to coax the follower from its path. Seeing as how the Bering Sea separates the two countries, I was thankful to be cruising in the 21st century and not the 1980s.

With this new appreciation for sub warfare tactics we geared up for another krill tow. We had hoped to have passed the majority of the jellyfish two nights ago, but Tracy checked just to be sure. After she looked at the water she said "Oh, there are lots of jellyfish out there again."
"Really" I asked.
"Yes, I wouldn't joke about something like that."

When the nets came up Rachel made an 'optimistic' guess that we would only catch five jellyfish. We didn't see any jellies right off, but we could see that the nets were loaded with algae. So much so, that we couldn't see two inches through the water when we emptied the cod ends into the cooler. Amazingly, Tracy and Megan were still able to scoop out 20 to 25 krill with almost no visibility. A fantastic feat, but not quite enough for us to remove any eyes (the collected individuals were needed for other analyses). Tracy noticed one krill that was swollen do to a parasite. She was excited to send it on to a colleague who devotes a large amount of his research to characterizing krill parasites all over the world. When the jellyfish were thrown overboard we counted exactly five. Rachel seems to have developed a sixth sense for the bongo net tows.

The previous day we had enough krill so that I could cut thirteen sets of eyes from the krill for analysis. I had practiced this enucleation surgery back at the lab (Chesapeake Biological Laboratory) on stable ground so that I could get the hang of the process. I was warned by my advisor, Rodger, that this would be more difficult on a moving boat. I didn't doubt him, but I also didn't realize how much more difficult it would be. In my clumsiness I bumped over a vial containing the krill eyes. Rachel assured me that they still should be salvageable after I scooped them up off the lab bench. I hope her keen instincts are correct again.

Fast forwarding back to today, from one of the upper decks, I watched some of the other scientists take sediment cores. Later in the cruise I will be working with the sediment group to collect a few cores for myself, so I thought it would be good to watch the collection procedure. When the multicorer returned to the surface I could see the sediment at the bottom of each of the tubes. I remembered another one of Robbie's stories about a 'secret' U.S. military attempt to recover a sunken Soviet sub in the middle of the Atlantic. During the recovery process several nuclear torpedoes fell from the torpedo shoot. While it is unlikely that we would core a torpedo on the continental shelf of the Bering Sea, the thought sent a shiver up my spine. As I walked back into the lab I passed Robbie sitting at a computer monitoring the ship's travel. "Any subs tailing us" I asked.
"None at the moment." Robbie chuckled. "But I'll let you know."

-Eli

June 17, 2009

2009-06-19T10:51:00.000-07:00

6-17-09

One of the great aspects of working at night in an area where the night is so short is getting to see both the sunrise and the sunset every day. The fiery sky is something you never get tired of. It's like saying goodbye to an old friend and being reunited hours later. The weather the last two days has been absolutely gorgeous, a balmy 6 degrees Celsius, which works out to about 43 F. The wind has been even calmer than the first night. Rachel informed me that last summer the cruise started with two weeks of clouds and overcast. I feel fortunate to have such pleasant whether while I learn the ropes on this ship. It would be much more difficult with waves crashing on my head.

"Did you see the jellyfish on the CTD? They were nasty." This was one of the last things I heard before heading to bed yesterday afternoon. We were unsure if the cnidarian invasion would be a brief encounter or a constant challenge during our sampling stations. As the bongo nets were hoisted up by the crane we looked out to see clear waters. A good sign, if we didn't see jellies at the surface we would probably not find them at depth. When we pulled in the bongo nets I didn't see any jellyfish, but I was a little worried about catching any krill because there was not much phytoplankton (food for krill) in the nets. When we detached the cod ends and poured their contents into the cooler for sorting it was a different story. Paydirt! Over a hundred, possibly two hundred krill. Blue whales can grow up to 190 tons on these animals (almost exclusively), so we were bound to find them eventually. These small shrimp like crustaceans are easy to identify because of their ?googly? eyes, as Megan put it. To fish them out of our cooler we simply used large soup spoons like the kind you would find at a Chinese restaurant. My apatite was not exactly piqued by the krill, but that did not diminish my excitement!

It was a little tricky to scoop up the krill as they swam around the cooler. The numerous black spots in the picture are crab larvae. We also spotted some mysid shrimp and fish larvae. Megan, Tracy, and Rachel are all much more experienced at krill spooning than I am, and it showed. In the picture you can see that I had a lucky scoop and was able to get three at once (the clear tube-like animal below the ripples is a chaetognath). I got two at once a couple more times, but was not able to replicate the threesome (good in front of a camera I guess). The krill were taken for analysis and we collected water particles to go along with the krill samples for this station.

As we collected the water from the Niskin bottles attached to the CTD rosette a couple crewmen looked over the side of the ship alerted us ?there?s a whale!? We looked out at the water and sure enough there was a Minke Whale about 20 feet from the ship. Under the light of the ship we could make out the pale shadow of the whale. I was not quick enough with my camera to take a picture, but after the whale left our view it surfaced briefly for a breath and continued on out of sight. Minke Whale?s can grow up to 35 feet long and 14 tons. Despite their size they are still the smallest baleen whale. Judging from our success catching krill, there should have been enough to provide at least a snack for the Minke. At one point the crewmen said the whale was right next the ship (within 5 or 10 feet). With the edge of the continental shelf in our near future and the potentially curious nature of the beautiful marine mammals, this first whale sighting could just be a small taste of what lies ahead.

-Eli

June 16, 2009

2009-06-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

6-16-09--Post written by Eli

Studying a biologically productive ecosystem can be incredibly fascinating. Nevertheless, such productivity can present challenges when it manifests itself in the form of numerous jellyfish that cover your instruments and fill your sample nets. When we reached Slime Bay it was clear how it got its name (not loved by fisherman). While at each sampling station the ship lowers its CTD (Conductivity-Temperature-Depth) recorder into the water to make measurements such as salinity, temperature, pressure, depth, and density down the water column. When the CTD returned to the surface I thought the brown stringy material hanging from the recorder was some type of algae. But, after surveying the surrounding water I could see many translucent jellyfish bells (Chrysaeora spp.) ranging from 6 to 12 inches across. In the picture you can see the tenticles wrapped around the top of the CTD.

In the galley several of us discussed the issues with jellyfish covering the CTD. Some expressed their displeasure with jellyfish clogging up their sampling equipment and leaving an unpleasant smell on anything they touch that is difficult to get rid of. I had been aware of large lion's mane jellyfish (up to two meters across) becoming a problem clogging up Japanese fishing nets. Tracy informed me that jellyfish of this size had always been present in the ocean, but they are occurring closer Japan because of changing ocean currents and more favorable conditions for jellyfish larvae (warmer, calmer, higher salinity waters). It has been hypothesized that these changing currents are due to climate change. A crew member noted that others have speculated that jellyfish will become the dominant predators in the ocean with favorable conditions (mentioned above) and overfishing.

On a lighter side, the same crew member described a prank that he and his friends used to set up at the beach by digging a hole in the sand, filling it with jellyfish, and covering it with a thin layer of sand at the top so that an unsuspecting person would step into a pit of jellies. They never waited long enough to see someone fall victim to the trap. One would hope, if they were not involved in the plan, that such a burrow would cave in and fill with sand after a short amount of time in order to avoid the slimy surprise.

During our nightly krill tow we experienced the same fate as the CTD operators. As the net was lowered into the water we tried to will each passing jelly from entering the net like an opposing fan watching a basketball approach the rim from a buzzer beating shot. When the nets were pulled up, after being submerged down to 80 meters, we definitely bagged some unwanted gelatinous guests. There were seven in all, but given the quantity we observed in the water it could have been much worse. Only three of the seven made it to the cod ends. When it was all said and done we had enough krill for a few measurements, but not quite enough for any eye dissections yet.

Picking up more than one jellyfish at a time is definitely a challenge. Another scientist sampling plankton from a separate series of nets filled up a pitcher with jellyfish in order to measure the volume they displaced from his nets. When he tossed the jellyfish from the pitcher into the water, Rachel described the site as jellyfish fireworks. While I was certainly anxious to dissect some krill, and a little disappointed that we did not have enough from the second tow, Rachel reassured me. "Don't worry," she said. "There will be so many krill later on that you won?t know what to do with them all."

-Eli

June 15, 2009

2009-06-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

6-15-09 --Post written by Eli

Cruise life is a bit of an adjustment. The main difference is changing my sleeping schedule to the night shift. I'm a little off, but I think I'll catch on in few more days. Getting around the ship hasn't been too difficult, we're pretty stable (and I'm taking fewer wrong turns as I figure the place out). Running on the treadmill is a bit of a challenge. One of my favorite adjustments is the food. I thought I had died and gone to heaven after our first couple of meals on board. Rice and steak, my two main staples (ground beef at home), have been plentiful. The cooks are more than willing to make whatever type of food you need, and will save a plate if you are unable to make it during mealtime. The galley is also a great place to chat with other scientists on board and the crew who work around the clock to keep the ship running smoothly. The captain told me a story about free diving to work briefly under another ship in the Pacific Ocean. Without any warning he got the wind knocked out of him by a "playful" dolphin. "I thought I got hit by a linebacker," he said. Once he caught his breath, he dove back down to finish his job and the dolphin hit him again. A friend got his attention after he surfaced and said
"I think you should head back down again."
"Why," said the captain. "I'm done working on this spot."
"I know, but I want to get a picture of the dolphin slamming into you again."

Even without dolphins, I knew I was in heaven after we pulled in our first krill tow. It was chilly (about 43 F) and a little windy, but we were outfitted with steel toed rubber boots, rain bibs, rubber gloves, and hard hats. The seas were calm which made the experience all the more enjoyable. Since the captain had informed me that he had maneuvered the boat with scientists on deck during Deadliest Catch style conditions (waves crashing over the bow), I felt pretty fortunate. The ideal time to catch krill is during the darkest period of the night when they come up the water column to feed. At 2:30 AM the bongo nets (2 adjacent long cone shaped nets about 2 feet across and 17 feet long with collection jars called cod ends at the bottom of the nets) were lowered into the water and towed for several minutes. When we pulled the nets up they were covered with brown phytoplankton. We poured the contents into a cooler and Tracy Shaw and Megan Bernhardt (krill experts) searched through the water for krill. Unfortunately there were not enough individuals for any experiments or analysis. However, the nets collected many blue bioluminescent copepods, which would flash while we hosed off the nets. It was like swinging a butterfly net through the sky and catching a cluster of blue stars.

If a slow night of sampling can generate this much excitement, I can only imagine what lies ahead as we encounter much much more of what the Bering Sea has to offer.

-Eli

June 14, 2009 Set Sail

2009-06-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

6-14-09

"The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... 'Beware of me,' it says, 'but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.'"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dutch Harbor, we have liftoff! It has finally happened. We have set sail for the Bering Sea. Funny, Rachel and I didn't notice at first because we were in the lab area setting up instruments and work space for all the samples we will be prepping and analyzing. Every now and then I would look out the window and feel like I was moving while we were still docked because of the movement of the water in the harbor. At one point the water was moving faster and it took me a moment to realize that the landscape was moving as well. That should be a pretty good indication that we had left the dock.

From the top deck of the ship we could see the breathtaking mountains and cliffs of Unalaska Island open up to the sea. The combination of the hum of the ship?s engine and the sound of the gentle waves injected new energy into the cruise. Before we left the harbor, I still felt like a tourist carrying gear around a big boat. Now that we are moving I feel more like a part of the expedition. As we admired the scenery, a bald eagle soared by the Knorr to investigate. I had been told that bald eagles congregate around the dumpsters in Unalaska like seagulls. I was pleased not to have seen this before the cruise so that my regal image of our national emblem remained intact for at least another month. The eagle made one pass over our heads and turned back towards land as if to say "Good luck, you're on your own now." I couldn't help but feel a little empowered and patriotic. It is comforting to remember that I will be working with a group seasoned experts, so I will not be alone in this incredible and challenging journey.

In the lab we have gone to great lengths to secure all of our equipment and instruments. Everything has to be tied down with bungie cords or zip ties to keep it from falling off the lab bench in rough conditions. The High Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) instrument, which we will use to measure lipofuscin in krill eyes (more on that down the road), is of special concern because it has so many intricate parts that need to remain intact for the instrument to run properly. On last summer's cruise, Rachel and company were drastically hindered by a broken flow cell in the HPLC fluorescence detector, followed by a malfunctioning gradient valve in the pump. This spring, Rachel and our P.I. (Primary Investigator) Rodger Harvey were able analyze over 450 pairs of krill eyes. Having received lab assistance from Rodger a number of times, it is not surprising that everything worked well in his presence. Call it experience or skill (probably some of the first and a lot of the second), but Rodger knows how to handle just about any instrument problem that may arise. Rachel packed a spare of almost every part to the HPLC, so I think that we have a good chance to mimic at least some of the spring's successful instrument performance this time around.

-Eli

June 13, 2009

2009-06-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

6-13-09--Post Written by Eli

This is one small step for graduate student, one giant leap for? Anyways, Greetings once again. We have arrived at the Unalaska Airport (without some of our luggage, which we were reunited with later in the day). The small commuter planes that travel from Anchorage have strict weight limits resulting in luggage often being shipped with later flights. Considering that our flight had to leave 1000 lbs behind, it's amazing that the airport is not infinitely back logged with luggage that has piled up. During our approach we could see dozens of porpoises from the plane coming up for air and diving back down (small spots in the water, not quite visible in aerial picture). When we got off the plane Rachel spotted some of her friends from previous cruises. She jumped for joy and hugged her shipmates enthusiastically. This illustrated to me the level of camaraderie people build while working together at sea.

In the airport there was a sign that reads "Welcome to Unalaska, International Port of Dutch Harbor, #1 Fishing Port in the Nation." Dutch Harbor and the Bering Sea have been made famous by the TV show 'The Deadliest Catch' which documents the challenges that Crab Fisherman encounter on the Bering Sea (extreme weather and high death rates). The productive fisheries make this a lucrative line of work for those who are willing to brave the conditions. The few grocery and supply stores in the area are heavily stocked with high volume food quantities and all weather gear to prepare fisherman for long trips and dire circumstances. Think Costco and Home Depot for the ocean.

The landscape is absolutely breathtaking. We are surrounded by green slopes, sheer rock walls, and snow-capped mountains that rise up directly out of the water. Kevin, one of my best friends since childhood, told me that the majesty of the Alaskan terrain is like the Northwest on steroids. I finally understand what he was talking about. We will be continuing the BEST (Bering Sea Ecosystem Study) operation on the Knorr, a Woods Whole Oceanographic Institute vessel. I have heard that this ship is much smaller than the previous BEST ship (the Healy), which is a bit of a relief for me so that I don't get lost multiple times a day. However, because of the smaller size the Knorr is sure to rock a bit more than its larger, more stable counterpart. I have been advised that lab work (we'll be removing a lot of krill eyes, very small, for analysis) is much trickier when you are swaying back and forth.

Next to the entrance of the ship's library I found a print of a painting depicting "The Maiden Voyage of the Titanic," with a signature that congratulated the crew on a job well done. I figured this was intended to be an ironic gift after the maiden voyage of the Knorr. It turns out, a crew member informed me, that this was the ship from which the Titanic's resting place at the bottom of the Atlantic was discovered in the mid 1980s. Since the Knorr has had many successful voyages since then I didn't take this to be a bad omen (plus there shouldn't be any icebergs where we will be traveling in the Bering Sea at this time of year). The anticipation builds for our departure from Dutch Harbor to open water!

-Eli

First Cruise Blog of Bering Sea Summer 2009

2009-06-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

6-12-09--Blog Written by Eli Moore

Greetings friends and science enthusiasts, thank you for joining us on the Summer, 2009 BEST (Bering Sea Ecosystem Study) Cruise. The cruise is planned to leave Dutch Harbor, AK June 14th and return July 13th. This is my first research cruise of any real length (I have been on one overnight cruise in Delaware Bay) so I hope to impart the thrills and chills, literally, that we encounter during our time in one of the most biologically productive and exciting areas in the world. My first, and only, duties during the travel portion of the research cruise consist of renting and driving the rental car, with MOGEL Faculty Research Assistant Rachel Pleuthner, from Southern Maryland to Ronald Reagan Washington D.C. National Airport. I was mostly successful in this task, except for missing the airport exit from George Washington Pkwy. Despite my gaffe we still made it to our gate with plenty of time to learn the flight was delayed slightly and the gate was changed. I am very fortunate to have such an experienced and organized leader like Rachel (pictured below, in Anchorage) on this trip. Otherwise, I would likely find plenty of other unforeseen obstacles to throw into the mix.

The first leg of our flight was very brief, because I slept the whole way. Having flown across the U.S. a number of times you get used to waking up early to catch a plane, but that doesn't make you any less tired (not a surprise for anyone who knows me). Our first layover was in Detroit. This happens to be the same day as game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, and the Detroit Redwings are hosting the Pittsburg Penguins for all the marbles. Even though the Wings are the most dominant NHL team of this era, the first thing we saw after leaving the plane on a restaurant television, were penguin players celebrating a 2-1 victory and the Stanley Cup Championship. No promises in any facet of life, even when you think the cards are stacked in your favor. I should keep that in mind while I am helping pull nets out of frigid Bering Sea waters.

The specter of playoff hockey was overshadowed by the excitement of landing in Alaska. Standing outside Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport I realize how much smaller it is than Reagan National. This was surprising to me because Reagan is by far the smallest airport in the DC area. Anchorage is also a smaller city than I envisioned. At 280,000 people, it helps reinforce how vast and unpopulated the Alaskan territory really is. Our hotel for the night was in easy walking distance of the entire downtown. The people were very friendly. At a local public house called Darwin?s Theory (fitting name before starting a marine biology research cruise) some locals greeted us, asked about our trip, and chatted with us on a number of topics. I guess it turns out that not all Alaskans are Palin Supporters.

While walking back to the hotel I was disoriented by the fact that it was 11:30 at night and bright enough to be 5 PM in Maryland. Since it was Friday, many people were hanging out at bars or cruising the streets. Every new aspect of the area helped set the stage for just how new and exciting of an experience this cruise was going to be. In the distance we could see mountains blanketed with evergreens surrounding the city. I used to love reading Jack London books as a youngster (Call of the Wild etc.). I can see why he was so inspired by this place.