Today was a day full of firsts. Most importantly it was my first day officially on shift with the rosette in the water! That means it was my first bottom approach and experience as a “sample cop”. It was also the first day of not feeling seasick, first cup of coffee, first shower, and first workout onboard!
Woke up from my first full night’s sleep feeling wonderful and fully recovered from my bout of seasickness (thank goodness!). Feeling better, I enjoyed my first cup of coffee on the ship and went down to check on things at the computer desk. I was up 2 hours early for my shift because I needed to shadow one more time before taking over for the night shift (few people are awake to help troubleshoot at night so Alison and I are on our own). This way I got to watch one more time as they sent it into the water. After it goes in the water you have about 2 hours of wait time while it descends. Someone needs to be at the desk monitoring it at all times in case of problems but because it wasn’t my shift yet, it didn’t have to be me! I decided it was time I visited the workout room.
Woke up from my first full night’s sleep feeling wonderful and fully recovered from my bout of seasickness (thank goodness!). Feeling better, I enjoyed my first cup of coffee on the ship and went down to check on things at the computer desk. I was up 2 hours early for my shift because I needed to shadow one more time before taking over for the night shift (few people are awake to help troubleshoot at night so Alison and I are on our own). This way I got to watch one more time as they sent it into the water. After it goes in the water you have about 2 hours of wait time while it descends. Someone needs to be at the desk monitoring it at all times in case of problems but because it wasn’t my shift yet, it didn’t have to be me! I decided it was time I visited the workout room.
Running on a treadmill on a moving ship is very difficult. First of all, the emergency clip that you typically ignore- you do not ignore it. You clip it to yourself so when you trip the machine doesn’t kill you. You also use the handrails a lot. It’s kind of like an amusement park ride. You’re constantly shifting and therefore you have to pay attention. I assume I will improve at this by my 20 minute run was honestly the hardest run I’ve ever done. After my shift I did another short workout and let me just say that burpees are also humorous to attempt on a moving ship.
After a quick shower (surprisingly great showers! Small but plenty of water pressure and heat) I went down to take over for my shift. The rosette was still about 2500m from the bottom so I still had plenty of time to prepare for my first bottom approach. This is the most important part because you cannot let it hit the bottom. I was very nervous- heart beating fast, palms sweaty as I picked up the radio to call up to the winch to guide them on the approach. Luckily all went well and I stopped it at 9.8m off the bottom (as reported by the altimeter on the bottom of the instrument that kicks in around 100m from the surface). Doesn’t get much better than that. Even the bridge called down over the radio and said “great job on that bottom approach”. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a bigger compliment.
Bringing the instrument up is also a slow process (about 2 hours) but is a little more exciting because you are “firing bottles” at various depths on the way up. This is how we capture water from different depths and bring it up to the surface to sample. We monitor the depth on the ascent and instruct the instrument to close a bottle when we hit each depth. How do we choose the depths that we measure on each cast you ask? More on that later…
After a quick shower (surprisingly great showers! Small but plenty of water pressure and heat) I went down to take over for my shift. The rosette was still about 2500m from the bottom so I still had plenty of time to prepare for my first bottom approach. This is the most important part because you cannot let it hit the bottom. I was very nervous- heart beating fast, palms sweaty as I picked up the radio to call up to the winch to guide them on the approach. Luckily all went well and I stopped it at 9.8m off the bottom (as reported by the altimeter on the bottom of the instrument that kicks in around 100m from the surface). Doesn’t get much better than that. Even the bridge called down over the radio and said “great job on that bottom approach”. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a bigger compliment.
Bringing the instrument up is also a slow process (about 2 hours) but is a little more exciting because you are “firing bottles” at various depths on the way up. This is how we capture water from different depths and bring it up to the surface to sample. We monitor the depth on the ascent and instruct the instrument to close a bottle when we hit each depth. How do we choose the depths that we measure on each cast you ask? More on that later…
‘Sample Cop’ is my other job after the instrument comes back to the surface. I go out to the staging bay with a sheet on which each group has signed up to sample. The order of who takes water when is very important and I am in charge of making sure people stay in line. People measuring gases go first because once the water is exposed to the atmosphere it immediately starts reacting. CFCs go first, followed by oxygen and then carbon. All of these samples are sealed immediately and then tested as soon as possible to minimize the potential of reaction with the atmosphere. In addition to keeping them in line, I also record their bottle numbers on our master sheet so there isn’t any confusion as to which bottle held water from what depth. We get underway again as soon as the rosette is secured on deck so we are moving while sampling. Depending on who is sampling (some groups don’t sample at every station) it takes about 2 hours to sample. That leaves us about an hour to clean up and get everything copied, scanned, and prepped for the next station. We have been steaming quickly at 12 knots which means it takes about 3 hours to get between stations- each station is 0.5 degrees of latitude apart (55km). Needless to say, 12 hour shifts have been flying by! |