11/11/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
We are home. Thursday in Key West was spent packing and seeing some sights. Sandy, Johnny and I took a trip out to Captain Bob’s place. A neat little place out on Cudjoe Key. Not too many neighbors and lots of peace and quiet. We also spent time learning Bob and Bailey and Ian’s favorite haunts in Key West. It ended up being a late night. When we returned to the boat I was amazed to learn the air conditioning was out and my cabin was once again 90 degrees and stuffy. It seemed the voyage was to end as it had begun with me roasting in my cabin. I chuckled and shook my head and headed to bed. Sandy wanted no part of the hot cabin and elected to sleep in the salon. That too made me chuckle as I hate the heat and Sandy prefers it. Prior to the voyage I would have been the one in the salon and Sandy would have endured the hot & stuffy cabin. Alas, with the heat and the need to feed an early parking meter, I only slept about 4 hours and Sandy slept less. That would be our last night on the Odyssey- at least for this particular voyage.
Friday was spent loading the car and saying goodbyes. Johnny, Matt and Shouping flew home on a 1 pm flight. That certainly brought home to all the end of the trip as Johnny was the one person on board the entire time. Sandy and I spent the afternoon continuing to load and pack. It was quite the task. We said goodbye to Rick and Bob first as they had an errand to run and then to Ian and Bailey. Then it was time to drive. We didn’t go far, stopping for dinner at a place Bob had taken us for lunch ironically named Bobalus (Bob got the fried yellowtail then, Sandy loved it!). Then we stopped for the night at about 8 pm as I was exhausted from too little sleep, a full day of car loading and too many goodbyes. I have attached pictures of the car so you can see – I really did pack it full.
Sandy was sad that we had missed fall and asked me to find a route more scenic than 95. It being the weekend, I decided to head up and cross Virginia on 81 ( I drive a lot and everywhere so I know may way around the east coast quite well). We left at 8 am and just drove stopping only for quick bites and some small treasures. One such treasure was a small orange tree I found at a roadside stand in Augustine. Self-pollinating orange tree I can grow indoors, something I have wanted to do since middle school. Not sure if it will work but it cost little to buy and it fulfilled a long forgotten desire of my childhood, so what the heck. By noonish we stopped for lunch at a highway service area – crepes- remarkable. I looked at the map. Overall 6 hours in and we barely even made our way up the lowest part of Florida. Truly an experience driving the length of Florida starting in Key West. Feels like it lasts forever. I drove 16 hours that day and we stopped in Rock Hill, South Carolina at midnight for the night.
Sunday we again left at 8 am heading north. We drove 12 hours and stopped in Milford, Connecticut where we used to live when I started the lab. It was cold, but there was little to do since I had packed in July for hot weather in the Gulf. Good thing I like cold weather.
Monday we awoke to snow and Christmas carols in Connecticut. We knew now fall was behind us. By noon we were in Massachusetts, having lunch with Iain Kerr and sharing our mutual thoughts on how pleased we were with the entire expedition. By 3 pm we were in Portland and visiting Hank and Nancy Beebe, more of our adopted family and swapping stories as they told of us how the show went that we were supposed to perform in before we went to sea and we of course told of the voyage. At 4:15 pm, I was having tea with the University President and the voyage was officially done. The day ended with a lovely dinner of sushi with Cathy and Johnny, though we missed James. Ironically, James is travelling in Portland, Oregon at the national meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) presenting the first national presentation of the voyage. He’ll be back this weekend.
One humorous moment came early in the evening. Cathy’s soccer team was doing a fundraiser and was selling shirts with the USM logo and players number on it. Cathy asked me about it via email long ago on the boat. Of course, I would buy one I said. She asked me to choose a color as they came in blue & white (USM’s color). Well, you know I had to say it… “orange”, I said. Cathy said it was not an option so I went with blue. Last night she delivered the shirts and there for me was an orange shirt!!! The coach had made an exception. I was thrilled and extremely touched. I look forward to wearing it at next year’s games.
When he left for the airport, Johnny sent me a text with a quote that I think sums up this past few days well. From Dr. Seuss: ” Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
I have been smiling for days already.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
2010/11/Ian-holding-a-Mahi-231×300.jpg” alt=”" width=”231″ height=”300″ />We made it in to Key West before the storm. Of course it rained in Key West, which was an interesting experience as 1 inch of rain led to major street flooding. The water on the walk home was at some street corners was 50% of the way up our knees and other over our ankles!
The day was a pleasant slow day. Again no whales, but this day we really were not expecting any. We listened for them, but I cancelled watches to allow the team to have time to enjoy their last day on the sea. The highlight of the day was Ian catching a large Mahi. He’ll eat it and the organs will go to science. I have attached a picture of the team all staring over the bow side looking for the fish on the hook and there is one of Ian holding the fish.
Tomorrow, we will begin the process of packing up and cleaning the boat. When that work is done we will start heading home. Sandy and I will drive from Key West to Portland, Maine. It seems only fitting, given my long standing reputation for driving long distances, that this expedition should end with me driving almost the entire length of the east coast!
I have not forgotten cameraman Ian’s challenge to me that I continue to write to all of you from back at the land lab as well, to tell you of our continuing progress and adventures. Several of you have also written telling me how you look forward to my emails and stories and not wanting the voyage to end so they would continue. Or was it that you just preferred me to be out at sea… I am going to try it and see if I can keep the story going. So stay tuned.
No sunset- it was raining.
More later,
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
11/04/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
I am going to be brief tonight because I find myself a bit stunned and the waves are really beating us up tonight making writing difficult.
We found no whales today and I pulled out all of the stops. We tried watches but saw nothing. We tried the array but heard nothing. We tried sonobuoys, which are equipped to go to 400 feet underwater and transmit sounds back over the radio and again heard nothing. I contacted a colleague who had tagged sperm whales with GPS transmitters. He said only one lone male whale had been tracked east of the spill and that one was off of Florida as we are. The rest remained west of the spill. I still think it was the clean-up ships that sent the whales away. But it is stunning that we cannot find any in this area that usually has a bunch. Informative, but disappointing.
Iain Kerr and I discussed circling back and making another pass to see if we were just missing the whales. But, alas, the weather is getting really bad and there is a forecast of 30 mile per hour winds headed our way. Already, we are getting tossed about quite a bit. We have to go to port and Key West is the closest and Key West is our stopping point. So I find myself really stunned tonight in realizing that we have reached the stopping point of this particular voyage. The end is truly in sight.
I have become so accustomed to this boat and life at sea that stopping while always the plan seems so sudden now. So I am going to hide behind the wavy seas this night and ask you to bear with me while I allow myself an evening of quiet reflection on all that we have seen and done and found. More tomorrow for sure.
I have attached pictures of Johnny holding and releasing a sonobuoy and of course another brilliant sunset.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
11/03/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Still no whales. This lack of whales also means we are moving faster as we do not have whale sampling slowing us down or backing us up. If this lack of whales keeps up, we will be in soon. Crew are already starting to think about what to do next because this leg clearly will not last two weeks.
I did a lot of computer-based work today. Spent some time working on details for next year’s voyage because that will be on top of me in a blink. One exciting development is that our water collaborator Eric has told me that deep ocean water sampling is his bread and butter and so next year we will sample deeper into the water column where those dispersant plumes are thought to be. He has sampled up to 4000 meters which is 4-times deeper than where the whales go. I am already excited for those samples!
I went over a link to a new claim by NOAA that Gulf seafood is safe that Roger sent me. You may remember they first determined it was safe by smelling the fish or as they put it a “sensory test.” Well, due to pressure they decided “…to ensure consumers have total confidence in the safety of seafood…” and added a second test. This test is the one we all expected to be the first test- they measured levels of a dispersant component in 1,735 piece of seafood. Finally. BUT. There is always a but. They carefully chose a dispersant component that they knew beforehand did not accumulate in fish tissue. Hence, surprise, surprise – the seafood only had trace amounts. Thus, they conclude it is safe. This component is also not specific to dispersants but it exists in many other products too, meaning that if it was found it could simply be from something else.
They actually point these aspects out stating (bold added by me for emphasis): ”The new test detects dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, known as DOSS, a major component of the dispersants used in the Gulf. DOSS is also approved by FDA for use in various household products and over-the-counter medication at very low levels. The best scientific data to date indicates that DOSS does not build up in fish tissues.“
One wonders why they chose this approach. Was it simply poor oversight in a rush to do something? Or was it something more deliberate. One could rephrase their quote to say: ”The new test detects dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, known as DOSS. We chose to test DOSS because it is a major component of the dispersants and we already know DOSS does not accumulate in fish tissues so that it would be unlikely would find anything in the fish and we could then declare our smell tests valid and the fish safe. However, we are a bit worried as the best scientific data to date about DOSS reporting this lack of accumulation come from a few poorly done studies, so we are not sure if they are correct. Thus to ensure that we cover our backsides, we also chose to measure DOSS because it is a component that has absolutely no specificity to dispersants and is actually in many household products and over the counter drugs. Consequently, if these few studies are in fact wrong, and we were to find DOSS levels in the fish, we can then blame those levels on household products and pharmaceuticals and deflect the blame from the oil spill. Moreover, we can claim that those levels in fish are “normal” and “have been there for years” as household products and pharmaceuticals have been polluting the Gulf for a long time. Thus we have no worries of meaningful findings of dispersant levels in seafood coming from conducting this worthless test on 1,735 samples.”
Here is the link to their announcement so you can read it for yourself:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101029_seafood.html
Remarkable.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
11/03/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Halloween. Happy Halloween to everyone!
Today was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, but sadly no whales. We did hear one once but only very briefly and never saw one. We are in an area where the data report sporadic sightings or sperm whales, pygmy sperm whales, dwarf sperm whales and pilot whales. But as of yet we have seen none. The squid fisherman are at it tonight so maybe we will collect some of those.
One of our lab Halloween traditions is to get together and carve pumpkins. Sadly, we could not do that with all of our normal lab crew, BUT, happily we were able to do it here on the Odyssey with our voyage team. Everyone carved a pumpkin, except Captain Bob (though he did participate in all of our other Halloween festivities). Shouping and Johnny carved the best ones, I think, as they were done free-hand. Coincidentally, Johnny carved a squid and Shouping a whale spouting. We had candy and treats and danced on the aft deck. Ian, Bailey and Bob all donned costumes. A good time was had by all.
The big news of the day came during my helm watch. James has successfully managed to submit our Pepsi refresh project. Something we have been trying to do since June 30th. Proposals can be submitted on the last day of the month and it seems are generally all loaded at midnight. Last month James tried to load it at midnight and 15 seconds after midnight the competition was full! Somehow this time, James got it in! So what is it? A competition being held by Pepsi to allow the public to pick what it should fund. We are competing for $250,000 for our Gulf work against whatever else is submitted that month on any topic. We had hoped to win for this voyage. Now, we hope to win for analysis costs and part of next voyage. Pepsi is now evaluating our proposal and, if put forward, we will be relying on everyone we know to vote and to get more people to vote as the one with the most votes wins! So we hope to make it to the voting stage next and should know soon.
We are still in excellent, happy spirits. The frustration and homesickness felt by many have subsided as we realize this leg is it, the end of this particular journey, and so we seek to appreciate and enjoy each day.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
11/02/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
James has brought the website up to date and tells me today is day 106. We are headed back out to sea where we will follow the canyon along the 1000 meter depth line and look for sperm whales off of Florida. We have yet to look for sperm whales there as when we first entered the Gulf with Cathy, Ryan, and Greer, the array was not working so we focused on the Brydes whales then as well. We will finish this final leg of the year’s voyage looking for our main target–sperm whales. They array is in the water now. We expect to arrive at 1000 meters at about 2 am.
Pensacola was an interesting place. It is surprising how different Florida feels relative to some of the other Gulf states. Florida is more developed and feels like California on the east coast. Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, each have distinctly different feels to them, but all three feel like variations on an old southern culture. We were quite busy with errands like shipping, which requires finding FedEx and dry ice (sold at Wal-Mart in Mississippi!!), and appropriate boxes. All of the samples so far, including the samples of the Bryde’s whale are safely back in our land lab in Portland, where Carolyne will take tender care of them. Then we do practical errands like grocery shopping, laundry, propane for the stove and so on.
We sailed today about 1 p.m. I kept busy tightening up the cell culture laboratory, which had become a bit discombobulated. Sandy cleaned the incubator to ensure the mold that showed up in one flask of sperm whale cells and two flasks of Bryde’s whale cells were from the animals and not the incubator. She also prepared fresh solutions to make sure we are ready should we encounter whales at 7 am! I cleaned the hood, organized the laboratory tools and installed a set of small plastic drawers I found at Wal-Mart to ensure we are indeed ready should we be fortunate enough to find whales soon. Johnny cleaned and stowed all of the fishing gear and cleaned and prepared the pilothouse laboratory. Matt collected a sediment sample from Pensacola Bay as is now our custom for each bay. Captain Bob took us out to sea and got the air conditioning working, organized a number of manuals and documents, and fixed the sediment sampler so Matt could sample. Ian worked on the radar and continued helm watches. Shouping assisted me in putting the array in the water. Bailey drove and helped out in a variety of ways. Rick helped me think through some details for next year. Sandy cooked dinner- minimeatloafs, a family favorite. I also organized the plan for the week adding a rotating data watch to ensure better data entry. Lot’s of detailed work and we are ready for whales!
The sunset tonight was particularly beautiful and we saw the “green flash” again. My iPhone cannot catch that flash, but I have attached some photos showing the different stages of this remarkable sunset.
Good night,
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
11/01/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Well, we have come to the end of our Bryde’s search and found no further whales. Makes us appreciate that first one and the gift from the whale all the more. We looked hard but found no more. We leave this part with a successful biopsy that will inform us some and a clear strategy for Bryde’s whales next summer.
The day was spent hard at work looking. It was a beautiful sunny day with reasonable though wavy water. I spent three straight hours up on the pilothouse looking. It really was a peaceful fantastic sight. The absence of whales did not frustrate me today as I simply valued the time to enjoy the ocean view. The guys worked hard up the mast. Matt and Rick joined me for stretches on the pilothouse. Rick joined me in song a few times. Nice day.
The team is now in excellent spirits. We have discussed how we only have a week or so left and how we wish to cherish each day as there is no guarantee when will be back. It all hinges on fundraising. Iain and I have already started those efforts as for he and I, next summer will be here as soon as we finish blinking so there is urgency to start raising the funds now. But for the next several days, we are at sea and loving our time here.
Our excitement of the day is happening now. Johnny, Matt and Shouping are catching squid and jellyfish and having a blast doing so. They are quite funny to listen to. Long periods of silence and then short bursts of shouts and crashing about. It’s good to see all of the smiles. Never thought three adult men from two very different countries could all squeal so much like little children. It’s just great! I attached a picture of a flying fish that they found. Fifteen squid caught so far. Next, they will process and log all of the samples so it will be a late night for them. But, they love this work and just keep going. Each day more samples for more data.
Was pleased to learn today that Cathy has submitted our undergraduate team’s application to fly in zero gravity with NASA next year. We will keep our fingers crossed. In case you have wondered about Cathy, she is now the leading goal scorer on the USM Women’s soccer team. She scored as promised. She and the voyage are also featured in USM’s new marketing campaign, which is actually a very exciting campaign. If you look closely you can see Odyssey with Captain Bob and the fore rail. You can see the thirty second commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya48ykTJXE0&feature=related .. I am told there are also billboard sized pictures of her on campus – yikes! Not too bad for a 1st semester sophomore.
A rather active storm is headed our way, so we will duck into Pensacola for tomorrow and Friday and then resume our sperm whale search on Saturday. So to those watching the weather for us- we see it and we are going to run and hide!
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
10/31/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
I woke up quite enthusiastic about the new plan. The weather cooperated. Good water and wind not great, but workable.
We searched and searched and searched and still no whale sightings. I did a rough calculation and realized with a population of 20 whales, we are looking at something like one whale every 60 square miles. Factor in that these whales do not aggregate into large groups and are usually found in ones and twos and you have a very spread out population. Add to that the fact that there is a third vector of depth and you can see they are hard to find. For the icing on the cake, the whales only surface for about 5 minutes every 15 minutes so they are hard to see and they do not breech, they do not tail fluke – none of the above water behaviors that make other whales visible. They simply show a bit of dorsal fin and take a couple of breaths and dive again. Add to that the fact that all of the previous surveys were spring surveys and there are no published fall data and well, it’s fall. The whales could be somewhere else. But, we keep at it. Tomorrow, should be our last attempt at the Bryde’s. I am hopeful we will find another.
The long watches of seeing no whales are taking their toll and requiring adjustments. Tomorrow, we will reduce the shifts to one person on the mast for one hour. one hour up and then two hours down. We have been two hours on and two hours off, but I think that second hour is too grinding. I man the pilot house on and off throughout the day, it’s grinding on me too. The day ended with Rick up the mast and me on the pilothouse singing the 59th Street Bridge song and ‘Feelin Groovy’. Rick says I am turning into a sailor and he thinks I am never coming back! I took a photo of Rick and Johnny on watch from my perch on the pilothouse.
The highlight of the day was a huge krill haul from the Sargasso weed. Johnny and Shouping hauled in a ton of Sargasso weed. Rick, Johnny, Sandy and I worked the pile for quite a while. Then Johnny and Shouping began bottling up the krill. Its 8:30 pm and they are still at it they caught so much. I have attached a picture of Johnny and Rick sifting the weed for krill. It will be interesting to see what the pollutant analysis shows in the krill.
Sandy was reading that Sargasso weed accumulates a lot of metals… seems we are going to have to collect some of that now too for thoroughness. It’s funny timing as I was just thinking about that as we sorted the krill out of the Sargasso weed and tossed it back into the sea (the weed that is). I was wondering what we might find in it. Been talking about looking at metals in plants for years.
Okay, the highlight of the day was just eclipsed by the highlight of the night. Johnny, Sandy and Shouping have caught squid just what whales love to eat. These are smaller ones, but they will be informative. I took a picture of the squid and of Johnny and Shouping tossing the net from the pilothouse .
Again a beautiful sunset in yet a different way. The sun was a red globe beneath the clouds.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
10/31/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
No this time for real! The 25th is 100 days.
One of the really difficult things about land life to maintain on a boat is a sense of time. Our days, for the science team anyway, start at sunrise and end at sunset, with a helm watch sandwiched in at night. We travel through time zones and our clocks don’t notice so we are never certain what the actual time is. Worse is dates and days. We don’t use them at all on the boat and so before you know it- you have no idea what day it is and no conception of date. I have kept track largely through these emails, but today I realized I was off.
I thought today was the 26th for most of the day. Then I realized that it was the 25th making today our 100th day. Sigh.
Today was a better 100th day. The water was calmer and the sun was bright. It was a reasonable day for whale watching though Rick, our whale whisperer, told me that whales said that “there would be no broohaha for today”. I told him to tell them we had no need for any broohahas just one whale calmly alongside the boat would be fine. Alas, they didn’t listen and again no whales today. Krill again which is great as the Bryde’s whales eat krill, and before we could not catch any, but sadly no whales.
I was kept quite busy with work from home. Never really took a break just writing and writing and writing. Phew! Then about 6 pm an unexpected email caught my eye. It was Kait from Scripps who had been with us in September, but was now with NOAA on the Gunter. She said she could see me from the deck and wished us well. I sprang up and told the team. They scanned the horizon for her and yes eventually the Gordon Gunter (our competition) came into view.
We hailed them on the radio, but they refused to acknowledge us. Finally, when we began to creep into their safety zone- they called us asking us what our intentions were. We thought about claiming we were going to ram them and reclaim our student, but instead, we just asked to speak with her. Kait is doing well, but bristles under the tight rules and scrutiny of NOAA. I guess one cannot even take pictures from the boat. They have been out here for almost three weeks and have seen 1-2 Bryde’s (maybe- which I take to mean they could not get a good enough look to identify them) a few sperm whales and a bunch of pilot whales. Beyond that, rules forbid her from saying anything more.
Remarkable.
So much for the open communication and shared information NOAA was insisting on when we started. She asked about our success. We said “No comment”. She chuckled and pointed out that all she needed to do was look on the web as we are indeed open with our communication and sharing our information. But the point was made.
The pilot whales were interesting to hear as we have seen none.
I tried to get a picture of the Gunter while it was light. Look at the boat on the horizon if you can see it. I also attached a web photo of it.
The Gordon Gunter was named after Dr. Gordon Gunter who founded the Gulf Coast Marine Laboratory at USM that we visited. He pioneered Gulf marine studies. The Gordon Gunter is 225 feet long and 43 feet wide and sleeps 35 people to our 93 foot long (with bowsprit) and 18 foot wide sleeping 12. But we are more nimble and able to get near the whales. Plus we are more fun!
This Bryde’s whale thing had puzzled me and so I studied it more. The one whale we saw was headed towards deeper water than we were told they were in, which puzzled us. The published data show them in a narrow band along the 200 meter depth line. NOAA has told us they are at the 200 meter depth line. As I dug deeper into the text of the data, I realized that was true as the whales were reported at 650 feet or 200 meters. But it was also true that their depth ranged to 990 feet. Thus, we have been on one extreme end of their range! The scale is such on the maps that it looks like they fall right along that 200 m depth line. But, it’s an artifact of scale!
I then found GPS coordinates and further realized that they are compressed in a narrow longitude bands of about 2 degrees (roughly 85-87 degrees longitude). We just passed through there. Next year I will know to spend about a week sailing from 85-87 degrees going along the 650, 850 and 950 depths (there is no canyon line at most of these). But what about this year? Well, we have one Bryde’s whale, which as I said is about 10% of the population. We want more. We have a forecast for 3 days of flat water, which should make visual search possible. Only one thing to do…turn around and go back again and this time we will search along a track that brings us through the middle of their range. Then we will turn and go deep and finish with a focus on sperm whales.
I am energized by the new information and the new plan. Let’s hope it works.
Again a beautiful sunset.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
10/31/10 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | Comments Off
It’s been 100 days. It shows.
The day greeted us with a brilliant sunrise. We had high hopes for the day. Or at least I did. Rick told me he wasn’t feeling any whales today. He turned out to be right. Guess he is officially our whale whisperer now. He’d better feel them tomorrow…
The weather was difficult, with winds and swells, but workable all day. We ran watches all day, but aside from pods of dolphins- no whales. It was hard, hard work. This day was one to test your mettle. I did a number of watches on the pilot house and from elsewhere. Lots of rocking and rolling. Lots of gray sky. Few bearings. The ocean likes to play tricks on you. Was that a whale blow I just saw??? Nope, just a far off whitecap being blown by the wind. Hey, maybe that was a whale’s back!!! Nope, just a tease of dark color on the side of a small wave. So on and so on searching and looking. It really tries your patience because it’s hours and hours of looking for something that may simply not be there. It’s hard to stare out on a featureless ocean for hours even harder when what you’re looking for isn’t there.
But days like these have their place and their purpose, It is these failed search days that make us into seasoned whale researchers. It is our commitment and perseverance during these gray wavy times that earns us the right to call ourselves field researchers. If it were easy. It would be done. If anyone could do it. Everyone would. If it was quick. It would already be over. But it is not easy. It’s not quick and only a few can stand the test of days like today and get the job done. It is days like today that make the good days precious and special and rare. It is because we had days like this one that we celebrate and relish the days like number 98 and the special gift that whale gave to us.
I have learned to value and appreciate even this day.
Today, I marveled at the commitment of my team. The work would be hard, really, really hard and the day would be long. There was Rick quietly scanning, trying to find a whale even though they had already told him they were not around. There was Johnny trying to make the day fun with laughter and jokes and shouts of joy and the challenge of climbing once again onto that midlevel platform to ride the bucking waves and stare out at the sea…again. There was Shouping steeling himself against the biting wind he hates so much yet still fulfilling that platform duty and trying ever so hard to find a whale. Young Matthew, desperately wanting to just quit and sleep, yet forcing himself back onto watch each and every time. Sandy doing everything she can to keep the science moving forward checking the Sargasso weed and counting each and every krill we caught. Then there were our captain and crew battling colds and keeping us steady on our course. My job…try to keep the team focused and inspired and allowing them to vent at me through a variety of verbal barrages of frustration. Ahab appears to be the most common adjective for me today…
But we made it through the day and gave it our best. No whales seen, but still a job well done. It may sound odd, but more than 24 man-hours of whale watches completed, the boat safe and on course, and krill samples in the freezer- sounds like a job well done to me.
Yes it’s been 100 days and it shows. Not because the team is frustrated with challenging weather, but because they did their jobs in difficult conditions and did them well. The krill samples were collected. processed and stored with nary a word from me about it. All of the available science was done and done well almost automatically. There a good group. They work hard. They deserve some whales. Today, they earned that reward. Let’s hope it comes soon! Rick- start whispering!
Tonight’s sunset was quite different. Still beautiful, but different. We also recorded some dolphin clicks and whistles from the array in the morning. It’s an interesting mix of sounds.
I wish you well from the Gulf and hope tomorrow brings us whales.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Science Director)
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