08/17/11 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Another quiet day, it looks like the only Bryde’s whale we are going to see on this leg was our middle-of-the-night visitor. Disappointing, but it’s been a great expedition. The highlight of the day was a large mahi that we caught. Beyond that, it was business as usual: lots of watching, but alas no whales. This leg has been enjoyable despite only seeing whales on day 1. Mike has schemed and dreamed with me quite a bit and there are new ideas to develop and try. Laura has been a delight with her pleasant demeanor and her general sense of excitement. I hope they enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed them.
The white stuff mystery may be solved–possible duckweed that was washed into the Gulf by the flooding of the Mississippi and bleached by the ocean. We will test for that back at the lab in Maine.
It’s hard to believe that 70 days have passed since we started this expedition. We sailed 3,741 miles this summer. We biopsied 83 whales from 3 different species (79 sperm whales). We collected over 100 liters of water from 23 different locations. I don’t have the tallies yet, but we collected a lot of fish, invertebrates, Sargasso weed and so on. My head spins at the amount and diversity of samples we collected and all the work still to come. We had air samples from each leg. Truly a bountiful expedition and a lot of work collecting and logging all of them.
I hope all of you have enjoyed this email diary, all 48 of them. We have appreciated all of the support and notes you sent. The many kind words with my mother’s passing were very helpful. Some of the other email comments will stick with us for a while as we were taken with things like the pelican delivery system for sweet tea. Thanks for sharing this expedition with us. There is more to come as we have humpback expeditions set up for the fall; you will want to hear about them. I will also try to correspond more during the year as things develop.
We have also appreciated the support of the administration, faculty, staff and students at USM, who have supported us and have been flexible in working with us at sea. Thanks to all of you.
I can’t say enough about the great team in my land laboratory. From Chris keeping our IT humming and connected, to Amie and Carolyne handling the samples we sent, to Jane ordering and organizing details, to James handling the website, to Hong overseeing the shop. Great job gang. Thanks also to all of the Wise Lab team who are handling the whale cell cultures. The lab, too, has been flexible and productive with me as we have written grants, papers, abstracts and reports over these 70 days. I have enjoyed and appreciated that flexibility and that productivity.
We had a lot of great people on the boat who came on for a stint to help (22 of them) and worked long and hard and helped us get all those samples. We enjoyed their company, camaraderie and help. Many thanks to Chris, Rick, Shanelle, Cynthia, Nora, Alyssa, Jane, Nick, Nate Polhemus, Shouping, John Atkinson, Mark, Arial, Rikki, Brady, Bob, Jonah, James, Franklin, Andy, Mike and Laura. Thanks for being so helpful and fitting in so well. Could not have had all this success without you!
70 days on an expedition is a long time. The boat is small. The showers are irregular and sleep is always insufficient. It takes a special group of people to work this hard, this long and get along. My biggest thanks goes to them the core of this expedition: Captain Bob, First mate Ian, John Branford, Sandy, Johnny and Cathy. What can I say? Thank you seems so insufficient. Tremendous job team. Abundant memories for all of us. I have enjoyed these 70 days with you and appreciated all that you have done to make it all work. It wasn’t easy, but it was important and we did it, together. Thanks.
I thought I would remind everyone of who the core crew is so I have attached pictures of each of them. They gave it their all and worked tirelessly for more than 70 days. Remarkable team.
Last, but not least in anyway, (yeah, I know you thought I forgot you when you didn’t see your name in the list of 22), thanks to Iain Kerr, none of this happens without you and all of your hard work behind the scenes. We see it and we value it and we all thank you. You’re the best!
Fittingly, at least to me, the final sunset of this year’s voyage was orange (picture attached).
We are safe and in port now. Home is just a mere 1,478-mile drive away. I can hardly wait. I am often asked what my my favorite moment of the expedition is. There are indeed many special moments with the whales, with the skies, with the team that I will cherish, always. but the one moment that is my top favorite is when the voyage is done, the samples are all safely stored in our land lab, all of the team members who spent time on the boat are home safe and sound and I am i my bed at home, head on the pillow and finally able to sleep, knowing all is safe and sound and the job well done. That is my favorite moment. I look forward to that moment coming soon.
My what a great trip it has been. More soon.
John
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
08/17/11 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Whale call was early this morning – 3:45 am!
I had woken about 3 am and was working on a grant proposal in my head. Yeah, it happens sometimes. This one is about studying how cobalt-chromium hip implants are causing bladder cancer in people with implants. We plan to submit the grant in October. Anyway, I was up at 3 am. I checked my email and found several from my cobalt-chromium grant collaborator and one from the Mobile Baykeeper informing me that the white stuff we saw is washing up on the Alabama beaches–miles of it. They came to same conclusions we did and also don’t know for sure what it is yet.
I went to the galley for a drink and found Captain Bob on helm watch. We chatted for a bit and I shared the Baykeepers comments with him. I headed back to my room and had just laid my head on the pillow and continued thinking of the grant when I heard a tapping. No one has ever come to my cabin in the middle of the night so I thought I was hearing things. But, to be on the safe side, I said “yes?” Next thing I knew, the hatch in my ceiling opened and Captain Bob stuck his head in, “John, I have a whale blowing out here!” he said “Just off the side of the boat.” There is nothing quite like the image of Captain Bob’s head just above you in the middle of the night. But, the prospect of a whale overwhelmed my reaction to that image and I bolted for deck. Sure enough just a few yards off the boat–whale blows. Sandy arrived just on my heels.
It was a full moon so I asked Bob, “Think we have enough moonlight to biopsy?” He chuckled. After a few minutes I could see why. We could see the blows and hear the whale, but we could not see the whale. We watched the blows and sounds circle the boat. At one point we could see the whale’s silhouette under the water right next to the boat even possibly touching the boat under the water. Johnny arrived in the pilot house as I was adjusting the camera on my phone. He looked none too pleased to see me disrupting his normal 4 am helm watch (his private time with the ocean) and was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “What are you doing up at this hour?” he asked. “We’ve got a whale” I replied. He looked at me dumbfounded and in disbelief. “No, really” I said. He bolted on to deck.
They say apples don’t fall far from the tree when speaking of father and son. So you won’t be surprised to learn that Johnny’s next question was “Can we biopsy it?” I chuckled as Bob did and just like me Johnny realized why we couldn’t. We watched the whale until it left. Truly a memorable moment watching and listening to a whale in the moonlight. Our next excitement was during Laura and Cathy’s watch. They spotted a waterspout forming not far from the boat. Picture attached. The quickly came down off the mast. But, this was a fair weather waterspout not a tornadic waterspout so it posed little risk and was fun to watch. The entire team crowded into the pilot house to watch (it was pouring on deck).
The next excitement came in the afternoon. Believe it or not, the plane was back and NOAA was observing us again. This time many of the team were on deck looking at dolphins. This time the team was a bit annoyed at being the target of their observations. They still have not replied to my call. While on deck, I noticed how hot it had become. Given that this was near the end of our trip, and perhaps, the last chance to swim in the Gulf this year, I checked with Captain Bob and we decided on a swim call. It was indeed refreshing. Ian and Johnny took advantage of the clear blue water to take images underwater with the GoPro camera. It was a nice ending to an unusual day.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 28 degrees 05.7 minutes North and 85 degrees 02.7 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 29.057 N, 85.027 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
08/17/11 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | No Comments »
I think today was the quietest day of the entire expedition. Not much seen beyond a couple of dragonflies and flying fish. Andy and Cathy saw three dolphins from the midlevel platform, but it was during a short downpour and they figured no one would come on deck so they recorded it, but didn’t radio it in. They were probably right, except Laura and I were checking the array during the downpour. We were soaked to the bone.
We did see one pelican just off the boat at about 6:30 pm and 70 miles from the nearest land. Sadly, it did not have the sweet tea we’ve been expecting. Of course, the upside was it didn’t bring us any babies either. Picture attached.
This quiet day seems a good opportunity to share an answer to a frequently asked question that you may wonder about too. That is: how do we tell the whales apart so we know whether we have biopsied the same one more than once? The answer has multiple parts.
If we are on whales and there are a few, we can tell them apart while we are with them by scars and markings on their backs and dorsal fins. The biopsiers shout out which whale was sampled and what its markings were. It works for those moments we are with them. When there is uncertainty, Sandy is there with the digital camera and can check images to confirm which whale we biopsied. This approach only holds for the moments we are with them. It does not work well for whales seen the next day or a week later or a month later. We simply cannot
identify then that well for that long… yet.
But, that is ok. We take such a small sample of skin from the whales (about the size of a pea) that one wonders if it is representative of the whole skin of the animal. Sampling a whale more than once at different times gives us a chance to consider that question. Thus, the information from sampling the same whale more than once in a year yields valuable information.
We also want to sample some of the same whales each year as we work year to year. That requires a bit of serendipity as we simply do not know how to find the whales we sampled the year before. Thus, it is simply chance if we encounter them. But, if we do, their samples will allow us to look at the levels in individual whales over time. Thus, the information from sampling the same whale over several years yields valuable information.
How do we tell the whales apart in the lab later if we cannot do it at sea? Ah, that is done with a DNA fingerprint of the whales. Much work to do when we return to Maine! The sunset was lovely tonight.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 28 degrees 29.5 minutes North and 85 degrees 30.5 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 29.192 N, 86.057 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
08/15/11 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | No Comments »
It was a quiet day of searching, but no whales today. We are now well within Bryde’s whale territory. Maybe tomorrow we will see one, though it is a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack. The highlight of the day was when a plane flew by. No, wait, I don’t mean a jet 20,000 feet overhead. I mean a twin engine plane flying at about 200 feet. With a mast sticking 70 feet in the air, that is quite close.
I was sitting in the salon when Captain Bob came in. He said “John, you might want to come up here, there is a plane flying quite low over us.” Indeed, there was. It flew over us at about 150 to 200 feet several times getting a clear look at us and what we were doing. Of course, at that time, what we were doing was looking at them! It was a bit of a gasp as they would turn to come back around at us as the plane looked lined up with the mast. I was a bit worried that one wrong move and Andy and Johnny up on the midlevel would get more plane than they wanted.
Technology being what it is today, Sandy got the plane’s ID number with the camera and I googled it on the phone. It turned out to be a plane out of Homer, Alaska with Bald Mountain Air Service. That was a surprise, I emailed them to a generic address and then found an 800 number so I called on the boat phone.
They were quite pleasant and nice. From the website, I could see they did marine mammal surveys. I told them we had seen their plane and they confirmed that they were in the Gulf. I asked when they were doing–research or pleasure. I kept the question vague so they would not have to violate customer privacy. I was a bit surprised at the answer – “Oh that’s a contract flight. I can’t tell you. It’s top secret.” Top secret! I responded, “Oh, I guess it’s some of NOAA’s NRDA work (NRDA is National Resources Damage Assessment- which is the umbrella for their oil crisis-related work). She did not reply to my comment.
Later in the day, another of their team called. Again he was very friendly and pleasant. He gave me the number of the lead NOAA scientist on the flight. I agreed to send him pictures of the plane. I called the NOAA scientist and left a message. He has not called back yet, nor has he emailed me.
Attached are pictures of the plane. Note the woman waving and smiling in the door of the plane.
We were emailed later that these flyovers of us were not merely fun. They were part of NOAA’s work assignment. Go figure. I thought we were being as transparent as one could be. Guess they needed a looksee. I am guessing the NOAA scientist will not be contacting me.
The other big curiosity of the day was a river of white stuff floating on the surface of the water. We are not sure what the heck it is. Our current guesses are that it is biological, as under the microscope it looks like it has cells. It is white and firm. Captain Bob thinks it feels like ivory soap shavings. We’ve seen and sampled it before. In fact, when Laura came on she let me know the land lab was none too happy with me for sending back three tubes labeled “white stuff.” I guess they felt that was insufficient information. So, when we encountered it yesterday, I asked her what she would have called it. She agreed “white stuff” was it.
We googled around and could find nothing on the internet to match. It’s very thin, almost like a fish scale, and seems too hard to be a fish egg and too soft to be a plant seed. If you have seen this stuff before, please let us know. We are circulating pictures now to marine colleagues to see what they think.
The sunset was so so tonight, but the moonrise was great–lots of blue.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 29 degrees 19.2 minutes North and 86 degrees 05.7 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 29.192 N, 86.057 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
08/15/11 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | No Comments »
It was simply a pleasant day at sea today. The seas were mild. The temperature was warm, but cooler than normal. There was a very relaxed spirit on the boat making it a nice day.
We had visitors. In the morning, they were birds. Three landed on the deck and came for a ride. They stayed for quite a while. Captain Bob fed them crunchberries from the Captain Crunch cereal box. They soared and hovered just above the boat too. We grew less enamored with them when they caused the whale we were approaching to dive. They harassed it, so it fluked and dove.
In the early afternoon, a large leatherback sea turtle swam by to say hi. The team is always thrilled to see sea turtles. Andy and Cathy were on watch and radioed down that we just passed something large, they were not sure what it was. We turned around and then they identified it as a large leatherback. Picture of the turtle attached.
In the late afternoon, it was a massive group of jellyfish that floated over, hundreds of them. We took pictures and underwater footage and then we caught a bunch for sampling as jellyfish are a target species for us. Pictures of Laura and John Bradford collecting the jellies are attached. That’s Cathy in the photo with John Bradford. Laura was quite satisfied with her jelly fishing–she caught 7 of them! The jellies stayed into the early evening.
In the evening, it was two biting flies that flew in, possibly horseflies. We didn’t like them. They overstayed their welcome and were dealt with. Alas, we don’t sample flies so we fed them to the jellies. Andy caught it all on film.
Of course, as you might imagine, the highlight of the day was the sperm whales. Mike found the first whales during his 7 am watch. By 8:30 we were close enough to see flukes. By 10:30, we had this leg’s first biopsy, which was probably the most efficient and quick biopsy we have done. By 11:30, we had our second biopsy. It was a great way to start the day and the leg.
The day ended with water sampling and a surprise- brown material coming up with the water samples at 2900 feet. Not sure what it is. We doubt we hit bottom as the depth here is about 3100 feet and we don’t have enough line for that depth. We are also again seeing lots of white stuff in the water that we cannot identify visually.
Tomorrow we resume our search for the Bryde’s whales. There are only about 15 of them in the Gulf and so they are particularly vulnerable. Last year, we saw and sampled one. This year we saw two and sampled one on the first leg. I am hoping we can find more as we pass through their area one more time this year. One of my favorite sunsets of the expedition occurred tonight.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 29 degrees 13.6 minutes North and 87 degrees 20.2 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 29.136 N, 87.202 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
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Another quick port call in Pensacola and we are now back out for our final leg of this year’s expedition. We said goodbye to Iain Kerr, Jonah, James and Franklin in port. We enjoyed our time with each of them, all fine men. Fortunately, there is ample footage of our time with them as around 1,000 film segments were taken over the last leg.
On this leg, we will pass through some Bryde’s whale territory on our way to one more day in some sperm whale places. Then we will turn back into Bryde’s territory and end the expedition on about August 17 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
We welcome three people to the expedition. Andy who was on as part of the film crew, will now work on the science crew. It turns out in the fall he will be a graduate student in England studying animal behavior. Thus, this leg will be a chance for him to also enjoy some biology work, though I am not clear whether the animal behavior he will find interesting will be the whales or us! Maybe both. On this leg, he will be the science photographer.
We also have Dr. Michael Carvan, a toxicologist from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I have known Mike for a number of years. He does important and elegant work on mercury toxicity using fish as a study species. He was also one of the first to culture dolphin cells some years ago. You can check out his lab at: http://www4.uwm.edu/freshwater/people/carvanm.cfm. He will man the arrows and net on this leg.
Finally, we have Laura Savery on board. Laura is the senior doctoral student in my laboratory. That means: 1) She has been there the longest; 2) She is the voice for all of the students confusion with my directions and ideas (i.e. she keeps me in line); and 3) She will graduate soon. Laura is doing her dissertation work on metal levels in sperm whales using both the global voyage dataset and these Gulf
whales. Laura will be the data keeper on this leg.
The rest of the crew remain, Johnny, Cathy, Sandy, Captain Bob, First mate Ian, John Bradford and me.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 30 degrees 01.8 minutes North and 87 degrees 17.5 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 30.018 N, 87.175 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
08/10/11 by admin | Home Page Blogs, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Morning found us at the epicenter of Deepwater Horizon. It seemed fitting to be here now, the summer after, with Iain Kerr, my partner in this project and James, Johnny and Cathy–the first three people to volunteer on this project before I even talked to Iain about it. This one incident became the largest marine pollution disaster in U.S. history and profoundly changed the course of our lives, at least for Sandy, James, Johnny, Cathy and me. I took the time to reflect and
take it all in.
I took a picture. In it you can see nothing. Nothing but water, clouds and sky. No rigs. No boats. No birds. No whales. No dolphins. No flying fish. No jellies. No sign of life except for us. It was surreal. Stunning that the large relief wells we saw last year were gone. Stunning that 11 people died and the Gulf was poisoned and there was nothing to mark its occurrence. It was as if it never happened.
It’s not that I expected much. I expected there was likely to be nothing there anymore. Hard to post a memorial sign out that deep. But, still, thinking and knowing are two different things. It just seemed odd that a calamity this big could fade into nothing.
We had watched an old Ocean Alliance corporate video last night. In it Roger Payne was narrating and he made two comments that came to my mind while staring out at Deepwater Horizon. In one, he talked about seeing a dead whale on the beach. Someone had carved their initials into it and stuffed a cigar in its blowhole. It was a experience that changed him forever and caused him to devote his life to studying whales. In the second, he talked about how he went to Argentina to study whales and took his family. Indeed, he did and they were quite young at the time.
Over the past few years, there have been comments made about Roger being the old whale guy who revolutionized the way we think about whales because of their songs and me being the young whale guy who is revolutionizing how we think about whales because of the their cell lines and DNA we study. I am not sure if these comments are true. But hearing Roger’s words, I found a similar echo in my own life.
I saw an oil crisis on a Louisiana beach in 2010. It was an experience that struck a deep chord in me and changed me forever. It has propelled me into a lifelong study of pollution in whales in ways I had not imagined. I went to the Gulf of Mexico. I took my family. Strange place to takes one’s family, but we went. I also took my students, staff, colleagues and university. I hope we make a difference. I hope something like this event never happens again. If it does, I hope we are ready.
The day was spent focused on water sampling. We started at the epicenter and collected water at 2 depths (100 feet and 2,900 feet), every 10 miles, collecting the last set of samples near midnight. I have attached pictures of the team with the water sampler. You can see Iain Kerr holding it as Johnny fills the water bottles. It is a strange gray looking contraption designed to withstand the pressures of deep water. We send it down attached to a line on a large blue
reel.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 29 degrees 57.0 minutes North and 87 degrees 22.8 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 29.570 N, 87.228 W.
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Another day of filming and we are still adjusting to it. It’s a challenge to blend the needs of the film scenes against the needs of the search for whales with the constant factor of Gulf heat. The normal whale search routine is 2 hours shifts on the watch platforms followed by 4 hours down. The first of those 4 hours is usually spent cooling off and rehydrating and the second is usually a nap. The newbies often nap longer as it is physically taxing to stand a watch for 2 hours.
This leg, however, we are short two science crew so already the rotations shorten, so it’s 2 hours up and then 2 hours down. That increases the need for the 2 hours down to be for cooling off and resting. But, we are filming. That means off-watch time is spent on deck in various situations being filmed. Thus, there is little time for rest and rehydration, though trust me I do make sure the team gets it.
For Johnny and Cathy, the shift in routine is a bit disorienting as they have been in it all summer. For Franklin and James, I am not sure there is a routine yet. The good news today was that James found our first whale early and by 10 am we had both a biopsy and another nice set of videos of the process from a different angle. That gave us three angles; one from above on the midlevel platform, one from sea looking at the boat and one from above and behind on the boat.
Midday, we were attempting to video water-sampling. I have attached a picture of the shoot in progress. Jonah is holding the camera, Iain Kerr is in the hat readying the water collector. Andy is to his left and Johnny is to his right. We did successfully collect water and, tomorrow, I hope to collect right at the epicenter of Deepwater Horizon.
The day ended with a bunch of whales around. Iain Kerr had the team put a platform off the starboard side giving us another angle to video the process from. We collected another 2 biopsies and felt a sense of relief and accomplishment as three a day has been our average. It is clear we are scientists and not actors. Probably a good thing.
We continue to collect footage and samples and look forward to seeing the videos ourselves.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 28 degrees 51.4 minutes North and 88 degrees 21.8 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 28.514 N, 88.218 W.
(Blog by John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
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Our first day of filming was quite the change of pace. Had to learn how to position our bodies, keep relatively still and keep quiet. Not an easy task for this lot. But, adjust we did and we have some really nice video of a number of aspects of life on the boat. I won’t dwell on them because at this time it is raw footage, but we were able to capture a biopsy in action from above in the midlevel platform and from the sea in the dinghy. Really cool stuff.
We only got near the one whale and took the one biopsy. That whale seemed to enjoy the film attention as it posed quite well during the biopsy and even remained at the surface floating at Johnny’s feet after the biopsy. When it did dive, it was only briefly and went and resurfaced near the dinghy!
The water was remarkably still today, a real plus for filming. It was a mirror water day making for some nice images. We did sail through a crude oil spill with lots of orange oil. Picture of some of it attached. Looks like dispersants had recently been sprayed on it, based on the white flecks of material on it and in it. It broke up rather quickly.
Sunset had brilliant streaks of color through the sky.
John
P.S. We are in the Gulf. Our current location is 29 degrees 05.1 minutes North and 88 degrees 02.5 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 29.051 N, 88.025 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
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Port was a whirlwind as we only had about 2 and a half days to get everything done. But get everything done we did: shipping samples home, laundry, groceries, refill propane, get oil, preparing the boat for the next leg, etc. We said goodbye to the some of the crew from the last leg and appreciated all of the hard work that Arial, Rikki, Brady and Bob put in. They were a big help, and a lot of fun, and we had much success!
This leg will be different. With our scientific goals well-accomplished, we have decided to take advantage of the opportunity to collect footage of the work we do and the animals we see. We do take photo and video on each leg, but the science always comes first and there are many shots we miss or cannot take.
For example, one shot plan for this leg is for the cameramen to take some underwater video of the boat passing by towing the acoustic array. It will be great to have a bit of footage showing the array to illustrate how it works. Thus, this leg is short, and focused on filming and photography. We will take all the footage we possibly can in order to create a number of short educational videos about what we do.
Of course to do this work, this crew is different, with a much smaller science crew than normal. We have two cameramen , Jonah and Andy, on board. We also welcome Iain Kerr on for the leg and are thrilled to be able to log some sea time with him. Iain has a keen eye with the camera and some excellent ideas for what we hope will be great footage.
Ordinarily, we have four science crew leave and four newbies come on. You can see with three film crew on, the science crew shrinks quite a bit, as only one spot is left open. That means long days of hot work with fewer hands. Plus, we have the added complexity of a film crew starting and stopping action to catch the right images at just the right moment. Few would want to volunteer for this particular duty in this Gulf heat.
Accordingly, I did what you are supposed to do in these situations; you turn to family. I am pleased to report that James Wise, our sample retrieval hero from last year (he is also the one who posts all the voyage info on the USM website) has joined us and will finally get his chance at sea. At 22, James is my oldest child, for those who do not know him. He will be our science photographer. That filled the 4 slots that were vacated by the previous crew.
As I pondered the situation, I still felt I was short hands especially with the filming we would be doing. We have one bunk we rarely use. It is an upper bunk in the bow above the first mate. and across from the deckhand. It is an uncomfortable bunk, but it is a functional bunk.
I spoke with Iain about my concerns and the need to add more science hands. We agreed to fill the bunk. The question became who to turn to now for help, while offering up the most uncomfortable bunk on the boat. Yep. Family. Really close family. In this case, I turned to my kid brother, Franklin. Though hardly a kid anymore at 34 and head of his own business. To me, he is still my kid brother. He considered the need and the situation and readily agreed. The boat was now full with 12 hands coming on board.
Now, we are headed out to sea and have already shot many scenes. On board are: Captain Bob, First mate Ian, Deckhand John Bradford, our partner Iain Kerr, Cameraman Jonah, Cameraman Andy and 6 Wises (Franklin, Sandy, James, Johnny, Cathy and me)! Pray for the crew as we indoctrinate them into the Wise family culture!
I have attached a picture of some of the gang. First mate Ian is nearest with the sunglasses on his head. Next, going counterclockwise is Iain Kerr in the hat. Next to him is Jonah, followed by Andy and then Captain Bob. All in orange! Nice.
We sail out today (August 5). We will spend three days filming and looking for whales. Then we will spend one day sailing back (August 9). Quick, intense, hot and busy. Here’s hoping we find whales! Sunset was cloudy, but we had a nice red sun with reflection on the water.
John
P.S. We are headed out to see towards Alabama/Louisiana Pensacola, Florida. Our current location is 30 degrees 11.3 minutes North and 87 degrees 17.7 minutes West, for those who want to track us as we go. For Google maps (not Google Earth – but maps) or Bing maps use (include letters and comma): 30.113 N, 87.177 W.
(Blog by: John Wise, Sr., Science Director)
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