To have the opportunity to go out on this vessel was beyond exciting and I wasn't really sure how it was going to go. I boat, but haven't been out on a research vessel before, so, I wasn't sure how I was going to react being inside the boat working. Well, it was a success and that just made it all the better. The level of EPICNESS was not measurable. I was part of a team to retrieve the CTD and fire a couple tubes off for water sample collection at 21 meters. That was great. We followed that up with some chemical analysis of the water samples in the dry lab. Major achievement in my book. Later I was part of the team to deploy and retrieve the otter trawl. We had a few glitches, but once we brought up the second attempt it was all worth the effort. I wasn't able to be part of the plankton tows, but know I was watching intensely and may just have some goodies for later sampling. Thanks! ;)
We also took a trip to the Florida Aquarium where I just fell in love with this scrawled filefish
Aluterus scriptus. He made my day. We were working with something I hadn't had any exposure to before, an Ethogram. I chose this filefish to do mine on. I took a little longer observation time because he was pretty slow moving. He was a very laid back fish, took hits from the stingrays racing around the cage without a care in the world. He'd just hang out at the glass and check everyone out and even hung out with the divers when they got in too. All in all, we learned a lot about the open ocean, got to use so much equipment that many of us would likely never have had a chance to experience and many of us found out if we were cut out for vessel work. I'm happy to report that I'm ready for my next cruise!
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Schaaf |
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Schaaf |
Back in the lab we got to try and identify some of the plankton. That was pretty difficult and took a long time just to identify about four of them. It was worth it though, I can imagine I would get better at this with more time. And then Shannon and I presented on pH and temperature changes over the time of the FIO cruises. I'm pretty happy with our presentation, I think we nailed!
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Schaaf |
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Schaaf |
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Schaaf |
Thank you for the training, your enthusiasm and patience Dr. Judkins. This was truly an amazing experience. Be sure to thank the amazing crew and chef Doug too for me!
~ Lisa Mann
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| Photo Credit: Dr. Judkins |
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| Photo Credit: Amanda Schaaf |
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| I had no idea we had these guys! |
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