At Sea

This morning I had a sunrise view of, as Lewis and Clark named it, Cape Disappointment. Anyone who has ever visited the Oregon shore or any West Coast shore for that matter you might understand their disappointment. Most days on the coast are much cooler than the areas more inland and filled with fog. Sunrise brought a typical day to the Oregon coast and I observed it from the R/V (Research Vessel) Wecoma. I have been aboard the all-all-you-can-eat icecream Wecoma for 5 days now. A couple of the days of been great weather with blue skies and glassy water, but the other three have been overcast and foggy. Offshore 20 miles or so have been nothing but blue skies and warmer weather, however, as we have been as far offshore as 60 miles. Onboardthe 184 ft Wecoma are 10 other scientists and somewhere around 16? crew members--including 2 cooks. Everyday I take "Primary Productivity" measurements and I will spare you most of the  details except to say that I have to get up before sunrise to filter my sample water from the day before so that I can take more samples and incubate them for 24 hours out of the deck to be filtered the next morning. Attached to a CTD( a large instrument that we can send down to whatever depth we might need--The deepest so far on our cruise is 995 meters or over 3000 ft--that takes real-time measurements of salinity, temperature, oxygen, florescence or chlorophyll concentrations, density, turbidity, irradiance, nitrate concentrations, and a few more things) is a "rosette" or circle of "niskin" 12 L bottles that can collect water samples from as many as 12 selected depths and then spike them with different nutrients to see what makes the microscopic plankton grow the most over a 24 hour period. 

I realize that if I continue to write about science nobody will read my blog, but if you are interested I could write more...

I imagine that for my family and Auburn fans all over Alabama going to church this morning was not a pleasant experience after the Tigers lost their first game of the season last night. The Wecoma does not have satellite television so I was not able to watch the game, but I was checking online every 30 minutes or so and watched updates on ESPN.com for the final 5 or 10 minutes.  Heartbreak. Average Joe in Oregon doesn't even know that Auburn is in Alabama. Reading off friends' Facebook statuses to the science 'party' last night was nothing short or hilarious. #*&#* is War Eagle. (*(#)*# is Warrrrrrrrrrr Eagle. #&$*#&$ is War DAMN Eagle. #*&$*#& is weegle weegle war damn eagle kick em in the butt big blue!!!!! #&*#$ is Warrrrrrrrr f'ing Eagle!!!!!!!!!! Let's go Auburn!!!!! It was not that they were making fun of us, just that its very difficult understand, maybe incomprehensible. But I do understand why it is so important to express your fervor via facebook indicated yourself to be the most fanatic and it's still funny. It begged the question of why the battle cry of Auburn is War Eagle. We 'wikipedia-ed' it and read about the young confederate soldier that saved an eagle on the battlefield and became known to carry it around campus where it set flight over an Auburn victory over Georgia just before dying. Or so the story goes. 

Getting up so early to do my work, I complete my work usually by noon. After that I help out with the CTD, get ready for the next day, help out with other sampling, and quite a bit of free-time to read and study, play Rock Band, sit on deck, fish, or watch Southpark. 

I almost forgot: On Friday, I saw a whale in nature for the first time. Supposedly it was a California Gray Whale. I told Captain Rick that if he saw one, to let me know. The next day he called down to get my butt out on the bow because there was a whale surfacing on the port side. Instantly, I put down everything I was doing, ran to get my camera, and got out there. 2 or 3 minutes later I saw it surfaced about 400 m from the ship. It surfaced within sight 3 more times before it was gone and it was certainly near impossible to photograph and am sorry to say that I was not able to capture the moment. It looked much like any video I have seen on television. In that sense, it was much like my impression of Tiger Woods when I stood a couple of feet from him a few years ago, which, I do not mean to say, takes away any exhilaration of the moment. Of course it was an unforgettable experience that had me smiling and ridiculed for awhile--"Alabama just saw his first whale, how exciting I've seen hundreds", yadayada-- I hope they can remember what it was like when they saw their first. Seeing a whale was something growing up that I never even considered. I never considered the possibility until recently. There was potential when I was in Baja Mexico...wrong time of the year. There was potential in Jordan...wrong time of the year, wrong part of the Red Sea. The Wecoma cruise off the Oregon coast offered the best chance yet and did not disappoint.  If we don't see one today though I won't see another one as we are headed into the estuary for tomorrow and Tuesday when the cruise ends(for me). 

We just got called out on deck because some sea lions were spotted. I have some amazing shots of these guys/gals. Take a look. 

Cheers.

David