Unpacking and organizing
Throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday, the science crew
arrived from their various home institutions. Our original goal was to
get everything unpacked and organized to depart on Tuesday. After days of
carrying boxes, shoving lab equipment into every available space, and taking
multiple trips to Walmart and Home Depot, we finally got everything situated to
depart around noon on Wednesday.
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| Loading up the ship. |
Because of the relative size of the ship and the harbor, it was
only possible to leave during high tide. This gave us a ~4 hour window
around noon, and again at midnight. We were ready to leave at the end of
this window, so the crew got everything ready and turned on the engines.
They shut right back off again. We weren't going anywhere just yet.
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| Trying to fit scientific equipment into the ship's labs |
It turns out there was a mechanical problem that needed fixed
before we could leave. The science crew took some much needed downtime
from cruise preparations. We explored the ship and were briefed on safety
procedures. Local wildlife, including an osprey nest, stingrays, turtles,
and blue crabs provided a welcome distraction.
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We caught a blue crab in a
net off the side of the ship, but it was a bit too small to cook. Here,
one of the crew is showing us how to properly hold a crab.
|
The issue with the engines was fixed right around dinnertime, and
we were able to leave with the next tide, around 9:30pm. There was a last
minute scramble with bungee cords and ropes to make sure everything was
strapped down and ready to go.
Science plans
Before we left, we had a science meeting to determine our best
course of action. There is a large Gulf Stream
eddy almost due east of us that will have good conditions for what we need.
Current forecasts show rain arriving at some point on Friday. This
would be ideal, as we can get to the eddy ahead of the rain. We plan to
sample the conditions before, during, and after the rain to determine the
effect of rain on the surface ocean.
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| Map of Sea Surface Height (SSH). The white box shows the eddy we are headed towards and the red dot is our approximate starting location. |
Prior to arriving at the eddy, we plan to stop once we get to
deeper waters to test all the equipment and practice our procedures. One
of our concerns right now is the presence of a tropical invest to the south.
An invest is the step before a tropical depression, which is the step
before a tropical storm, which is the step before a hurricane. It looks
like the storm may make landfall before it heads far enough north to bother us,
or it may dissipate. Forecasts of the storm more than 3 days out aren't
reliable enough for us to make plans. So, we will be keeping an eye out
and modifying our plans as necessary.
Stay tuned for the next update. I'll be writing about our
first station and some of the science we are doing.
More posts in this series:
Upcoming Cruise
Cruise Delays
Upcoming Cruise, Part II
Update #2
Update #3
Update #4
Update #5
Update #6
Update #7
Update #8
Update #9
