I'm ok

There was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake near Santiago, Chile this morning that had my family worried due to the news of tsunami concerns.

We're all OK and I'm safer at sea. Why? Well, here's a quick lesson in how tsunamis work, thanks to wikipedia:

"While everyday wind waves have a wavelength (from crest to crest) of about 100 metres (330 ft) and a height of roughly 2 metres (6.6 ft), a tsunami in the **deep ocean** (where we are) has a wavelength of about 200 kilometres (120 mi). Such a wave travels at well over 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph), but due to the enormous wavelength the wave oscillation at any given point takes 20 or 30 minutes to complete a cycle and has an amplitude of only about 1 metre (3.3 ft).[10] This makes tsunamis difficult to detect over deep water. **Ships rarely notice their passage.**

As the tsunami approaches the coast and the waters become shallow, wave shoaling compresses the wave and its velocity slows below 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph). Its wavelength diminishes to less than 20 kilometres (12 mi) and its amplitude grows enormously, producing a distinctly visible wave. Since the wave still has such a long
wavelength, the tsunami may take minutes to reach full height. Except for the very largest tsunamis, the approaching wave does not break (like a surf break), but rather appears like a fast moving tidal bore. Open bays and coastlines adjacent to very deep water may shape the tsunami further into a step-like wave with a steep-breaking front."

In sum, the energy would have passed underneath us and would have appeared to us much like a normal wave.

No pirate attack.

We’ve successfully evaded pirates.

PIRATES?! What?! Yes, pirates.

In order to bring the crew member back to safety, we had to go to an old port in Callao, Peru. Apparently, there are quite a few shanty towns near the port and locals will hop on ships and raid them for food, etc. There were some recent raids, so the crew took extra precautions and we were on lockdown from 5:30 until we cleared the port last night.

However, preparations for the port left us feeling a bit agitated, but also humored us. You see, our ship has no guns. Our protection? Fire hoses.

A conversation up on the bow went something like this:
Ronnie: (walking by Julie, Shannon, and Allen with an axe in his hand) Hello.
Shannon: Getting ready for the pirates?
Ronnie: We have to lock all of these up, actually. We're only using the fire hoses. That's a fight we're going to win - fire hoses vs. guns.
All: (laugh)
Ronnie: But we do have enough PVC to make a spud gun!
Shannon: So we'll defend the ship with water and potatoes?
Ronnie: Pirates: Ahhh!! I'm all wet and potatoey! Screw this! I don't want to mess with these Americans!
Allen: That's why they call them "freedom fries."

The ill crew member was placed in the hands of the Peruvian Navy and has since been cleared to fly back to the states where he can get medical care.

Operations Suspended

We are currently en route to Peru. A crew member is getting off the boat due to medical reasons so we have a 60 hour transit there and back out to sea. It's going to be so sad to see land only to move away from it again! :( And it turns out we might be spending an extra day at sea because of this, so no land for my birthday. Sad face.

But I do hope the crew member gets home safely and is ok. We will still get two stations in before we're done since we are ahead of schedule. And it's nice to have the time off to catch up on data analysis and sleep.

Oh, wonderful sleep.

Animal update: There were whales off the port side today, but too far away to really see. I saw a shark the other night. It was just a big gray moving blob in the water, but it was pretty large.

That's about it for now!

Home stretch?

I haven’t posted in a while since things have been so busy and tired. If I’m not collecting samples, I’m filtering, running the samples, helping others with random tasks, or analyzing data (on “off” days). And I’m definitely not as busy as others seem to be! I’m not sure how some people are still awake and haven’t gotten sick!

Tonight we played “Settlers of Catan” and I went up to the bow to check out the sky. It was a bit treacherous getting up there in the dark with the ship rocking and really cruising (+ 12 knots). The wind was also blowing fairly hard so that added to the danger. We saw some waves splash into the starboard side and decided to head back in on the port side to avoid the slick walkway. It’s the first time I’ve seen a wave splash up that far on the ship!

I haven’t been sleeping well due to a combination of the mattress, a busy mind, and waking up constantly. I’m excited for land and a large, comfy bed. Oh, how I cannot wait for the luxuries of land. And home.

Everyone on board has hit that point of “getting over” the ocean within the past few days and wanting land again. 10 more days… and 10 more days of being 24! Ahh! Land will be a pretty great birthday present.

Heading East

Just when I thought I’d never feel sea-sick again, we started moving East, into the swell and back towards Peru/Chile. The acupressure bracelets are back on and I just stuck a piece of ginger gum in my mouth. I’ll go down for some ginger cookies in a moment. So the boat is now rocking front to back and side to side instead of just side to side. Blaaaahhh…. I do wish there was more pop hanging out in the fridge. We also have a bit of a balance issue that they are trying to fix. So that is certainly not helping the situation.

We had a cast for samples at 5:30AM this morning. When we’re on a station, we often sample at all hours of the night. Usually there is a pretty good distribution of early mornings/late nights, but some people are stuck with bad sampling times and long filtering sessions following the return of the bottles. I returned to my room around 7:30 and plopped down for a nap. I forgot we had a safety drill today and was woken at 10AM to an alarm and intercom message. Oops! But there were about 5 others who arrived to the main lab with groggy expressions.

I watched the retrieval of the shallow traps from this station in the early afternoon. It was nice to explore the upper decks of the boat and catch some sun. I then filtered samples and prepped some slides for someone at USC. I wish I could look at the slides here and see the little critters!

Today was Mardi Gras, so there was some creole-inspired cuisine tonight for dinner.

We booked a tour of Lauca National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauca_National_Park) – so excited! I hope we see lots of llamas and other camelids!! :-D And volcanoes! I’m getting pretty pumped for touring northern Chile and southern Peru!

Hope you are having a great day wherever you are in the USA!

Where we are.

The Atlantis (our ship) is along the red line.

"Sampling the ocean for particulate matter... one liter at a time." – Allen Milligan, OSU

Out here, the ocean is about 4000m deep. That’s over 13,000 ft all covered in water! So just think of how little we are actually sampling: in 1 cubic mile, there are 1.1 x 10^12 gallons of water, or 4.16 x 10^12 liters of water. Which means that in a typical CTD cast, we sample 240 liters, so we are sampling 5.76 x 10^-9 % (or 0.00000000576%!!!) of the water in 1 cubic mile. And that’s just a cubic mile of the ocean… and the ocean is much larger than that. It’s crazy to think about how little we are actually getting at to try and describe this HUGE system.
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In other news….

Does anyone want to join me down here March 5-19 for traveling in Peru? I'd be up for whatever and I'm leaving S. America from Cuzco on the 19th. Let me know!
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We're at 10S, 100W now, something like more than 1000 miles away from the Chilean coast. The water has transitioned in color to a grayish-blue as more life has appeared. We've been finding a lot of interesting macroscopic things in the plankton tows and I’m actually seeing more of a color on my filters, meaning I'm gathering more chlorophyll on the filter! Hooray! We expected this because we are in warmer waters. This morning around 6AM when I was helping grab samples, there were many creamy orange squid swimming around the boat. It’s crazy to see those things! Mmm, calamari!
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Go USA! We were already up to 4 medals this morning. It's hard to believe those are going on... We're so separated from the world out here sometimes. It's been weird not being able to watch the news and keep tabs on current events regularly.
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Sometime within the past few days I gained my sea legs. I don't know when or how, but suddenly, I ceased noticing the movement of the boat. I don't need to wear the accupressure bracelets any longer and don't feel the least bit sick at all.

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Some people have asked about the food here. OMG, let me tell you: I am seriously going to gain a few pounds during this cruise. The cooks are AMAZING and spoil us with all sorts of perfectly-spiced and prepared meals AND desserts. Here is a sample: creamy gouda polenta, fresh-baked French bread, chicken cordon bleu, blueberry cobbler, creamy asparagus soup, spinach noodles with walnuts and ricotta, and a cream puff filled with tapioca pudding. They’ve also prepared Indian and Thai food, homemade pizza, and always prepare veggies in a deliciously edible form.
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Ok, signing out! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Solid data = happy scientist

I spent the day making graphs and analyzing my data from the first three stations. The filtered samples match the trends and measurements from the instrument fairly well. It’s always a boost to have data. And sensible, accurate, representative data, at that. It justifies why you work late nights, sampling and working in the lab. It makes you feel like a scientist.

We hit station 6 tomorrow; 15S, 100W. We’re turning the corner on our rectangular survey.

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In other news, I “watched” the Cuse vs. UConn game online yesterday. And by “watched” I mean looked at the score updates and play feed on Yahoo Sports. Not the same as watching a real game at all. But, it was still a tense end there. And we won! Man, oh, man, ‘Cuse. I watched every game possible before getting to S. America. You better make it so I can watch you when I get home!

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I’ve had some really weird and vivid dreams on the boat. I don’t know if it’s the rocking or not being in my own bed, altered sleep patterns, or just being deep in thought about some things. But I’m not the only person who has expressed this.

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Two of the scientists on board came up with this great idea: the bad day box. It’s filled with little ridiculous toys and gag gifts. I got to pull from it the other day when I lost my iPod. I opened a bag to receive (how appropriate) a little toy airplane. Today, when I got to open my lab’s “Are We There Yet?” calendar, I pulled out yet another toy airplane. Are these toys trying to tell me something? :-P I think I will hang them above my bench.

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That’s it for now – hope you all are well!

Listening… and hearing!

Crisis avoided. I dropped my beloved iPod behind a pretty inaccessible staircase late last night. I was walking upstairs with the iPod hanging loosely in a pocket on the left arm of my fleece. My hands became tangled in my headphones and ripped the iPod out, sending it tumbling. It fell about 10 feet so not only was I worried about retrieving it, but also worried about it working again. You don’t know how vital music is until you are miles from land, in the middle of nowhere, doing monotonous lab tasks all day. Really. We’re not even halfway through the cruise. I.would.have.suffered.

But thankfully a crew member was able to rescue it this morning and when I came up to the lab, it was waiting for me! And it works! I will be extremely careful around those stairs now. And really cherish the music.

It was humorous that the entire crew knew about my mishap by lunchtime. I received several questions about it throughout the day. We have a great crew and I’m glad I gave them something new to talk about. ☺

Meanwhile, my good karma hasn’t spread to one of the science teams (yet). They sent down a sediment trap to 4000m below the surface early this morning and haven’t heard a response from it since about 3000m. It reminds me of the engineers and scientists at Mission Control, waiting for the ‘ping’ from a Mars lander, notifying the team of its arrival on the surface. The chief scientists are shifting around plans for the day to really try and send an abort signal down there to release the trap so we can move onward. The trap was supposed to be down at the sea floor for a year, but at this point, they just want it back.

... They just head it! The room erupted with shouts, just like I witnessed once at the University of Arizona over receiving science data from Phoenix, a Mars lander. Everyone is smiles, now discussing the next move: to leave it down there or not? I believe the consensus is that it’s good down there, that the communication box up here was just too weak. So we’re steaming back to the station.

There are so many things to still write about here: relaxing on the bow in the sun, watching the deep blue waves, wind whipping my hair; climbing up on the bow at night to see a different and illuminated night sky (we’re in the Southern Hemisphere); watching the bioluminescence sparkle as the ship cuts through the water at night… I’ll have to write more about these (and other details of life here) later. I don’t want this post to get too long. But there is so much to tell!

Also, you can read about our cruise from crew member Katie’s and grad student Jeremy’s perspectives on Scientific American’s website: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/expeditions/

Hope you all are well!

Ocean of Conciousness

Today is a bit of a slow day. I’ll get more samples around 6:30PM (Eastern time – we’re in the East Coast time zone now) and then I’ll be filtering for a good 2 hours.

I want to nap. Perhaps I should go make myself some coffee.

I just finished “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” last night. It was a very well written, detailed, and thought-provoking book about a family living with a secret. Rather, one family member knew the secret. I’d recommend it. I think my sister would like it based on her experiences this past summer at a camp for mentally challenged children.

I began to listen to “Eat, Pray, Love” last night and I’d definitely recommend this book as well. It makes me want to see Italy and eat pasta and gelato and fresh fruit. And learn Italian, which has been a goal of mine for a while.

It’s a clear, calm, day. Which hopefully means I won’t feel sick again once we hit larger swells. The water is brilliant, reflecting the bright sky and it sprinkled just a few minutes ago, the sun still out and the fresh water and wind cooling the air only slightly.

My hands are dry from holding the salty, seawater-drenched ropes and equipment. I’m glad I brought some lotion along with me from home.

We will listen to a radio broadcast of the Super Bowl since we aren’t really able to attain a TV broadcast. Meh… I never really ever watch anyway. For me, the Super Bowl is a celebration that football season is over and we can move on to better things… like March Madness. ☺ Although, I’d probably watch it if the Broncos were in it. I do like the Broncos. I just don’t follow the NFL enough to really care about either team playing today, but I’ll root for New Orleans since the Colts already won recently.

I must say, however, that I AM bummed to not be able to watch the Olympics… starting Feb. 12th on NBC.

Speaking of not being able to watch sports and being excited about March Madness, Syracuse is ranked #3 and it’s KILLING me that I can’t watch the games. I REALLY REALLY hope that I can keep tabs on March Madness as we travel March 5-20 through Chile and Peru. And I really really hope that I can catch Syracuse in a game upon my return to the states. We were planning on going to the ‘Nova game. But, darnit. I’m on a boat.

Indigo seas

I wish I could describe the color of the water. I wish I could take a picture of it that would fully describe its beauty. I wish I could bottle it up and take the color with me.

It’s a mix of indigo and a deep blue, unlike any blue I’ve ever seen before. It’s because the water is so deep here and is really only a color you can experience in the middle of the ocean. The shade changes throughout the day. In the early morning, just after sunrise and right after sunset, there is a silky silvery finish on the top. You can almost imagine that it’s a sea of silver, carefully reflecting the sunlight. When clouds are dark and present, the water takes on a black tone and a feeling of evil as you begin to see and feel larger swells. In the presence of lighter gray clouds, the water has a smooth creamy gray shade. Under the heat of the sun, the water is the brilliant deep blue, with traces of turquoise and white made by the movement of the boat.

We have ~25 days left out here. We’ve been to three stations, I’ve filtered 99 samples, and we have at least 9 more stations to go. Today we are steaming away from our 3rd station as we head to the 4th. The boat is at approx. 20S and 90W and we’re continuing to the west.

Hope you all are well.

Sleep deprived

We are currently at Station 1. My sleep schedule has been altered so I'm a bit out of it at the moment. I was up from 9PM to 10AM helping with the collection of water samples from up to 250m below the surface and then needed to filter my samples following collection. I took at nap, then got up again to do some lab work.

While collecting samples, we saw a few flying fish and a squid! Thus far, I've seen a harbor seal, jelly fish, flying fish, and squid. There was a whale sighting yesterday that prompted us to run from the mess hall, but I didn't see anything.

So what does it feel like to be on the boat? There is a constant rocking motion, and I'd compare the feeling to the sensation you get when an airplane turns. Walking around the boat is much like walking around while an airplane is turning and adjusting its direction. Sometimes you notice it, especially if there is a big wave that really moves the boat. Other times, the feeling becomes normal and you don't really feel anything at all. I'm sure as we progress in this cruise,
I will begin to notice it less and less as I further develop my "sea
legs."

I'll try my best to upload some pictures soon.

Hope you all are well! Miss you!