Logistics and Travel

You may be wondering just how big of an undertaking a polar oceanographic cruise is?? Well, it's a very large one. We must transport all of our sampling gear and laboratory supplies to the ship while it is in homeport in Seattle, Washington. This usually takes place several months in advance, before the ship departs for the summer research season. This year, the ship left port in early March for the first round of cruises, so our gear was packed and sent by freight shipment in late February. Our laboratory alone sent over 900 lbs of equipment to the vessel, including sampling jars, microscopes, analytical instruments, cold weather gear, and chemicals!!

Our cruise participants will begin their journey early this week. The first leg of their trip is from Washington, D.C. to Anchorage, Alaska, with a layover in Minneapolis. This should take approximately 12 hours. Once in Anchorage, they must switch to a much smaller plane for the remaining 3 hour flight to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Dutch Harbor is on the Aleutian Island of Unalaska. You may be familiar with "Dutch", as it is referred to in the polar research community, because it was popularized by the Discovery Channel's exciting documentary of the Alaskan King Crab fishery, "Deadliest Catch". Here, in Dutch Harbor, they will meet the ship, and sail north into the Bering Sea.