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.

Meet Charlie

My name is Charlie Morgan and I am an REU fellow at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Maryland for the summer of ’08. I was raised in Arkansas for the majority of my life and have never been to the ocean, much less a large boat. Imagine my surprise when NSF [The National Science Foundation, our funding source for the Bering Ecosystem Study] gave me the opportunity to ship off to the Bering Sea. This is something of a summer of new experiences for me and this is among the most exciting.

I will post several blog entries during my time at sea. These can be used for teaching purposes or just to show inexperienced people, like I am now, what something like this can be like. I will be participating in as many activities as possible to give me a wide perspective of oceanography, and hopefully heighten the experience not only for myself, but for anybody interested in the subject well enough to read my blog. I hope that all who read this are given a good idea of what this kind of work is actually like, given straight from the mind of someone who is as green as they get when it comes to oceanography. If I can help someone at all with a decision for a particular career through my experiences and consequent journal entries, I will do my best to do so.

Introduction

A note from the MOGEL webmaster:

Welcome to our blog! MOGEL is an acronym for "Maryland Organic Geochemistry and Ecology Laboratory". We are located at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland, part of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Under the direction of professor Rodger Harvey, we study a wide range of topics on the biogeochemistry of aquatic environments. Please feel free to check out our website, which has examples of our research in a variety of locations, from the Arctic Ocean to the Chesapeake Bay.

MOGEL is lucky to have Charlie Morgan working with us for the summer. Charlie is an undergraduate student at Lyon College, in Batesville, Arkansas, majoring in biology and chemistry. He is visiting us as part of the Maryland Sea Grant Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program. For his summer research project, Charlie will be working with two other MOGELites, Karen Taylor and Rachel Pleuthner, on a study of the effects of climate change on the Bering Sea. MOGEL's segment of this large, multi-disciplinary study is focused on how changing sea-ice conditions are affecting euphausiid (or krill) populations and how these changes propagate through polar food chains. Krill are small crustacean zooplankton that are important food species for whales, seals, and even some sea-birds.

Charlie, Karen, and Rachel will be sailing in the Bering Sea aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Icebreaker Healy. This blog will detail Charlie's experiences on his first oceanographic cruise. We will try to have regular updates, so check back often. Please be patient, though, as occasionally weather or science may interfere with our ability to make postings. If you have any questions, you can contact the MOGEL webmaster (mogel@cbl.umces.edu). Thanks, and enjoy.