You've all heard me talk about krill. How they swim various distances in swarms through the ocean and how they are a very important intermediary food source between the primary producers and the larger animals in the sea, but do you know what they taste like? I didn't, but I wondered. They look an awful lot like shrimp, but they swim instead of walking on the sea floor. I was interested to the point of action, so when the bongo net came up with a bumpercrop of krill the other night, I snagged a couple and had a little treat. They were a slight bit chewy from their exoskeleton but their flavor was very delicious. It was a stronger flavor than shrimp but it was along that same line. You can't get it fresher than that.

Aside from downing a couple of krill, I reported for MOCNESS duty tonight, same as any other, but we saw a rare sight tonight out there in the few hours of dark we have. There were a couple of ships out tonight and we could see them, since they had their lights on. One looked so close so we radioed the bridge to get a distance measurement and we were a scant 1400 yards away, roughly eight tenths of a mile. No wonder they looked so close, but they were headed back to St. Paul island so they passed us up. We were sampling in some 150 meter water tonight and got a good haul of copepod porridge again. The krill people were able to get a sufficient number of krill for their experiments. This is a little known fact about krill, but did you know that they glow with a chemical reaction very similar to that of a firefly? It seems that when we take the krill out of the water and dump them into a cooler, they get agitated and wink their bright blue lights at us. It's almost like watching a tiny light show, or seeing fast-forwarded footage of a moonless night sky with the random black cloud passing over it's face. It was very beautiful and I wish you all could see it too.

As you would expect, it is again very, very foggy here this morning. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it's bright and sunny with chirping birds everywhere except this little aura of perpetual fog around the ship. It gets kind of depressing after a while. You're already fanticizing about grass and dirt but now you're left longing for the odd ray of light from the sun. Not to be but maybe this layer of fog will break before too terribly long. Breakfast was good, as usual. I forwent the eggs for some Cocoa Puffs. I love those things. I should come a little later to breakfast so that I might get a slightly larger helping of potatos. I know that they're skimpy with serving size at first so that they'll be sure to have some left for the latecomers so I might give that a try. I'm very tired right now and in no mood to continue. I've been up quite a long time right now so I'm going to hit the hay. Later everyone and stay crispy.

Hello again, blog readers. We had our personnel transfer and our educational outreach yesterday, right after each other. We sailed up to St. Paul island and ran a few people to shore and came back with even less. My bird watching roommate was among those leaving but since he's gone, there has been no replacement in my quarters, so I was able to snag that giant poofy pillow he found somewhere. Sleeping is so much more relaxing now that my pillow doesn't deflate whenever I lay my head down.

After the crew switch, we sailed on down to St. George island for that educational outreach deal we had going on. I hadn't seen the islands before so I thought to go up and check them out, but the fog cover was so thick that I couldn't hardly see anything at all. In fact, I heard from one of the people who went ashore that they had to stop their little boat in between the Healy and St. George and wait for the sound of the fog horn so they could find out which way they were supposed to be going. In essence, the fog was so thick that they lost their way in between the ship and the island. It wasn't that far at all, but the fog seemed to get worse as the day rolled on. To think that I wanted to snap a picture of the island. Anyway, as part of the deal, some select members of our scientific crew were able to go to the island and give a little educational presentation while some of their high school kids were able to come out to the Healy for pillage and adventure on the high seas...wait, that's not right. My mistake. That's our job. The kids came out for an afternoon of learning exactly what we do day in and day out, sans pillage and plunder. I was sleeping by this time because I'd been up all night, but from what I can gather, the weather turned south and both groups had to go back to their respective original places ahead of schedule. Our shorebound scientists had their presentations cut short and the high schoolers had their tour end prematurely. They didn't even get to play with the liquid nitrogen so we took the brunt of that responsibility upon ourselves and dipped assorted foodstuffs in it. From the pictures I saw, the corn dogs shattered like glass. It was pretty "cool".

This evening was like any other. I slept in really late, like to eleven in the night, so I got up to check when our nets were going out. It turned out to be around three in the morning but since there were iron sampling CTD runs, which take a long time because they have to equilibrate to iron levels in the water, we had to wait nearly two hours before we could suit up and head out. The MOCNESS was about the same as it has always been, except instead of sampling in 40 meters of water, we were going down to 120 meters. We got plenty of samples in our sampling net catcher buckets, with some of it looking like zooplankton porridge. Very thick and kind of gross looking. Kind of like the vomit of someone who just got back from an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet. It was very cold outside and by the time we were finished and all wet, the wind started picking up. Thankfully we were finished so we headed back inside. It was only an hour before breakfast so we took a break, and by taking a break, I mean I listened to a few tunes of mine before I hit the chow. I came up here right afterwards and since I'm finished for today I'm going back to bed for another afternoon of blissful slumber only made better by my awesome new pillow. Take it easy blog readers and tune in next time.

Fin Whales and More

In my carelessness I neglected to mention the fact that we ran across a pod of fin whales yesterday. I was not awake for any of this but from what I hear, they were 100 yards away from the ship and we even diverted our course to chase them for a bit. I don't know how many or if there were any calves or anything like that, but it was pretty cool. Our marine mammal specialists says that they're pretty common and not as rare as a right whale, for instance. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw that out there.

I just found out that our spare parts for the HPLC will not be delivered to us, making the machine inoperable for the remainder of the cruise. Do not panic! We will still filter plenty of water but we've also loaned ourselves out to the other groups who need our help. We're like mercenaries. Of science. Nothing is scarier than a renegade scientist on a ship so we're working to remedy that. I've already made my rounds and developed the necessary connections amongst the others so I'll be just fine.

I was able to help out with the MOCNESS again tonight. We're doing a personnel transfer at St. Paul island right now, in fact, and among the 12 people leaving, three or four of those were on the MOCNESS squad, so I'm filling in for the remaining two weeks of the cruise. I'm sure I'll be participating on some of the Bongo net casts as well. Fun stuff up ahead! Crazy science activities are to behold when you enter. Until then, blog readers.

Something Exciting

Post written by Charlie:

Okay, so there was something interesting that happened tonight. We happened to be doing a deep water station, where the sea floor was around 2800 meters below the surface, and had deployed our multi-core unit, which sinks to the sea floor and takes several sediment core samples. This was the second deployment of the unit as the operators must have wanted to get as much mud as possible, but on its way up, just 180 meters from the surface, somehow the cable attached to it slipped off its winch wheel, or drum or whatever you call it. This resulted in a complete loss of upward movement of the multi-core, so it was dangling in the water 180 meters below the surface with a load of mud. It took quite a while and in the wee hours of the morning, it was repaired and the cables realigned back into their original placement. As you can imagine, we're on something of a tight schedule here and can't afford to dally around, and this inconvenience cost us the samplings from three other stations which were supposed to come after the deep water one. The night was completely thrown off for everyone as they all had to put their nets and CTD's on hold until the winch was repaired and thoroughly checked out to make sure whatever happened that allowed the cable to slip would not occur again. Since I had all this free time I played a really fun card game called Blackjack, which isn't related to the classic casino version where you have to get 21 points. This game is like a hybrid of Uno and crazy 8's. It was pretty crazy and we burned up a couple of hours playing it. After that I still had several hours to myself so I worked a bit on my presentation, which is coming along nicely. Anyway, since the other group finished with one of their krill growth experiments, we were able to, you'll never guess, filter some water! When we were through, it was time for breakfast so we headed down there for some tasty vittles. Upon finishing my meal, I decided to write my blog and go to bed, which I'm going to do right now. Later everyone and stay frosty.

Movie Night and More Fun...

Post written by Charlie:

Hey everyone, I'm really sorry to keep repeating myself so I'll somewhat spare you by giving a heads up. The HPLC is still down and will be until Friday. Until then I will still be filtering sea water for phytoplankton in the krill growth experiments so we can tell what the krill have been eating. I'm using the time I have to kill by working on my presentation at the end of my REU internship in August. The food is still wonderful and I have no complaints, although the regulars throw theirs around freely. I still can't understand why and I probably won't. Whatever, their loss.

We have movie night every night, during which one of the coasties brings in a movie to watch and so far he's had remarkably good taste in a wide variety of genres. Kudos to Hans. I am also using the time to read a series of books recommended to me by a friend back in Maryland. These are the Dune books, and supposedly well known in the following of science fiction enthusiasts. I've finished the first book and it was very satisfying. I can't wait to start the second. The weather is very calm this morning with the usual thick bank of fog which causes that accursed fog horn to sound. The fog is common, or at least we've experienced its presence nearly every morning we've been out here. The winds usually die down at night, resulting in a calm covering of gray water which is then tumbled about upon the return of the winds in the afternoon. The temperature has been very favorable, letting me strut about on the deck without a jacket, clad only in jeans and a t-shirt. Very beautiful, although the sun has decided to hide itself, peeking through every once and again, seemingly to tease us with a few far off rays before retreating behind its screen of clouds which seem a good match with the water. I hate to give you weather reports and food reviews as the main portion of the blog, but until our equipment is up an running again, I'm afraid it will all be the same old, same old. You never know though, something really interesting could happen in the space of the remainder of the week and if it does, I'll relay it to all of you. I would recommend keeping checked in until friday, just to see if something cool happens. Til then and take it easy blog readers.

No luck for the optics...

Hey everyone, I'm glad you stopped by again. I'm sorry to inform everyone but the plan to get the optics machine back on board failed. It was not found and will be left for someone else to pick up, as soon as possible I'm sure. Until then it will sit on the bottom of the Bering. Anyway, we have a planned stop at St. Paul island on the 17th for a little school special presentation there. Unfortunately I won't be able to get off the boat but some of the lucky ones will be able to. They will talk about krill, thorium collection and other assorted things to the k-12 school there on the island. I've taken a look at the ships course and the current heading will take us just past the island while we visit the remaining collection stations on our tour. When we're done with this particular transit, we'll head back to the island for a little schooling.

As for the headlines tonight, we were able to net quite a few krill with the Bongo so we were able to do some major sea water filtering! Perhaps I exaggerate, but you'll never know, now will you? Anyway, I was able to sample some more music from the ship's vast store of electronic audible media vaults while I worked. After a hard night's night, we were able to retire to the mess deck for the much-looked-forward-to corned beef hash and pancake breakfast. It was delish, especially with all the pineapple on the side. Other than that, I heard we had some winds pick up around one AM or so and they were around 20-25mph, but I suppose I've become so used to the rocking of the ship that I can't really tell how much it's moving unless I try to look for it. No storms so far, but I'm secretly hoping for one, just to see what the Bering can offer and what this ship can do. I'll probably not get my wish and that's just as well. No need to get everyone worked up when there's work to be done. Well, it's far into the AM here and you know what that means? Bedtime! Take it easy blog readers and have a nice day.

Long Transit

Post written by Charlie:

Before I begin, I would like to bring to attention an error I made in the previous blog. The ISIS device I told you about is misspelled. It should be ISUS. Sorry for the mix up.

Now, the chronicling of my evening. The grand unfolding of a wondrous story. Now that I have your hopes up, allow me to dash them utterly. Nothing happened tonight. We were in transit for the entire night heading back to where we lost the optics machine. Keep in mind that we lost the optics south-west of Nunivak Island and at the beginning of this evening we were just southeast of St. Matthew Island. That's quite a distance, something close to 140 nautical miles, as the crow flies, and it took somewhere around nine or so hours to get there and even as I'm writing this, we're still an hour out. One of the krill people did get the ship to stop for a quick Bongo netting but we only fished up one krill. One krill. We can't work with just "one krill". We didn't even need to filter seawater for phytoplankton. Like I said, there was nothing to do this evening. Being the opportunistic man that I am, I took advantage of this lull in activity to do a much needed chore: laundry. It seems that I have build quite a collection of dirty clothing since the beginning of our cruise and it needed to be washed. Plus I was out of pants, so washing my clothes was very important and needed to be done in a rather timely manner. After the time spent with the washer and dryer I got a snack, caught up a little on my reading, got some speaking tips from Dr. Shull and then went to breakfast. Since I would like to make it to dinner tonight (we're having steamed crab legs), I need to get a decent amount of sleep today so as soon as I wrap this up, such as right now, I'll head on that way. Take it easy blog readers.

Long Days and Pleasant Nights

Post written by Charlie:

This morning started out rather nicely. I awoke around time for supper and after eating retired for a few hours to the science lounge and worked on my final presentation that I have to give in August after I get back from the cruise. It's not pleasant but it must be done, otherwise something bad will happen to me, I'm sure of it. Anyway, some of the guys put on a movie so I joined them. It's kind of nice getting into a little schedule where you find that you don't have to spend every waking hour down in the lab. Eventually you have to though so one might as well make the best of it. The situation is roughly the same as yesterday, with our HPLC still down so no krill work.

I did get some activity this evening though. I was able to process some of the data that we get from our big lab ISIS machine. Again with the acronyms, and like so many others, I don't know what this means, or even if it is one. Regardless, this machine, among other things, is mainly used to measure nitrates in the water and takes constant measurements all day long for days on end. It was my job to go through all this data and sift out the garbage and retain all the good stuff. Cal, you guys remember Calvin, right? He showed me all these cool little tricks on Excel to help me do all this. Without his assistance and guidance, it would have taken a stupid crazy amount of time to look over all these lines of data. Perhaps I can do some Excel magic tricks when I get back to land. "Hey everybody, watch me split all this data in this one column into several different columns!" Not too interesting, is it? I suppose not; it doesn't have that same charm and allure as the old rabbit in the hat schtick. Oh well, I thought it was pretty neat.

Well, I spent a few hours at this job and keeping myself busy learning new things was satisfying for a time. Unfortunately I finished my work and went back into the wet lab to help out with a little sea water filtration. Nothing like I described in some of those first blogs, but just regular filtrating where we don't care about the water, just the stuff in it. We filtered several liters onto a round piece of filter paper and collected all those little phytoplanktons that were swimming around in it. It wasn't too bad to learn how to do so it went fairly quickly. There wasn't much to do the rest of the night so I went up a couple of decks and looked through the ship's library, just for fun. That kind of signified the end of the night for me, so I went to eat my supper of breakfast, wrote this thing and then hit the hay. I'm going to try a greeting/farewell I heard in a really good series of books, so if you don't like it, blame someone else. Take it easy everyone. Long days and pleasant nights.