We are on our last transect line and will be steaming away back to Dutch Harbor in the next few hours, which means my awesome Alaskan adventures are coming close to an end.
Just wanted to remind everyone to check out my NOAA blogs and also my facebook album (I'm adding pictures daily) if you're interested in keeping up. DC has even made his way out of my stateroom for some ship time!
Monday, July 16, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
NOAA Bloggin'
Don't forget to check out not only my Alaskan Adventures photos on facebook (see link in previous post), but also my required blogs through the NOAA website!
Definitely NOT going to be ready to come home soon :( For sure loving ship life!
Definitely NOT going to be ready to come home soon :( For sure loving ship life!
Friday, July 6, 2012
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Happy 4th of July
An early morning fish trawl followed by a second trawl before lunch, a sunny day, a rainbow (see it in the picture below?), "Alaskan tanning"/napping on the flying bridge with Chelsea (2nd picture), learning all about the sea birds flying around the ship (Northern fulmars and kittiwakes), and *hopefully* expired flares later makes for a great Fourth of July in the Bering Sea!
My new best friend!
Well, as I've found out, life at sea can be lonely at times. There are 32 people on board, but since the ship operates 24/7, everyone works different shifts. Scientists are mostly 0400-1600 and 1600-0400, engineers can be 0600-1800 and 1800-0600, deck crew are 0000-1200 and 1200-0000, and officers have really crazy 4 on, 4 off watch working, 4 on, 8 off schedules.
Due to all these schedules, you don't see everyone all the time. Some people you only see if you hunt them down! So I really needed a new friend. I was feeling a little uneasy at times when life was rough on board, I didn't have the energy to work out, and mealtimes just weren't as fun as they should be. Luckily, I found a new best friend!
Meet ...
* DRUM ROLL PLEASE *
Dramamine!
We've been rollin' and pitchin' and heavin' a lot more these past two days, and dramamine has come into my life and given me new meaning! Yay for new friends :)
editor's note: I've actually made new friends other than Dramamine haha!
Due to all these schedules, you don't see everyone all the time. Some people you only see if you hunt them down! So I really needed a new friend. I was feeling a little uneasy at times when life was rough on board, I didn't have the energy to work out, and mealtimes just weren't as fun as they should be. Luckily, I found a new best friend!
Meet ...
* DRUM ROLL PLEASE *
Dramamine!
We've been rollin' and pitchin' and heavin' a lot more these past two days, and dramamine has come into my life and given me new meaning! Yay for new friends :)
editor's note: I've actually made new friends other than Dramamine haha!
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Out to Sea
Well, this is basically my view every day until we get back to Dutch Harbor:
Shot from the flying bridge (almost the highest deck):
It's not sunny and there's plenty of cloud cover most of the time. It is "daylight" all day until basically around midnight and then sunrise is around 4am. And there are TONS of birds around (haven't been lucky enough to see any whales or anything else yet, even though other people have):
Shot from the flying bridge (almost the highest deck):
Monday, July 2, 2012
Kayaking!
While my first NOAA blog about the ship is awaiting approval, here's two photos from kayaking in Captains Bay in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, before we headed out to see. The girl is one of the NOAA Corps ensigns (Chelsea), the guy in the top photo (Kevin) is a new ensign fresh out of BOT-C (basic officer training class for NOAA corps), and the guy in the bottom photo is one of the deck crew (Brian).
Yesterday (July 1), we didn't do any fishing because there were no fish to be caught. I spent most of my shift interviewing people on board for one of my last blog posts on everybody that I'm working with. They are all super interesting people that have gotten to be here from every which way possible. Every time I talk with someone, I realize how much they know and how little I know about the fisheries industry. And let's just say, I haven't found a single one of them that's a fan of the Deadliest Catch haha!
Oh, and have I gotten my sea legs yet? I thought so until this morning. The water has been really calm the past two days, and they started doing an experiment last night (while I was sleeping) with an open net, but not trying to catch any fish, to play with weights and determine the best way to use a bottom trawl net for midwater fishing (using a different net to catch fish in the middle of the ocean water column versus at the bottom). So there's a lot more rockin' and a rollin' than there has been the past few days. This combined with the fact that I'm scared to eat breakfast at 4am is making my stomach a littttle queasy, but not enough to take that Dramamine I took the first day that totally messed with my system. Plus, the chief steward on board (aka the chef) makes such delicious food, but I'm also not used to eating the burgers, fries, fried chicken, pizza, etc. that he's fixing, so I've been trying to slowly add that food into my meals.
We are headed up farther north now on our transect line (we will go north for so far, over west a little, back down south, over west a little more, back up north, over west a little, etc ...), so the waters are getting colder (it was 6 degrees yesterday on the surface), which means we probably won't fish for pollock until tomorrow. You can sorta see what transect lines look like below (this is from NOAA's shiptracker website where it shows where the ship is at any given time). But there's plenty of other things going on on the ship for me to tell you about at a later time :)
Until then ...
Yesterday (July 1), we didn't do any fishing because there were no fish to be caught. I spent most of my shift interviewing people on board for one of my last blog posts on everybody that I'm working with. They are all super interesting people that have gotten to be here from every which way possible. Every time I talk with someone, I realize how much they know and how little I know about the fisheries industry. And let's just say, I haven't found a single one of them that's a fan of the Deadliest Catch haha!
Oh, and have I gotten my sea legs yet? I thought so until this morning. The water has been really calm the past two days, and they started doing an experiment last night (while I was sleeping) with an open net, but not trying to catch any fish, to play with weights and determine the best way to use a bottom trawl net for midwater fishing (using a different net to catch fish in the middle of the ocean water column versus at the bottom). So there's a lot more rockin' and a rollin' than there has been the past few days. This combined with the fact that I'm scared to eat breakfast at 4am is making my stomach a littttle queasy, but not enough to take that Dramamine I took the first day that totally messed with my system. Plus, the chief steward on board (aka the chef) makes such delicious food, but I'm also not used to eating the burgers, fries, fried chicken, pizza, etc. that he's fixing, so I've been trying to slowly add that food into my meals.
We are headed up farther north now on our transect line (we will go north for so far, over west a little, back down south, over west a little more, back up north, over west a little, etc ...), so the waters are getting colder (it was 6 degrees yesterday on the surface), which means we probably won't fish for pollock until tomorrow. You can sorta see what transect lines look like below (this is from NOAA's shiptracker website where it shows where the ship is at any given time). But there's plenty of other things going on on the ship for me to tell you about at a later time :)
Until then ...
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