Our last full day at sea began beautifully. We spent most of the day traveling back to Cocadrie. We were almost as far as Texas. However, we did make a few additional stops on the way. Wanting the best data possible, we took some samples between our previous sample lines. We also resampled a station. This allows us to see if our results can be repeated.
Sunrise
We pulled three sediment cores today, that we will be bringing back o St. Pete t process and analyze. We just don't have enough time to process them here.
Erik and Leslie pulling a box core.
The seas started out calm today, and got rougher as the day went on. Many of the crew began feeling sea sick again, but some medicine helped with that. The rougher seas made pulling samples a bit more difficult, but everyone was in good spirits, because we are nearing the end.
Leslie putting stoppers in the subsample.
Our beast box core was today. Usually there is about foot of water on top of the sediment in the pvc pipe we use to subsample, but today it was just sediment. We put a vacuum seal stoper in the top, and wood circles in the bottom. We then wrapped the bottom in cellophane and duck tape. This will allow us to transfer the entire tube back to St. Pete.
Since we spent most of the day traveling, there was a lot of down time. Many of the crew fell asleep during the down time, because there is not much else to pass the time. We have a station tomorrow morning at 5 am. After finishing that, there is a 5 hour steam back to Cocadrie. We will spend most of that time either packing or catching up on sleep.
I feel that this has been a very good experience. I met a lot of scientists, who I will be keeping in contact with after this trip ends. I also saw how dedicated scientists are to their work. I even learned that I, yes I can get sea sick. Yet, however important this trip as been to me and my future career. I will be happy to walk on land tomorrow. I will enjoy roaming areas greater than a 119 ft boat. Lastly, it will be nice not to have to jump out of a top bunk to a floor that is constantly moving.
Continue to check this blog over the next year. I will be updating it with news from the lab in St. Pete. We will also be boarding the Pelican again in November for a repeat of this trip.
Till we meet again. . .
2 comments:
Glad you folks had a beautiful sunrise for your last day of field work! I know you folks had a lot of hard work in the field this past week. Now the fun begins with all of those samples to process, and data to interpret. Hope you have a calm trip back to port,
and a safe journey back home. I look forward to learning more about the results of your trip on this blog in weeks to come!
- Melanie
Glad you are all safely coming back. You'll have to get your 'land legs' again. Not only have we been following the mission, but other people at my work have, too.
Alanna's Mom,
Emily
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