Before departure

Co-Chief Scientist’s Blog, 10/30/08
Greetings from Cocodrie, LA. We’ve all arrived and are in the midst of loading ship and getting set up. As co-chief scientist, my duties right now are to make sure everyone in the scientific party knows where to set up and where they can bunk as well as communicate any of their needs to the ship’s crew. I also talk with the captain and marine superintendent to make sure they understand our cruise plan and any special equipment or sampling needs. Fortunately, the LUMCON folks who operate the R/V Pelican are a great bunch, more than willing to help insure a successful cruise. And, most of our scientific party were with us for our May cruise, so they pretty much know what to do. Thus, I can sit back, write my blog, and wait for the occasional cry of “Alan...where does this go?” Oops, I hear it now, time to do something! (Or maybe it’s time to make my bed...even though I’m chief scientist, I have to make my bed, just like everyone else.)

Right now, the crew is getting the trace element winch installed. This winch has a kevlar line on it, rather than the usual steel cable. This kevlar line allows us to collect samples with minimal metal contamination. The crew is also loading on a small motorboat aboard so that later in the cruise several people can go on a side trip up the Atchafalaya River, the other big outlet of Mississippi River water besides the bird’s foot delta. Students and techs are busy setting up various sample processing gear as well as “plumbing” the ship with our clean water line. This water line consists of teflon-lined plastic tubing and allows us to pump uncontaminated seawater into the lab from about 20 ft off the side of the ship.

Our scientific party consists of scientists, students, techs, and a postdoc from several universities (University of Southern Mississippi, University of South Florida, and University of Georgia) as well as a high school teacher from Alabama. Our teacher/volunteer will take this experience back to her students...perhaps some of them will become oceanographers or geochemists.

We will be departing at midnight, 12:01 am on Halloween! About six hours after departing, we’ll be off the mouth of the Mississippi River. We’ll do a test station to make sure everything (or do I mean everyone) is working and then head up the river for a few hours. After that we’ll do four lines of stations, working our way west towards Texas. In about a week, it’ll all be over...except for all of the analyses we’ll need to do back home in the lab.

Update: 7:30 am, Halloween. We're approaching our first station and our group is slowly arriving in the galley as they find their sea legs. Fortunately, the seas are not too bad.