Florida State University : Research in Review

Day 17 - Monday, 09/29/08

Position: N32 51.376 W120 35.490

Our weather luck stayed with us today. Seas 3 feet or less with sun the entire day. We made four casts today, all with perfect scores—8 for 8 every one, 32 solid cores total. Nobody keeps records on this kind of work that we know of, but we’d bet these numbers are one. We’re wondering if there’s any call for this kind of skill back in the world. We would be the team to call.

The little help I’ve been to this group, in terms of helping with the deck work, suddenly evaporated this morning. The week before this trip, a sprained back—a phenomenon I’ve been fortunate to have never known first hand until the eve of this mission—had me down hard for nearly a week. Come cast-off day, I was feeling 100 percent. A simple sneeze this morning prompted a wasp-like sting in a familiar place. Advil, aspirins and a hot towel strategically placed—it’s what’s for dinner. Yeouch.

The core processors found an unusual animal—at least for capture by a core sample—this morning. It was an amphipod, almost three-quarters of an inch long (19mm). Buz got a good shot of it and, via e-mail, learned that it is most likely a specimen of Nicippe tumida. Like the copepods we’re hunting, amphipods are crustaceans that live mainly in marine environments.

We’re sliding back over tonight to finish work at Station 8. Word is that, weather permitting, we may ease back over to 7 for one last cast of the multi-corer before pointing the Sur toward north and home come lunch time Wednesday.

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