Florida State University : Research in Review

Day 20 - Thursday, 10/2/08

Position: N36 32.529 W122 01.483

If ever stars line up for a research cruise, they surely did for this one. Tonight we’ll be ending this short odyssey in the comfort of friendly seas, just as we began it Sept. 13. No one, from the captain to the cook, expected such superb weather, and that made all the difference.

Ok, not all the difference. There were other factors that played key roles in the success of this mission. In their own words, I’ll let the students aboard say more about that.

Today, we finished cleaning the “dry room”—the lab—the “mud room” on deck and packing and labeling all equipment. We’re scheduled to step off the boat at 7 a.m., so all must be ready to go. The Sur has another five-day mission just ahead, and the crew must get the boat ready for that.

As partings often go, this one is bittersweet. We’re tired and long for our own beds, our own time alone, our return to routine—heck, our return to sure-footedness. But we all know we’re seeing the dissolution of what has become a family in the past three weeks, a group that will never be together again. This afternoon, the science team gathered at the stern for a keepsake photo kindly taken by Scott Hanson of the Sur.

As our ship drew near the coast in a foggy shroud today—a phenomenon I had come to assume was a daily fixture of the Monterey climate—suddenly we burst through the clammy blanket and into a sparkling sea. To our land-deprived eyes, the Big Sur mountain range not two miles off our starboard looked almost fake—a tan-and-gold watercolor painted against the horizon. For miles, we watched humpbacks rise, spectacularly vent their lungs and disappear; romping rafts of sea lions; seabirds screaming over crashing schools of bonita. We took pictures of our ship’s namesake, Point Sur, prominent with its lighthouse flashing brightly even against the late sun. It was postcard pretty—the California coast some of us came expecting to see.

I chatted with three students, Erin, Allison and Russell, about their experience. I found them eager to share what they had learned, both professionally and personally.

As a biologist, Erin said she was surprised to find so much obvious life on the seafloor surfaces—things readily apparent to the unaided eye. She had come to collect impossibly small crustaceans. She hadn’t counted on seeing all the macrofauna—the brittlestars, the various worms, the amphipods, plus all the tunneling and tracks made by myriad unseen sea creatures. She was equally surprised to find how strikingly different, in terms of texture and color, sediments could be from sites sitting only a few kilometers apart. One sample would turn up as a chocolate brown, gooey sludge; another would show up as a gritty, grayish clay, with just a light dusting of mocha-colored mud on top. She was left wondering how this was and why.

As a key team leader, Erin also learned a rule that often applies in war—when the shooting starts, even the best-laid plans are often the first casualties. For example, she soon learned how illness and exhaustion could wreck even the most carefully thought-out work schedules, designed to keep the team working round-the-clock. She learned how things can go wrong in any number of ways—and quickly—on a working ship at sea, and how wonderful it is to have a competent crew ready and able to fix things and get the schedule back on track.

Personally, Erin found herself challenged by seasickness. She hadn’t known what to expect from her first lengthy offshore trip. She learned how to deal with her queasiness and to adjust to it. She knows now that this is something that she’ll likely have to confront a lot if she wants to be an oceanographer. She seems undaunted by that fact.

Allison said she, too, learned how to be flexible, and about the importance of having a Plan B. When her Plan A for working with her CTD water samples, a project focused on phytoplankton, hit a technical snag, she had to invent Plan B on the fly. It forced her to use some equipment that slowed things down dramatically. “It took us six times longer to do what we planned to do,” she said. “I now know to have a back-up plan ready before I get on board.”

On a personal note, Allison said she learned that on a trip like this, “you need to be ready to work your tail off.” Some newbies might not be prepared for the work involved on a mission like this. “This is a long, hard time on the water,” she said. “People who think we’re out here having a fun cruise don’t get it. This is serious business, and it’s tough work. You have to learn to work feeling lousy and with little sleep sometimes, and at the same time, keep your cool.”

Both Allison and Erin—who met each other for the first time just days before they stepped aboard the Sur—also agreed wholeheartedly on the one element—aside from the made-to-order weather—that they credit with the success of the cruise. That element is camaraderie—not just between the science crew members, but between the science team and the crew of the Sur.

“I guess my biggest fear was that people wouldn’t get along,” Erin said. “I was amazed at how well we worked together, how we came together as a team. We worked hard for the Texas A&M project; Allison and Sam and Russell worked hard for Florida State’s.”

But the crew of the Sur worked hard for everybody, too. Fundamentally, of course, without their skill and experience deploying the coring machine, the mission would have been little more than an expensive outing in a balmy Pacific. But the crew went well beyond that, Erin said, and always with a smile.

“I just can’t say enough about this crew. They were absolutely essential in keeping this mission going. They went out of their ways to help us, to accommodate us anyway they could. Karen kept us well fed, and came to our aid when we were sick. All of them had such a great attitude. They were really interested in the science, what we were trying to do, and it made a tremendous amount of difference in the outcome.”

Russell of Texas A&M touched on what he drew from the experience. He came to learn new sampling techniques, and learn them he did. “It was fascinating to watch how the multi-corer works, and how Dr. Thistle and his team handled the samples,” he said. “How you handle these biological specimens—how quickly and efficiently they get preserved—makes all the difference in the data you get out of this. I learned an awful lot just by watching their lab techniques.” Russell said he now has a better idea of how to shape his study for his doctorate in marine annelid biology. “Dr. Thistle has agreed to send me all the annelids (worms) they find in the samples they take back with them,” he said, beaming.

Erin summed up on a very human note.

“I am so impressed with these Texas A&M people for what they did, even after they knew their homes in Galveston were damaged or even destroyed,” she said.

Hurricane Ike smashed Galveston late Friday night just hours before the Point Sur sailed. By dawn on the 13th, Allison, Sam and Russell knew that a 20-foot wall of water had ridden a rising tide into their hometown. They had little idea of what damage the storm had done, but knew it would likely be heavy. Allison and Sam had driven to Moss Landing and still had a car. They chose to stay. Now almost three full weeks after the storm, Allison learned from her husband—the instant the Sur moved into cell phone range late this afternoon—that their house still had no power. Two feet of water had surged through the house, even though it’s hoisted on 12-foot stilts. Sam’s windows were blown out; Russell has lost everything but his waterlogged car.

Endings, beginnings, discoveries. It’s a new life for these young people who are smart enough to know how lucky they are to have had this rare chance to go to sea and learn of exotic life forms together. “We know we’re a special group,” said Allison. “Not many people get to do what we’ve just done. It’s been far more than I ever hoped for.” And for those of us not so young, with the harbor lights of our port city all but in view, the words of yet another salty sonnet by James Buffet spring to mind: “Drink it up; this one’s for you—it’s been a lovely cruise.”

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