March 22

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7:30 AM

“Final” Cruise Plan

I have come to realize over the past three days that there is no such thing as a “final” cruise plan. I’m not sure who originated this phrase or how it came into cruise-planning vocabulary, but I’m using this blog as my platform to officially kick it out of all future research cruise planning.

My main argument here is that almost every conversation I have had with an instructor has started with “hey Christina, how are you? Have you heard the new cruise plan?”.

“Oh yes” I’ll reply. “I heard it about 2 hours ago”.

“Well forget that one” they’ll say. “We have a new one”.

People become very attached to the “Cruise Plan” every time it changes. They’re just setting themselves up for disappointment. Specifically our cruise plan has run into a few unforeseen events which have changed our schedule: docking in Bartlett Cove, bringing the NPS onboard (this is how the NPS is secretly monitoring us) via a tiny boat, every aspect of deploying and recovering a drifter (when in doubt, blame Chase’s project), sediment trap deployment and recovery (and failure to recover), and or course a spontaneous trip outside of the Bay to dump our “grey” water. At least three days without showering came to and end with that dump.

Somehow every time one of these events happens our instructors and the crew and captain rally together and give us a new cruise plan… which will probably change in a few hours.

So with three days of science and about 8 cruise plans behind us I am wondering what our “Final Cruise Plan” actually looks like…

-Christine

8:15 AM

The events in this post from Aubrey took place on March 21.

My Trip to the Reef

Around 15:00, Chase and I, along with fellow crew members, went on quite an expedition to recover Chase's drifter that was stuck on a reef. First, Chase and I suited up in bright orange floatation suits. The raft that we were to board and take to the reef was lifted off the side of the boat. We then loaded the raft by crawling over the side of the R/V Thompson and onto the raft. They lowered us onto the water where the tide was a little rough. We sped away and headed towards the reef.

It was thought that we would be driving directly to the drifter that was floating onshore and pick it up. Instead, the crew explained to us that they would drive around to the other side of the island where it was easier to let us off, and we could walk ashore and retrieve the drifter. This was a surprise to me because I thought I was going to stay on the boat. When we arrived within 10 meters of the reef, the crew tried to figure out how they could get as close to shore as possible. They explained to us that once they were close to shore, we were to hop out of the boat into the water and go onshore.

As soon as I jumped out of the boat, my boots filled with water. I ran onto shore as fast as possible and lost sensation in my feet. I was very fortunate my feet had become numb since the water was extremely cold at 3.575 degrees C. Chase and I ran across the reef over the poorly sorted rock that ranged from large cobbles to sand. We ran past empty oyster shells, algae, snow, and animals! When we reached the drifter that was stuck on the rocks a little offshore, Chase ran through the waters screaming, "I can't believe this thing is still working! It works! It works!" While he continued to struggle in the water with his drifter, I noticed we had been followed by medium sized, black birds with long orange beaks and black beady eyes. I believe they are oyster catchers. They had the oddest sounding bird calls and would hide when I tried to come closer to them. Finally, Chase had pulled his drifter onshore and disassembled it. This whole time, I had been recording everything with Rick's video camera.

On the way back, we ran into some creatures laying on their bellies. They looked exactly like sea lions, but something seemed a little odd about them. As we stared at them, they hopped up on four tiny legs and began walking off. Alaska had grown the largest otters we had ever seen in our lives! We rushed to the water where the boat was ready to pick us up. The first attempt, failure. Being a small person, the water had risen to my belly. The second attempt, success! We crawled up the ladder off the side of the raft and belly flopped onto the floor. We pulled away from the reef and rode the rough waters back to the R/V Thompson. It was an adventure that I would never forget!

-Aubrey

March 22, 2008