March 20, 2009
Breakfast at 730am, then we loaded up both boats of the Bamfield Center. The R.V. Barkley Star, is a fast twin engined boat. She went up to Effingham Inlet with about half of us. The R.V. Alta is an slower, fishing-boat-style vessel. I went on her with the other half of the students. We made CTD/oxygen casts and took near surface water samples for biology.
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- Eric teaches Rachel how to prepare the niskin bottle for oxygen measurements
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- Rachel with her first oxygen bottle
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- Riley detatching the Niskin bottle
The day started clear, sunny with a light breeze. But…, this is the west coast of Vancouver Island, so true to form, by mid-day the wind was blowing 20-30 kts with a good chop and spay going over the top of the wheel house. The Alta rides beautifully in this weather. This was the time, of course, that we decided that the really best place to go was to the mouth of Barkley Sound to get an ‘ocean water’ sample. As we approached the mouth, we started getting some swell, and then, the wind dropped. We were lucky in our timing. The Alta rides even nicer unpowered, pointing into the sea with narry a roll. There was only minor seasickness and no complaining. I would have been the worst off, but I took my seasickness pills several hours earlier.
We got back to Bamfield well before dinner and busied ourselves setting up the lab and recovering.
In all, an excellent day. Many of the students got much or most of the data that they will need for their thesis. Most got a good portion of it, and it was fun to boot. We are all tired.