Floats

From left to right: Chief Scientist Tahlia (as Luna Lovegood), Lelethu (Hogwarts Express), Melissa (birthday girl), Caitlin (dementor), and Mark (Hagrid). Personalities within a science party can make or break a cruise. The five of us on this trip worked together very well and became great friends. There was a lot of down time as the ship performed its resupply and turnover missions. What could have been boring or even tedious was made magical due to our close bond. My birthday came during one of these down periods, and the team made the most of it. They threw me a surprise Harry-Potter themed party, complete with costumes and themed drinks. I make a big deal out of birthdays, but this one will hold a special place in my heart forever. Before all going our separate ways when we got back to land (though the other 4 all live in Cape Town), we got together to take 'album cover' photos on the back deck. Dressed in the matching gear that the ship distributes to all scientists, we as

The launch of 'Olympians.' Two SOCCOM floats were adopted by Desert Ridge Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are named 'Titans' and 'Olympians' after the team names the sixth grade students chose for themselves after studying mythology. Titans being tested in port. Cape Town's famous Table Mountain in the background.2 The two floats were deployed in very different areas. Titans was launched during the run south we did after dropping off the turnover team at Gough Island. Three weeks later, Olympians was deployed about halfway between Tristan da Cunha and Cape Town. Both are working great and have been sending profiles of data collected from their many sensors. You can follow them as they drift, and send back data every 10 days. Follow this link. Titans is float #12723 and Olympians is #12733.

Lelethu and the pCO2 system in the underway lab onboard Agulhas II. There is constant scientific analysis going on aboard Agulhas II , even when all the scientists are in bed. The ship has a pump that delivers surface seawater to the underway lab, where it is analyzed by machines that only need minimal attention (at least when it's working correctly!). Lelethu Nohayi, a technician from CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research), was in charge of the pCO2 system on this cruise. It measures the difference between carbon dioxide concentrations in the ocean versus the air just above the surface. The 'wet box' (behind Lelethu in the above picture) recreates the air-sea interface using seawater pumped up from the bottom of the ship, about 5 meters below the surface, and air pumped in from the front of the bridge, which is uncontaminated by the ship's exhaust. The 'dry box' (on the left) consists of all the electronic components necessary for the measurement

Float Freddy Cougar ready for deployment. Apologies for the late post. After the ship filled up again with passengers from Tristan da Cunha, internet bandwidth was hard to come by. We have now returned to Cape Town, South Africa and I am enjoying the small comforts I've had to do without for 5 weeks. Lightning fast internet and being able to decide what to eat are the biggest ones. A SOCCOM float was deployed soon after we departed Tristan on our transit back to Cape Town. Probably the loveliest deployment of the cruise, it took place in calm weather, under the full moon. Float 'Freddy Cougar' was adopted by Melvin Krepps Middle School in East Windsor, New Jersey and named after their mascot. I considered drawing a mash-up of a cougar and Freddy Krueger, but quickly decided it was beyond my very limited artistic abilities. Perhaps you've heard the phrase 'fair winds and following seas.' It's what you say to sailors to wish them a safe voyage. While much more

Caitlin collected surface samples using a bucket on a rope. You can see the CTD A-frame deployed in the background. Caitlin Kelly was onboard Agulhas II for the entire cruise collecting surface water samples for a microplastics study. The professor in charge of the project, Dr. Peter Ryan, was also on the ship, but was part of the turnover crew that went to Gough Island for a few weeks. He  has been studying the effects of plastic on seabirds since his master’s project in the 1980s. Plastic pollution in the ocean is probably something you've heard about before, and it's in the news more and more with the discovery of huge "garbage patches" around the world. Tiny pieces of plastic (m icroplastics) can be found in the surface waters of oceans all over the planet.  The group came onboard with a vacuum filtration rig, but one of the glass components got broken in the first few days when we experienced bad weather. Not willing to sacrifice the opportunity to collect data,

The crew prepares for a flight. The ship is filling back up again with passengers as we head into our final week of the cruise. We picked up last year’s Gough Island science team and turnover staff and are now back at Tristan de Cunha. For the previous two weeks, the five ship-based scientists have pretty much had the place to ourselves. Other than the ship's crew, there are twelve men that make up the helicopter crew who have been onboard the whole time. They did not get to join us during the unique down-time us scientists got on both Tristan and Gough Islands (see previous posts). Instead, they were busy shuttling passengers and cargo between the ship and the islands. A container is flown to Gough Island. There are two identical helicopters stored in the hangar on level 5, and they have flown both on this trip, though only one at a time. They are used for both scientific and logistic purposes. Containers full of supplies are brought out from the ship's hold and connected to a

The ship's doctor and ship-based science party pose with Agulhas II during our outing to Gough Island.   Earlier this week, I got to spend 24 hours on Gough Island, one of the most remote places on Earth. Inhabited by a team of scientists year-round, the Agulhas II is in charge of turnover. The ship brings out a new batch of birders, biologists, ecologists, and members of the South African weather service, who will spend the next year living and working on the island. There's a 2-3 week turnover period where the previous year's team trains the new one. Also on the island during this time are  staff from the weather service, public works department, and other government agencies who have maintenance projects to conduct. At the end of the change-out period, last year's team and the turnover staff return to the ship. A fishing vessel or two will stop at Gough Island during the year before Agulhas returns, but that's about it.  Gotta love a good Jurassic Park referenc