Out to Sea

The Last Five Months

Last semester I took a class called Field Cruise. My three classmates and I were required to develop a research project pertaining to some aspect of oceanography and then to carry out the research this summer. We were given the topics "Klamath River" and "Salmon". We decided to assess the food availability for salmon as they enter the ocean and study how the river water (the river plume) effects the ocean environment. The research culminated in a 35-page proposal outlining the reasons for doing this research, the background for the study area, and how we were going to carry out the research. Last week, as Melody mentioned, I was on a cruise doing the sampling for this project. The following is a quick rundown of what we did with some pictures.

Day 1

We left the docks at six in the morning on Sunday. As we headed for the mouth of the bay, we had a "Science Meeting" to go over some of the logistics for the day. During the meeting, we were passing through the mouth of the bay, which can be pretty rough. It was. After the meeting ended, I walked outside, went to the railing, and lost my breakfast (literally and figuratively). I have never been seasick before, so this was a new experience for me. I gained some insight into the concept Melody speaks of called "nausea." We had four hours before our first station (we planned on sampling at specific locations, which we refer to as stations), so I had some time to be sick a few more times and get used to doing things while feeling uneasy.

The stations were close together on that day, so we were kept fairly busy the next seven hours. I was able to do most of the work I was assigned to and only lost it once more the rest of the day. I would have taken pictures, but focusing on a tiny screen and not on the horizon was a little too much for me. We ended up completing two more stations than we were expecting, which helped give us a very complete data set for that first day. Over all, the day went very well. We got into harbor at six, so I took a refreshing walk on land and called my love.

Day 2

We left harbor at 5:30 the next morning. I was feeling a lot better (and was also given Sea-Bands to help suppress nausea during the day), so I was able to take pictures.

At each station, we did a bongo net tow, a CTD cast, and collected water samples for chlorophyll and nutrients. Bongo nets are two circular nets, side by side, like a bongo drum. They are used to collect zooplankton. CTD stands for Conductivity-Temperature-Depth. Conductivity of the water is used to discern salinity and depth is measured by the pressure of the water.

Sarah (our teacher) and Eric (works for NOAA; let us use his equipment) discussing our station plan


Abby (Eric's assistent who came to help us for a day), Nick, and Ben the deckhand washing the plankton down to the end of the bongo net


Abby, Hal (another teacher), Sarah, and Nick preserving and splitting the samples


A little blurry, but it is the sample that Nick was rinsing into the sieve in the previous photo. During the course of the cruise, we caught jellyfish, krill, copepods, larval fish (like rockfish and flounder), worms, and larval crab (baby crabs)


Rinsing the sample into the preservation jar


Ethanol being injected into sample before the formaldehyde is added

This is a slight aside, but this last picture seems counterintuitive to me. The ethanol is put into the sample so that any larval (baby) fish that are in the sample are anesthetized before they are killed (preserved) with the formaldehyde. This is a scientific research standard to ensure that the fish are killed humanely. It is sad that people consider themselves humane for fighting to anesthetize fish, while it is still considered socially acceptable to kill unborn humans. Not to mention that there is no anesthesia used for the baby in abortions.

Alex filtering the chlorophyll from a water sample

Once again, everything went very well. We were able to do five more stations than we planed and all of the data looked consistently sound.

Day 3

We left port at 5:30. It was overcast as usual, but then the sun started to rise.

Twenty minutes later, we were back in a dense, dark fog.

On a more scientific note, we were steaming toward shore to the stations closer to the coast and came across a very distinct edge of the river plume. Part of our study was to determine the boundaries of the plume and characterize the zooplankton (salmon food) in those areas.

The foam in between the two masses of water indicates higher phytoplankton and zooplankton activity in that region, which verifies our hypothesis


Left: River plume water is lighter in color because there is more suspended sediment in the water. Right: Ocean water. Center: mixing between the two water masses causes higher nutrient availability in the clearer, saltier ocean water, which is good for phytoplankton growth and then zooplankton consumption.

We had our first mishaps that day. On one bongo tow, the engineer accidentally misheard how much line we wanted to let out and the net was drug along the bottom. We caught a huge starfish, which was cool, but we had to redo the tow. On another tow, the end of the net was not tightened down all the way and part of it slipped loose during the tow. Basically, it was like fishing with a hole in your net, so we redid that tow as well. In spite of these mishaps, to have only two issues over the course of three (ultimately four) days was very good.

Day 4

It was raining as we left harbor at 5:30 the last morning and rained up to our second to last station. It was not a driving rain, though, so it did not inhibit any of our sampling in any way. All of the day's stations went well with no mishaps. Traveling home was to take five hours from the last station, so there was plenty of time to look over our data, pack our equipment up, clean, and enjoy the gorgeous day.

Sarah and Hal enjoying the sun


Chris the engineer and Eric talking while putting away nets

Overall, I had a great time and learned a lot. It was definitely an affirmation that I am heading into the right field.