Journals 2005/2006

Christine Leavor
Seneca Elementary, Salamanca, New York

"Water Quality in Rhode Island Coastal Waters" August 8 - 19, 2005

Journal Index: August 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13/14 - 15            16 - 17 - 18 - 19

August 11, 2005
Another Day at URI

Dave told me that today's boat trip would be a twelve hour tow. No samples would be taken. He told me I was welcome to ride along with him and Ross, or I could go to the University and work with Kelly.

Remembering how tired I was yesterday when I got off that boat, and picturing twelve hours of doing nothing but soaking up sun, I opted to go to the University.

I met Kelly in her office and spent the first part of the day entering data into the computer. The data didn't mean too much to me, and didn't seem to mean much to Kelly, either. It was data from a summer ago. Again, I was struck by how slowly science progresses.

We washed materials for tomorrow's trip and then went down to the lab to run more chlorophyll samples. Yesterday's samples are still in the freezer. They need to have at least 24 hours in the freezer, but will keep much longer, and usually do. Kelly has to divide her time between her work for Dave and her other assistantship which is a "plankton cruise." Soon she will be starting another job, which is a fish trawl- dredging fish in a net, counting the creatures collected, recording which ones and how many and then releasing them back into the Bay. All in all a pretty quiet day. I will certainly feel rested for tomorrow's cruise. Dave sent an email that we will meet at the dock at 8:00 tomorrow morning. We will get out much quicker because all the materials are still on the boat.