Journals 2008/2009

John Karavias
Walt Whitman H.S. Huntington Station, NY

"Estimation of Primary Productivity and Particle Export Rates as a Function of Phytoplankton Community Structure in the Bering Sea" United States Coast Guard Cutter Healy, Icebreaker July 3 - July 28, 2008

Journal Index: July 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11        12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19        20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27        28 - 29 - 30 - 31

July 5, 2008
Preparing for our deployment of the sediment trap

Today was actually a light day. Pat and I had a meeting with the crew of the Healy. We are deploying the sediment trap tomorrow so the crew wanted everybody on the same page for the proper procedure. The combination of nautical and military terms spun my head a few times but it was great to observe the mutual respect between the scientists and the coast guard.

The deployment of the trap is quite complicated and requires about 10 people. I am sure since it is the first of four scheduled deployments we will have a few kinks to work out but, again, the meeting this morning was a great preemptive strike against any major problems tomorrow.

Later in the day, the weather broke and the Bering was beautiful. Eleven miles of visibility, so and Pat and I went to the stern to set the winch along with the help of the mooring team. Once the winch was set, I ventured to the bridge to look for whales. I have already learned if there are no birds, there won't be any whales. There weren't any birds.

Sometimes the Bering Sea is absolutely magnificent. Not just the Deadliest Catch.

While I was on the bridge, we stopped at a station where the MocNess net was going to be deployed, so I made my way down to the stern to help the ichtheoplankton team sift through the copepods and such to look for fish larvae. Unfortunately we went through a school of jellyfish and the net was full of them.

Since Pat and I have a tough day tomorrow I called it a day at 9:00 p.m. and hit the rack. At 9:00 p.m.it is still sunny out. Amazing.