FerrOCious Gulf Blog

Day 9 aboard the R/V Endeavor brought some new experiences. The first thing was an exploration of our own. Cris and I were curious about the types and amount of plankton living in these waters so we dropped a plankton net into the water and did a couple of tows. A plankton tow is where […]

Today, we awoke at our location for Station #5.  The overnight steam brought us to our deepest depth yet, at 90m.  Before we sent any instruments down near the bottom, we knew the sediment was very light weight because it was causing the depth finder to jump by 10 meters every second.  The sediments were […]

Work started early today for Cris and Jim deploying a CTD at 07:00.  After breakfast the crew joined together to deploy the Lander for its fourth stay in the water. After the Lander was successfully launched, Dr. Maiti and Dr. Severmann deployed their in-situ pumps and let them run for a couple of hours at […]

The day began early again, with Dr. Jim McManus, Bill Fanning, and me out to deploy the CTD at 06:15 local time.  The ship had been circling the Lander throughout the night, as a mother bear would watch out for her cub.  On the fast brightening horizon, you could just make out the strobe on […]

The day started early for many of our scientists and crew today. Even before dawn Dr. Jim McManus, Bill, Paul, and Cris were up deploying the CTD to try and determine the characteristics of the water they would be sampling. After finding sufficiently low oxygen levels Dr. Maiti deployed his In-Situ pumps. Three of them […]

Before heading to bed last night, we were treated to seeing the first results of the In-Situ pump discs.  As you can see on the photo to the left, there was quite a bit of content in the water column at our first station on the trip.  The next step for Dr. Silke Severmann is […]

This morning all were ready for the first water sample collection that would be taken and kept from the CTD. At promptly 8:30 am the CTD was launched into the water with all of its bottles open and ready to be closed with sample water. The CTD was deployed to 27 meters (30 meters being […]

After a delicious breakfast, compliments of Kim, our on-board Chef, we headed out for CTD preparations. Bill Flanning spent some time teaching Cris and me how to set-up, deploy, and recover the CTD. CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature, Depth; it’s an instrument that is sent down to the depths to record these measurements and collect water […]

The true reality of this commitment sank in as the gangplank was raised this morning: we are aboard this ship for 22 days, there will be no last minute trips to the store any more!  As soon as we were away from the dock, and safely escorted out of the Gulfport, MS harbor by their […]

We have arrived!  From all corners of the map, scientists, teachers, engineers, and crew have spent the past few days traveling to and loading the R/V Endeavor.  Everything must be brought aboard, unpacked, and safely stowed before we cast off at noon on Saturday.  We spent the day unloading food and dry goods from the […]