BEST Entry #2

BEST Entry #2(Day 5)

Date: Saturday, April 4, 2009
Location: On a boat between lots of ice. Actually in bed.
Time: 2315


Last time I left you all, I was moments away from falling asleep in a cozy bench across from the ticket counter of PenAir(Alaska Airlines). So yes, I managed to sleep there, wake up, and switch my flight to a 0700 departure. After three days of traveling and 14 hours in a plane the day before, let’s just say I almost broke my two fingers from crossing them.

I was definitely nervous right before the plane took off, very windy, dark lots of snow. I thought there was maybe 50:50 chance of making it. After 30 minutes or so in the air, everything cleared up and a gorgeous view of the ice came into view. It was quite interesting to see ice, ice, ice, less ice, less ice, even less ice, and then none. Then came clues of the Aleutian Islands. Little frozen rocks, thrown into the sea. Descent on a prop plane in the middle of the Bering Sea actually makes it seem like you’re flying. You know, typically on a big 757 it’s just straight up and down. With the small prop, and a sharp entrance to Dutch Harbor’s airport, you definitely felt like you might want to grab the “oh shit handle” as we swerved our way onto the runway.

So hell yeah, I made it to frigging Dutch Harbor. But…I completely lost contact with Mike and anyone from the Healy, so how the hell am I going to get to this ship. I could see it when we we’re landing, so I figured I could walk. However, then I saw a sign for a taxi…and NEXT to the taxi sign was a guy, wearing a Healy shirt. He was a crew member(CoastGuard aka Coastie) and offered me a ride to the ship.

Sorry, no shot of the ship straight docked. I didn’t want to seem like a queer, taking a shot of the boat around a bunch of Coast Guard guys as soon as I stepped out of the van.

Got onboard, found Mike. He was very relieved to see me. I was the last one on board, and very close to being a huge asshole and making the boat wait for me. And you know how I said we’d depart on the 4th? Well, that wasn’t the case, we left the harbor at 2000.

Saw a few Bald Eagles. Unfortunately, I didn’t see them mauling any fish, just them contemplating to do it.

After departure, we had a meeting to deal with Ship operations. Basically, the science party was introduced to the Coastguard Crew and we were told how shit goes on around here. After, we spent a little time getting our lab space set up and getting things to go for the next day(Today).

This morning, after sleeping like a baby on pain medication, I woke up for an early breakfast @ 0700. Spoke with the Production/Export team(Mike, Myself, Pat Kelly(Rhode Island)) to discuss setting up our incubations.

Our incubation tank is used to determine the major analysis of Primary Proudction, C14 uptake. I’m not familiar with the protocol of it, so all I really know so far is. We take samples from a particular depth, hit them with a radio-isotope(C14). Place them in a clear tank. Feed ambient seawater through it(keeping similar temps). Then the out flow seawater runs out the bow.

After the set-up we had our first Science meeting. Here we went over transect logistics, when we were arriving to our first station, our route, who’s sampling on the first station, safety, and general bullshit. There’s about 40-50 of us. I’ll go into more about science party, rooms, food, free time, the boat, later. Right now there’s just a lot to talk about. I doubt I’ll be saying that 4 weeks from now.

Shortly after the meeting, we started hitting ice. You can feel a rumble, sometimes intense, sometimes feels like a dryer ending its cycle. Not that I’ve been inside a dryer or anything. It is loud though and I’ve been told it gets much LOUDER.

The rest of the day, I walked through protocol and locations for everything I need for sampling, since I missed out on the set-up. Early evening, we had our first CTD cast and we took some samples, just to make sure I was good to go on everything tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow morning(Sunday) we have our first process station. So, I must get my rest. It’s odd going to be earlier than midnight.