It is now Thursday night at 8pm and we have just arrived at station 8. We are at the edge of the continental shelf now, so we are close to 2000 meters from the bottom; this means longer sampling times for the rosette and box coring! Earlier today at station 7 (we are in Canadian waters now) we did a successful box core at 1900 meters. We attached a “pinger” to the box core line that transmits sound waves between the ocean floor and the boat. Lynne, one of the ship’s technicians taught me how to read the signals on a computer screen inside the boat so I could tell what depth the box corer was at. I used a radio box to communicate with the crew controlling the box core line, so they would know when the corer was close to, and on the bottom.
The cruise is right on track now, so we were able to catch a nice break today. Lisa and I sat at the bow of the ship, while we were on transit to station 8, and just took some time to enjoy the view and the sun. Time on the boat is pretty bizarre; sometimes there is only three or four hours between each station, so when we are done sampling we take a few hours to nap, then we are up again to sample some more. This puts us working and sleeping at the oddest hours so it gets hard to keep track of the days! Even though the hours are long, every second is worth it. To be here in the middle of the ocean, collecting samples, and doing experiments is the experience of a lifetime and I am loving every moment of it! It’s also great to get to see the ocean at different times during the day and night. We have seen some great sun sets, sun rises, and I love the way the ocean looks at night.

I’ve been doing some whale watching in my spare time but seem to always miss them. Some of the students spotted dolphins and a couple of whale spouts yesterday, but I have yet to see any! We have seen some small needle fish swimming in the light of the boat while we are doing our box coring.

We have plenty of pictures to share with everyone, but we don’t seem to have a strong enough internet connection to upload any. Maybe I will be able to post some when we are closer to the coast, but I can for sure do some next weekend when we are back on land, that way you see for yourself what we have all been describing! Well, it’s now nap time for me. The zooplankton nets are going in outside right now, which means the water sampling will begin in about an hour or so. Because the ocean floor is so deep it will take a lot longer to send the rosette up and down so I should have some time to rest before sediment collection begins!
-Katlin