The AE

There have been too many experiences this fall that I cannot even begin to explain how fortunate I am to be here in Bermuda....and this was definitely one of them.  The eight REUs left for the open ocean on Monday for a 24-hour cruise on the R/V Atlantic Explorer.  Fun facts about the AE and our experience on board: it is 52 meters long; it has a crew of 6, who are incredibly nice and 2 chefs that made the most delicious food for us; science is conducted 24/7, which is sooooo cool; there is a cinema room that has every movie I could ever think of, as well as the comfiest couches to nap on; so many labs to do awesome science (more on that later), and a billion other cool things I can't think of right now!

Here we are (Me, April, Chloe, Gabe, and Michael) waving goodbye to BIOS, solid ground, and all of the work we didn't bring with us but probably should have.

 We had a little Team Zissou photo shoot as we left the dock.

One of the crew members assisting pulling up the anchor.

In no time at all we heard the horn that indicated a practice emergency situation!  Step 1: retrieve life jacket from sleeping quarters.  Step 2: get to the second floor MUSTER STATION (seen above) to do a head count.

Gabe, Michael, and Chloe gathered to listen to more of the safety briefing.

Keeley wanting to punch me because of all of the videos I was taking (stay tuned for the REU video posted on the BIOS Facebook page next week!)

All of us following the coordinator up to the second floor to take our final safety test.

PUTTING ON THE GUMBY SUIT

The exposer suit will save your life...If you can actually get it on.

Just kidding.

But it is a struggle.

Here I am completing the task!

 Anyway the real purpose of this trip was to experience life on a real research vessel.  We got to help with the CTD sampling (located under the the giant rosette of niskin bottles that is about to be flung into the water and forced down to 3000 meters).  This sampler captures water at different depths as it comes to the surface and take "C"onductivity, "T"emperature, and "D"epth measurements.  It also has the ability to do a lot of other really cool measurements.  One of the "sites" that we visited was the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study, (BATS) station.  This time series is one the world's first significant deep-ocean time series, beginning in 1954.  It's incredible the amount of data and research this project has produced.  They have already seen dramatic the changes in temperature and salinity!

Anyway, on a happier note, there was tons of down time when we weren't on watch.  Keeley, Chloe and I had some quality exploring time.

We found ourselves on the map! (Also there were always a large supply of delicious cookies that we couldn't help but snack on constantly.)

It takes about 4 hours of the CTD to reach 3000 meters.  Just to put this in perspective: 3000 meters = 1.86411 miles = 9842.52 feet = 118110.2 inches.  As the CTD came to the surface, the niskin bottles were fired to collect water.

This is a picture of Chloe, Gabe, and Michael sampling the water for Gabe's experiment!

I don't fully understand Gabe's project, but from what I have gathered I understand that he is looking at bacteria and their concentrations as well as a bunch of other really cool things. Who knew that there was so much life in the deep ocean?!

Chloe fixing the bacteria so that it will be unable to grow.

Gabe and Keeley preparing more samples.

I don't know if you had forgotten this from the fun facts: SCIENCE NEVER STOPS.

IT'S 4AM AND WE ARE STILL WORKING!!!

We survived the trip.  We didn't loose anyone overboard....only a few people were sea-sick.  Luckily I wasn't one of them.  Special shoutout to the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences for allowing us to take two days off of work...especially so close to our final presentations, the National Science Foundation for the grant that paid for us to have this unbelievable experience, and to the two chefs that invited us back on the boat after we arrived to have yet another perfect feast.