May 30th, 2021
Hoping to sleep through rough waves, we awoke to another stormy day and learned a new term: W.O.W, Waiting on Weather. As we have our submersibles on board, when the boat is rocking too much, we want to wait so there’s no extra strain on gear or potential for collisions with the vessel. Because of this, we were unable to launch Sentry today to get plankton samples and will try again in the morning.
Some of us were unbothered and continued working, while others could only stomach short periods of time under the microscope or even just being awake. Everything becomes more difficult as the waves slosh; your balance is lost as you traverse the corridors, anxiety of falling in the shower increases (there’s actually a bar in the shower to hold on to!), keeping the microscope focused becomes harder, and you become disorientated. This is life at sea, and observing the horizon going above and below the boat won’t be a one-time experience, but a surreal one.
Meet a Scientist on Board
Hi, my name is Laura Murray and I’m a graduate student from Western Washington University. I received my bachelor’s in science studying microbiology at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. I am continuing my microbiology degree under Dr. Craig Moyer studying the microbiology of hydrothermal vent chimneys, where little microbes live in the distinctive pillars at vent sites. I was inspired to pursue microbiology after watching the movie Contagion and see how microbes affect our lives. I moved to Washington after my sister enrolled at Western and I perused the graduate programs.
Science Behind the Scenes
What are we doing with the mussels we are collecting from each site? When the days slow down, one thing we do is measure the mussels. Once consolidated, we measure the juveniles and adults with calipers to quantify size distributions. Pictured here is science teamwork at its finest; Sinja with the calipers, and Avery as the scribe, efficiently working through buckets full of bivalves.
We hope tomorrow’s weather clears up enough to get Sentry back in the water. It’s crucial at every site to deploy Sentry and collect water samples at multiple depths using the SyPRID larvae collectors. Exploring whether or not our target larvae species are within the water column at our sites is pivotal to answering out questions surrounding cold seep larval dispersal.