The night watch continued to struggle with the weather. They conducted 2 ctd casts before the weather caused them to scrub their science operations. It was a pretty slow night for them. We also found out that the cold room is not maintaining it's temperature, so all of the experiments will have to come down early so they are not compromised.
Yesterday, I learned to read the POS/MV Roll, Pitch Heave plot. The main reason for our scrubbed science operations has been sea swells. This plot can help you determine the condition of the seas or the “attitude” of Healy. Attitude is the orientation of Healy relative to the horizon. Roll is movement along the longitudinal axis. It feels like the ship is rolling left to right. Pitch is measured in degrees and it is the rise and falling motion of the bow and stern. This feels like up and down movement. Heave is closely related to pitch. While pitch measures how much the bow rises and falls in degrees, heave measures the same thing, only in meters. When my high school students are studying aviation, we discuss pitch and roll of aircraft, along with yaw. These are the same principles.
Pitch, Roll and Heave Plot for Healy's attitude
We had a visitor to the Healy today. A pelagic cormorant took refuge on the fantail after David Pavlik, US Fish and Wildlife Agency, spotted him several times flying along with the ship. Pelagic cormorant is a small member of the cormorant family. It lives along the coasts of the Northern Pacific and can be found in open oceans during the winter. This is the only bird I have ever seen that is all black - black eyes, beak and plummage. The pelagic cormorant is a powerful swimmer and can dive up to 100 feet. They eat fish, small crustaceans and shrimp.
Pelagic cormorant on the fantail of the Healy
It's time to meet another member of the Science team, Celia Gelfman. Celia has been very helpful to me in showing me how to differentiate between males, females and C5's and proper preservation techniques for different kinds of analysis. She is a Marine Research Assistant who assists Dr. Campbell with his research on copepods and krill. This involves lab work, data work, and some field work. She has a Bachelor of Arts in biology from a small liberal arts college. Celia is also a very gifted potter and frequently brings her marine subjects into her artwork. She is fascinated by marine invertebrates, but in general she likes the variety research provides. There are many different kinds of tasks to accomplish, and she has a ot of discretion about when and how to do them. When I asked her what advice she would give someone who may be interested in her career field, she said “Try to get as much experience as you can volunteering or working with different researchers. It's good to find out what skills you want to be using, and what kind of science fascinates you.”
Celia Gelfman, Marine Research Assistant University of Rhode Island
New Vocabulary
attitude -the orientation of a ship's axes relative to a reference line or plane, such as the horizon.
pitch -the alternate dip and rise of the bow and stern of a ship.
roll - movement along a ship's longitudinal axis without changing direction
heave - the distance in meters a ship rises or falls
Stay tuned as we continue our exciting voyage on the USCG Cutter Healy. Until then...
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever” - Mohandas Gandhi