Jeff Schilling's blog

We are almost home. Justin Roberts, a CMOP intern, wrote a song about our adventures aboard the R/V Wecoma. It is a fun look back at what life was like aboard a research vessel. It's not all chasing salinity and collecting marine microbes.

It is day nine aboard the cruise and Byron Crump has taken me up to the radioactive isotope lab to perform bacterial production measurements.

A large portion of life aboard is collecting and filtering water. Lauren Vice, a summer research intern, has become proficient in performing RNA filtering of water samples. Today's video blog has Lauren demonstrating the filtering process.

Almost all primary production in the ocean is performed by algae, with a small fraction contributed by vascular plants and other groups. Peter Kahn, OHSU graduate student, demonstrates one technique to perform primary productivity measurements.

Today we are following patches of water with a drifter. This unique looking piece of equipment has a blue cylindrical shape, red wings, orange floats, and electronic sensors. The chief scientist, Byron Crump, explains the scientific purpose of the drifter.

We are pulling anchor and will be heading west into the plume. I was wondering how many crew members does it take to raise an anchor? I wasn't sure. So I documented the process and was amazed at the team effort it took to between the wheel house and the men on the deck.

We collected water samples at different depths today with Niskin bottles attached to the CTD. The water goes to the scientists in the wet lab for filtering and measuring chemical properties. Today's video blog has Byron Crump giving a tour of the wet lab and the work being performed.

Now that I am up to speed on how to operate the CTD, Justin and I performed a cast every half hour for 12 hours straight. Byron was chasing salinity in the Columbia River estuary. Tired and a little haggard, I recorded this video blog around midnight at the end of my shift.

There is not much R&R aboard a research vessel. With a few minutes of spare time, Captain Rick challenges his fiercest competitor to a game of ping pong.