I took the weekend off from blogging, but that doesn’t mean that science stopped on Saturday or Sunday. Our work continues almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Research vessels like the R/V Knorr are so expensive to operate that once we are at our work site, we need to keep moving along constantly. To accomplish this, we work in shifts. Most of the ship’s crew work for 4 hours, and then get 8 hours off, then work 4 hours again, etc. The scientists keep a different schedule–each shift spends 8 hours working and then has 16 hours off. That means someone is always sleeping, so it’s “library quiet” down below around the cabins.
So where are we anyway? You can follow our route on the Where is Knorr Now? web site. For my visually impaired friends, the map shows the noerthern part of the North Atlantic, with the surrounding land masses (the british Isles, Iceland, Greenland and Canada). Our cruise track is shown first as a straight line toward the southwest from Iceland. This was when we were just making a bee-line for our first mooring site, which was at about the latitude of the southern tip of Greenland. Then we turned toward the east, and the cruise track gets more irregular. this is because we have been taking two steps forward and one step back. During the nights, we have been doing surveys of the sea floor at the next two moorings sites, and then back-tracking during the day to actually deploy the moorings at those sites. We prefer to do mooring operations during daylight hours–it’s just easier for everyone on deck if they can see all the equipment that is being eased over the stern. If you would like to read more about the cruise activities, there is also a cruise blog being maintained with contributions from different scientists, students and technicians on board the Knorr. You can find it at the International Cruise Blog Site. And if after that, you are still hankering for more OSNAP cruise news, you can follow our UK OSNAP colleagues on the Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross as they transit the OSNAP line and more measuring in detail the water properties and currents of the northern North Atlantic at the UK cruise blog site.
Amy Bower is a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She has been chasing ocean currents in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans for over 25 years, primarily by releasing acoustically tracked floats far below the sea surface. Legally blind since her mid-20s, Amy uses adaptive technology to continue her research.
Hi Amy! I am visually impaired and had considered majoring in Marine biology at some point in my academic career. I love the ocean and I love science but I wanted more stability so I chose nutrition. However, the itch for the ocean continues and I am just fascinated by your blog! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences both scientific and about your disability with us!
For those that picked up on it, Knorr did not make a sudden detour to Western Russia, but rather we sometimes see momentary GSP data anomalies that the computer will plot without regard to whether there is water under the ship.
Hi Amy
I was glad to be able to read some of your recent blogs and learn a bit about your current expedition.
Keep up the good work and best wishes.
Doug Yingling
Center for Vision Loss
Hi, Amy,
We just learned about your blog here at Center for Vision Loss so I thought I would check in with you. Thanks for covering some great topics about your everyday life aboard ship! I thought you might be interested to know that for the next two weeks (July 21-July 31) we are running our first summer day camp for kids 7-13 who are visually impaired or blind. It’s too bad you aren’t closer to us so you could participate in this–your workshop for kids in 2011 (major snow and all) was such a hit! Maybe a thought for another year, however?
Good luck with your research.
Karen Huetter
Center for Vision Loss
Thanks to Ken Kostel for bringing your blog to our attention. The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired intends to post the link on our website. All the best in this fascinating work you and WHOI are doing.
COOL STUFF!!! Brings back GOOD memories!! Yup… I remember 30+ hour shifts while our heat flow instruments were over the side and trying to keep from nodding off sitting behind the EPC recorder waiting for the thermistors to come to ambient temp when the core was slammed down into the sediment… That’s where I LEARNED to drink BLACK COFFEE… LOTS OF IT!
Good luck and GOD SPEED!
Dave Goldstein
WHOI 1980 – 1985