64PE368 - Day 4

They say that necessecity is the mother of invention, I’d probably say back pain is a better motivator. As the CHARLET cruises progessed, so did my questions about the factors affecting the growth of phytoplankton along our transect. To better answer those questions, my experimental plans increased from 1 to 2 to now 4 large incubation experiments per cruise. This means getting over one hundred 3 litre bottles between CTD, lab and incubator several times during the days on board. You quickly realize that trekking back and forth carrying 4 or 5 bottles at a time is both incredibly time consuming and pretty harsh on the back. Hence the arrival this cruise of my new favorite wheeling friend; Rockie. He’s a whiley cart, moving about at will, but very much appreciated when water laden bottles are ready for transport. Rockie is just one example of what I enjoy about cruises and even field science in general.

Rockie [Photo: Maayke Stomp]

A lot of what we do is repeated methods that have been developed and improved before us, but occasionally you are required to think creatively and problem solve.  Like the pump siphons we’re using to get a continuous flow of sieved water for experiments. Who said the plumbing supplies are just for sinks? There’s evidence of this kind of “out of the box thinking” all over the vessel.  In the ladies leggings used to put samples in the liquid nitrogen or even the more advanced flow cytometer which was developed origonally for the medical field but has since been used for phytoplankton identification and counting. However, being on board adds another degree of complexity in that you only have what you brought with you.

Amanda filling incubation bottles [Photo: Maayke Stomp]

Needless to say, the “bring next time” list at the end of each cruise is never inconsequencial. I can appreciate the side of science that requires strictly scheduled repition in a laboratory or computer modeling setting, but what attracts me is the thrill of being at sea, observing what is happening and making the most of what you have to try to understand and study it all. We have arrived at station 8, if it is like the previous stations it will be teaming with long diatom chains.  These are both exciting and frustrating as they show a productive system (albeit a bit late this year) but they also clog up filters and require some adjustments to experimental designs.  But this is all part of the thrill of the knowledge pursuit!

It's all about production here [Photo: Maayke Stomp]