NO-REGRETS aboard RV Thalassa

25 June - Thalassa cruise highlights

Written by Femke Heldoorn

On the morning of June 11^th we arrive in Scheveningen to board our home for the next two weeks: the Thalassa. With help from the ships crew, we load everything on board. This has some challenges, since the ship, and thus the crew, is French. Luckily we can communicate everything just fine, and everything gets set up. Since there is quite a range of different research going on, the gear varies from a CTD to an umbrella. The next day we leave the harbour to start our journey through the Dutch North Sea. The weather during the first days was a bit rough, so not everyone was feeling their best. Luckily (for me) there was a lot of work to do, which distracted from the sea-sickness. A big advantage of not being seasick is that you can enjoy the haute cuisine that we are served. We eat things like scallops, ray fin and mushroom crêpes. During the meals we also have time to get to know each other and ask about everyone’s research. It’s a very nice way to learn more about the other projects going on! 

About 5 days into sailing, the weather starts to calm down, which makes the majority of the work a lot easier. Since these are the longest days of the year, there is quite a few sunny hours. When we did a zooplankton net at midnight, we could still see some light remaining from the sunset! It was so pretty that even some of the crew took pictures. During the second week we also had a barbecue with everyone. This was great fun, and a good way to try to socialize with the crew, who have been incredibly kind and helpful during this trip! During the last few days we slowly started finished and cleaning up. Hopefully we all leave the ship with good data, great Thalassa merchandise and even better memories.  

Another research day begins on board of the Thalassa and good weather continues to follow us in our journey! One of the particularities of this cruise is that we have on board a device known as ‘Ramses’ (yes we know, at first it sounds like a pharaoh). This tool allow us to analyse ocean color and light. Actually, the light that is reflected by the sea is the matter that reaches satellites!

Cleo is one of the PhDs from the NO-REGRETS Project and is based at NIOZ Yerseke. She analyses water samples to compare them with coloring and light reflection and the resulting satellite images. For this reason Cleo is very busy on board, collecting and filtrating water at the wet lab and collecting color and light data from the same location through the Ramses. For the device to work, the ship needs to be settled in a specific location in relation to the sun. 

Today we also had the chance of observing some life in the making: a fish egg happened to land on Hanna’s phytoplankton sample and revealed itself on the microscope. 

We are on board of the Thalassa, sailing across the waters of the Dutch North Sea, around those areas that surround off-shore windfarms or where future construction is planned. It seems that good weather has decided to accompany us during our journey.The scientific team on board describes their work as a holistic approach to marine ecosystems. Indeed, the team is highly multidisciplinary and diverse, which adds an additional layer of richness to the research process that will unfold on the vessel. From bird observations to plankton, fish communities to seafloor scanning, they will explore the diverse effects and impacts of off-shore windfarms on the Dutch North Sea. This expedition is part of the NWO Project NO-REGRETS: North Sea Renewable Energy – Getting the Required Ecological Knowledge for the Transition, which has just entered its first year. The cruises we engage now seems like the starting point of a research journey that is only starting.