Notes from the Field

Off to sea!

September 7th, 2012 by Maria-Jose Viñas

By Eric Lindstrom

Loading a SPURS Mooring on the R/V Knorr.

We had a whirlwind of preparations after the Labor Day Weekend.  All the gear was loaded on the ship and lashed down. The scientific party (22 people) arrived and set up in various spaces around the ship.  Bill Ingalls, a NASA Headquarters photographer, captured many great shots of the Knorr and the equipment. His photos are online at NASA Headquarter’s Flickr account.

Bill Ingalls, NASA photographer.

SPURS researchers held a press conference the day before departing. From left to right: Eric Lindstrom, Dave Fratantoni and Ray Schmitt,

I also had the pleasure of meeting Naomi Harper, a teacher from Will Rodgers Middle School in Fair Oaks, CA. She was visiting Woods Hole and stopped by the ship. I am looking forward to interacting with her students via this blog during the voyage.

We cast off and set sail at 8:30 a.m., on Thursday, Sept. 6. While it’s a very beautiful calm day, we know that we have storms in the Atlantic between us and our destination (Hurricanes Leslie and Michael). The cruise plan is being adjusted a little so we spend the first few days focused on “outrunning” the storms. We can do out test stations and other such preparations after we have reached calmer waters west of the hurricanes. So, we are expecting rough seas at some points during the next few days and the first order of business as we set sail is to get all our gear secure on deck and in our cabins. Everything that can move needs to be secured before we face the storm waves.

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There was a nice gathering of friends and family at the wharf to see us off on our voyage. We are lucky to have such a beautiful sunny morning and calm winds for the send-off.

Family and friends of the SPURS researchers gather at the Woods Hole dock to see the cruise off.

Thirty minutes after setting off from Woods Hole, we have our first meeting of the entire scientific party. There are people from several institutions and we all need to put names to faces. There are also scheduled safety meetings and boat drills during our first day and before we leave the calm waters of Massachusetts behind.

The first SPURS science meeting aboard the R/V Knorr.

The only scientific work planned for the first few days, as we race past the storms, is regular sampling of surface waters to calibrate the ship’s thermosalinograph. This instrument monitors ocean temperature and salinity continuously from water coming in through a port in the ship’s hull. It will operate continuously during the voyage, but we need to collect calibration samples every 4 hours for precision salinity determination.

We are all learning about the rhythms of shipboard life. We will have people on many different watch schedules. The watches will operate on local time. That shifts as we move east across time zones. As your blogger on the SPURS cruise, I plan to float across different groups and schedules as the expedition progresses to give you multiple perspectives. On the ship, meal times are very important. We will have breakfast every day from 7:30 to 8:15 a.m., lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., and dinner from 5:00 to 5:45 p.m. I’ll let you know more about the delicacies we eat at sea!

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5 Responses to “Off to sea!”

  1. Mike Mongo says:

    Are you coming to Key West?

    • Eric Lindstrom says:

      Mike, Key west is not on our schedule…25N, 38W is where we are headed. Mid-Atlantic where the surface salinity is maximum. I think the night-life is probably better in Key West!
      Eric

  2. cheker kesraoui says:

    Bravo et bon vent, si vous avez une mission en méditerranée, je me ferais un plaisir de vous assisté

    • Eric Lindstrom says:

      cheker
      Thanks for you interest in SPURS. We have no plans for a Mediterranean expedition. SPURS follow-up will likely be in a rainy low-salinity site in the Pacific or Indian Ocean no sooner than 3 years from now.
      Regards
      Eric

  3. khadija berthelsen holstein says:

    importante!