Almost to 9 North

Today I saw two sea turtles when I was working outside. They looked like they were enjoying lounging in the warm waters of the Pacific and casually gave us a glance as we went by.

Morning found me in the science laboratory. I was listening to Dr. Tim Shaw from the University of South Carolina explain his interesting contraption that had been taking shape over the past few days. He is also super excited for his school's basketball team being in the final four!

He is doing research on peroxides, that occur after a metal like iron or manganese have reacted with seawater in an electrochemical redox reaction and actually formed oxygen. This oxygen quickly reacts with other substances to form peroxides. The concentration of peroxides would indicate a correlation to the concentration of whatever metals the other scientists were looking for - an approach that has not really been studied much.

A better picture is found below of the entire contraption. It is made from syringes that are designed to collect water samples at specific depths.

From a robotics perspective, I was interested in how he waterproofed the housing for his motor. This is something that we constantly are concerned about with our own underwater robotics at Cape.

I spent most of the day working on the samplers again, this time making sure they fired properly and were put together and cleaned correctly. (see yesterday's post for more information)

My lab space is shared with Luis Lamar, a free-lance photographer who does work for National Geographic and other publications.

Some of his equipment is shown in the photo. He will be taking pictures from inside the ALVIN in high definition as well as from the water. I can't imagine how expensive those cameras would be!

After dinner every evening, we gather in front of the ship to watch the beautiful sunsets. The guys in the front of this picture are scientists from Turkey who have studied under and worked with Dr. Luther during his time in the Black Sea. Their work is in electrochemistry of the hydrothermal vents as well. They are really nice and have lots of interesting stories about their scientific work and their homeland.

Often, we are rewarded by beautiful sunsets and interesting stories about lots of things by some of the veteran scientists and crew. Dr. Luther told me that he calculated he has spent a year of his life aboard the R/V Atlantis and the R/V Knorr. Wow!

Here is a picture of tonight's sunset.

Then its back inside for meetings and other work!

Sunrises and sunsets are a treat being at sea. One of my favorite things to do though, even more fun to do than watching the sun is to see the moon set and the stars that light up the night sky.

When I figure out how to take a picture of that, I will happily post it! You can see the milky way galaxy across the sky and so many stars that you can never see at home. Sometimes we are treated to a meteor shower or two. It makes you realize how small we are in this universe.