#15 DOLPHIN ALERT

“I cannot not sail.”

– E. B. White

R/V Knorr

Friday, July 13, 2001

10'05" N

45'32" W

20:00 ship time (GMT-2)

A quick update as I'm bushed. Today started at 0400 (that's 4am) with deploying a production array (a 200m long line w/ weight at bottom, and spiked samples attached every 10m, topped with floats, and a mast w/ radar deflector, strobe and radio beacon) and then a CTD cast to retrieve water at various depths.  Then throughout the day, more CDT casts, net tows, sample generations, experiments, and just now, the retrieval of the production array.  Now the folks are running the samples through filters to collect the biomass, will bake that in an oven to dry out and then freeze the samples for testing back home in the lab. They will be analyzed to see how much biomass generated during the day at different depths, with different nutrients and minerals added to see what has the most beneficial effect, thus which compound's absence is the most limiting.  Another major accomplishment today was the initial towing of the MOCNESS, Multiple Opening & Closing Net with an

Environmental Sampling System. Basically an absolute Rube Goldberg contraption that's a large frame with electronics and mechanisms to individually drop down 10 separate nets to collect samples at different depths, but not any organism from the in between depths.  It's a real bugger of all the oceanographic scientist's tools because it malfunctions so often. These folks who are mainly chemically based researchers look down on this device because it was obviously designed by a biologist who in their minds are poor engineers.  But to my biologist heart's warmth, it performed marvelously.  It is  real bugger to get over the side and back, though.  

As you might have noticed the honeymoon of this trip is over and it's mostly work from here on out.  But I have a strong desire to stay, both to assist the team that I now feel am a part of, and also to be on hand for any moments of magic that I suspect are available out here in this unique environment.  And today, around 11:30, the bridge came on over the intercom and

announced a simple notice, "Dolphins on the bow, Dolphins on the bow".  I happen to be free so I trucked on up and low and behold, one of the patiently desired miracles was waiting, for 20 minutes we watched from the tip of the bow as a pod of 30 dolphins played in our wake. It was so unusual because we only had 2 knots of way on (because we were towing the MOCHNESS) , and at such a slow speed the dolphins barely moved to stay ahead of us, they appeared to be sleeping, effortlessly gliding just before the bow, some slowly spinning, swirling around the others, as we rose up above them 40 feet, then plunged down to nearly 10 feet above them, as the ship rode the waves.  It was so quiet, with just the rather small bow wake, their squeaks, and clicks were clearly audible. Towards the end, hundreds of others joined with much more energy, jumping from the crest of every large wave, flipping, slapping, and spinning through the air. Then they peeled off and joined a group of a thousand dolphins that came up on our starboard side and all took off to the south.  It was great.

The crew is also entertaining, such as Mikey, a big chubby kid, well liked by all the crew, but known to be a train wreck, a walking disaster. He is a big baby faced guy, with an eternal smile on his face and a pleasant word. Just the kind of person you can't help but enjoy being around.  Well the current tale that has leaked out during a late night cookie session in the mess hall last night was his exploits on their layover in Cape Town.  He decided to go out on his own and after stumbling upon the best bar he had ever been in, came back to the boat to share his good luck with finding the most beautiful women he had ever seen.  The lucky one that happened to be around was none other than the chief mate, a salty ol codg, who returned with Mikey to the bar and they had a most wonderful 20 mins or so before one of the patrons pleasantly asked them if they were aware that this was a transvestite bar.   

Not all has been fun on these cruises for this committed set of folks.  After a simple question of "isn't the medical emergency we had a real imposition" the crew laughed and began to raise our hair with their "real" crisis's. First were the cables snapping and flying back to wrap around one guy's legs, he was medivacked off. Then on another cruise a  science gal had a line break and wapped her in the head, and arm, and they steamed back to drop her off.  Then the young woman on a south African cruise was the last to get back in the zodiac and was caught by a great white and lost her leg, the reason we can no longer swim for pleasure on these boats.  Then this crew's experience this past spring on the cruise from cape town to the Antarctic waters, their electrician had a brain aneurysm. Since this cruise was so remote, WHOI had a medic on board. She coordinated a stabilization routine, and the crew took turns bagging (pumping air into him as in ER) him manually around the clock for four days as they steamed back to waters close enough for a helicopter to reach them.  The doctors had never heard of anyone making such an effort to revive someone. He died within a few days of reaching land. I have been moving much more deliberately and thinking more about safety lately.  I've also been watching with admiration, the way these rather rough folks look out for one another and consider each other almost family.

I also had another first yesterday, with my trip out on the zodiac to collect water

samples.  These samples were desired to be "trace metal free" so we had to get away from the ship ( a large hunk of iron) and so zoomed off through the waves gripping the rails of this hard bottomed inflatable boat, just like navy SEALs.  You notice the second you begin down the ladder, that as mobile as this 279' ship seems when it bounces around in the waves, it's nothing like being "on the water". The zodiac rides 10 feet under the deck one moment, 15' the next, 5' the next as the waves incessantly come and go. After negotiating one's way into the boat, it’s just a matter of holding on to the raft and to one's stomach as you are catapulted up and then the raft drops out from under you.  It's better once you get going and are away from the mammoth side of the ship, banging away on the side of the raft.  We zipped off, jumping off the tops of the waves, about a 1/4 mile off the starboard bow, and then jump overboard with mask/snorkel/fins and take the collection bottles up wind away from the zodiac and dive down and fill them.  This was a first for me to swim in over 5000 m or 16000 feet of water. Couldn't see the bottom. 

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Back in the blue water,

David