Trophic BATS: Post # 11 (Day 9)

Naomi and Molly congratulating each other after a net tow with a hive-five. They should be happy, they just completed all their work.

“We are officially done!” Rob just announced next to me. Team Condon wrapped up the cruise with a few night net tows just about an hour ago and now we begin our steam back to Bermuda. We’re only 30 miles to the pilot station where we’ll get ushered in to dock at BIOS right around 0930.

It has been a great cruise. No injuries. Calm seas, sunny skies. Research objects completed. No lost or damaged gear. Everyone has been in agreement that the cruise was a success. The past few hours have been a bit busy for some of the labs; cleaning, drying, and packing away supplies for their storage at BIOS or their respective shipments back home.

Matt Baumann performing a regular check up on the in-situ pumps. Foreground includes PEL's sediment traps littering the CTD garage.

For our group, the off load is relatively a breeze. Crates come off and get shoved in the labs. Floating array gear gets craned off and shoved near the warehouse. The cytometer van gets craned off and shoved, well no, way to big to be shoved….it’s relocated on Biostation grounds. For other groups and in general other cruises, off loading and shipping can be a major headache. Scientists are worried about temperature sensitive samples (required storage in liquid nitrogen or –80C) that need to be delivered as fast as possible. Depending on the project they may also have to locate space for annual storage or if not, costly shipments back to their home institutions. Luckily, as this is a multi-year project, much of the entire team’s gear is able to be stored at BIOS.

This will be a short post and tomorrow will be a wrap up summary. Hope you’ve enjoyed the blog. We’d be happy to hear feedback from this little session, so if you thought it was good, let us know (doug.bell@bios.edu).

The Trophic BATS Team!

Doug Bell

Research Technician, Phytoplankton Ecology Lab

School of Hard Knocks

FINAL OBLIGATORY SUNSET PHOTO (I added it to take up space).