Teacher Logbook - R/V Wecoma

Missy Holzer 's Sealog:
Pre Trip Prep and Day 1

Greetings from approximately 250 miles off the coast of Newport, OR. My name is Missy Holzer, NOAA Teacher at Sea, and I will be keeping you up date to date with the NOAA NeMO-CTD cruise, July 16 to August 2nd. The mission of the cruise led by Dr. Ed Baker is to sample water and recover/deploy moorings at the Axial Volcano, Cleft segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, and at Blanco Fracture Zone. What is so exciting about this research is that we are going to above a volcano, but unless you knew it was down there in the ocean depths, you would never know it was there from the surface. All the sampling will give us clues about the behavior of these hydrothermal wonders as a way to further our understanding of the dynamics of our Earth.

Our journey began with a pre-trip prep day on Sunday, July 15th when we set up camp for the next two weeks on board the R/V Wecoma, a 185 ft vessel that holds 13 crew members and a science team of up to18. The challenges of field work in the ocean warned us to "batten-down" everything, or else spillage could happen at anytime given the unpredictability of the ocean's movements. After unpacking all the equipment and finding appropriate places for it all, roping and bungie cords, as well as ingenious tie-down methods, secured the equipment so that it will stay in its place as the ship rolls and pitches.

The ship's movements were felt almost instantly on Monday July, 16th as we left Yaquina Bay for the "Big-O," as oceanographer Sharon Walker calls it. We embarked at about 11AM and took the great circle route to our initial destination about 250 miles west of Newport. Charging through the 6-foot swells at a speed of about 12 knots (1knot is approximately 1.13 mph), we reached our destiny almost 24 hours later. But in the meantime it was a challenge for many of the passengers, including myself, to get their sealegs. To give you a sense of what it was like, picture yourself on the carnival ride Tilt-A-Whirl for 24 hours straight coping with the up down and side to side motion all at once. It was suggested to go outside and look at the horizon for a while, as well as ingesting some form of ginger, to combat the effects the continuous motion has on the body. While outside looking at the horizon we were treated to a race with a number of white sided dolpins, and the beautiful aquamarine hues of wake created as the ship continued in its forward motion. It's a good thing that the science end of our trip doesn't start until tomorrow or it may be starting shorthanded!

There's a full agenda for tomorrow once we arrive at our first location of 45 degrees 54.72' N and 129 degrees 59.603' W including recovering a number of moorings that have been in the ocean for a year. Stay tuned to see how the recoveries went.