Atolls & Fieldwork: My phd research going crazy

MFT: Best data acquisition yet :) LFP: Leaving the puppies behind! Hallo, so yesterday I had my best day of data acquisition yet in French Polynesia! I got a whole day’s worth of data and even better some of it looked interesting! We rented a car (with a driver) and drove down Rangiroa Atoll crossing about 20 different motu and hoa (the small channels separating motu). Since most of the road was just gravel we had really good GPR data and GPS data (finally!). We had to keep reattaching the GPR wheel as that kept coming off, but other than that trifling detail things went swimmingly. To top off the day? We found 3 pre dug TRENCHES down to the water table (wohoo). Given how much coral rubble makes up these islands, digging trenches 1-3 meters deep can take an easy 2-3 hours, so finding some pre dug saves us so much time and energy.  We had a lovely lunch break at a roulette, where lynn got a big hamburger and fries (such good fries). I ate my packed lunch (staying on t...

MFT: Le Plongee de la ava Avatoru! LFP: Being sticky from humidity.  Hey, it’s Aleja’s Field Assistant, Lynn.  Aleja has decided that writing the blog is an important part of the fieldwork that I must help with. This was our first full day at Rangiroa.  We started off with a wonderful breakfast of cake (gateau) and toast.  The toast was made from good bread in a frying pan, so it had that yummy cooked butter crunch to it, arguably the best toast I have ever had. After breakfast we spend a good long time discussing the research itinerary with our hosts, many parts of the atoll are very dangerous to visit unless the winds are perfect.  We got to meet a local man, he came to pick up Philip (the third crew member) for an early morning dive, who studied under Jac Custo! He was very knowledgable about the island and helped us plan and found us a car for tomorrow. Since we had to wait till the next day for our car, we decided to get aquatinted with t...

MFT: Amazing Shower Water Pressure & Air Conditioning LFP: Waking up at 3 am to motor through the nasty squalls Hallo, so it was our last day of the SEA cruise and our arrival into Papeete! I had dawn watch, which was a bit of a misnomer because the only dawn we saw was a very faint brightening of the sky. The nasty squalls and bad weather continued all the way into Papeete. So dawn watch consisted of switching helmsman and lookout every 30 minutes. Not the best way to end the trip but oh well. Along the way, we even managed to pick up a passenger! A Brown Noddy (small sea bird) took refuge on our quarterdeck for the majority of the storm (at least for 12 hours). He was very cute and hopefully unhurt. We didn’t want to check too closely as he had a rather long beak. But it looked very cute to glance towards the gutter and see this little brown bird huddling down with all his feathers fluffed out. Everyone had to frantically finish packing their bags in the morning as...

MFT: No FIELD DAY LFP: Nasty weather and the staff are overworked Hallo, so today is our last day out at sea and its a doozy. We have like 10-20 ft seas, gusts up to 50 knots (in squalls) and a constant drizzle and washing of the deck. So the deck is restricted to crew and some on watch members. Luckily I’m in science today so I can be mostly dry, which is good because nothing dried from last night! Given the bad weather they even canceled field day extraordinaire. Today we were supposed to spend like 4 hours cleaning everything and then another 2 hours cleaning our bunks. Unfortunately, due to the weather things got changed a bit. We have no FIELD DAY! Woohoo — except for the fact that now the staff and crew have to do all the cleaning by themselves while on shore during their brief time before they leave. It sucks because there is so much to do and only like 10 of them. Anyways, we did end up doing bunk love — stripping the mattresses moving them all out and then vacuuming...

MFT: Calzones & fluffy cookies LFP: mid-watch with lots of squalls and rain :( Hallo, so yesterday, sadly the 24 hours of precipitation has turned out to be true (more than 24 hours at this point!). We have been having lots and lots of squalls interspersed with a steady drizzle. We had morning watch which was very long. The swell had picked up to about 6-8 ft waves (we haven’t had those in a couple of weeks!), but Jan was still determined to do one last science deployment. So we readied the hydrocast carousel and the Neuston net for a plankton tow. But mostly morning watch consisted of sailing handling, striking and resetting various sails. Since there was lots of swell and rain, it was not the funnest weather for hauling on lines. But we persevered and managed to get everything done. Sadly for the neuston tow, we are supposed to go 2 knots — we started out going 1.8 knots and then increased to 4.5 knots when we set the jib — no easy way to compromise!  On the other ...

MFT: Going Aloft LFP: Coming down! Hallo, it’s Thursday and we disembark on Sunday — the cruise is nearing its end. The best part of today was after dawn watch and laundry I decided to finally go aloft again! Apparently lots of other people had the same idea so it ended up that 5 of us went up the foremast and Taylor went up the mainmast. I spent over an hour aloft, mostly just sitting or standing in various spots. I went about as high up as you can go on the foremast, which is 115 ft tall! It was so incredibly amazing to be up there on a sunny day looking out over the entire boat and ocean.  I took some awesome photos of us all up there. Lauren and I talked for about 30 minutes standing on the top brace. We are both rather short but once we got all the way out to the edge of the yard arm we were able to brace back the foot rope (called the flemish horse) and hang a bit more comfortably.  We had evening watch after wards and I got thrown a curve ball! Apparently...