News

Thursday, 23 July 2026
Noon Position: (Lat and Long): 42 deg 58.92’N x 070 deg 13.94’W
Ship Heading:  194 deg
Ship Speed: 6.5 kts
Log: 336.1 nm
Weather / Wind: Almost perfectly clear/ wind of 7 knots blowing at 240 degrees
Anchored Menemsha Bight, Martha’s Vineyard

Hiiii! This is Conor, Claire, and Grayer coming to you from four in the morning plankton studies. The day has been a whirlwind of triumph and fish and photos of Claire. It began with a typical morning of deployments from us lab B watchers while Emma, Grayer, and Claire ripped many boaties (a.k.a. did a lot of boat checks).  

Sometime during the morning deployment, 2^nd mate Jer found a dried-up flying fish underneath one of the sails we had not yet set during the voyage.  We took this as an important sign from from the sea, or from somewhere.  The morning was spent deploying all devices but the most important for us was the CTD, Niskin Bottles, and Secchi Disk as they are responsible for collecting the data we need for our final project that we chose yesterday, that being The Search for Phytoplankton City.  

Searching for Phyto City involves looking for the intersection of light, nutrients, and oxygen levels to find the area most suitable for phytoplankton and then measuring chlorophyll levels to find where the highest density actually is. We’re looking forward to incorporating these data into our project presentation!

Another exciting part of the day was the pin rail chase. This is a contest to see which watch, as a team. can identify all of the important sail handling and science deployment lines the quickest. B Watch won!!!

Conor, Claire, and Grayer

P.S. (from other crew)
I miss you Camden and Navy!!!!! And the rest of you guys too, I guess. – Beckett
I miss you!!!!! – Adri