Programs Blog

At 0700, ‘C watch’ took the deck. After getting the anchor up following an engine malfunction, they set the mainsail, main staysail, fore staysail, and jib, the “four lowers;” as well as the coarse and the topsail. We had such plentiful wind that we shaved an hour and a half off our ETA to our first science station. Our first station of the day was inspiringly productive. ‘C watch’ had the chance to take a sediment sample off the surface of Jeffery’s Ledge, deploy the Secchi disk-an instrument to measure how clear the water is-and deploy a CTD. It is a tradition on the Corwith Cramer to have a competition to guess what the measurement of the visibility will be. Adrian, a stellar representative from ‘A watch’ came in first place with a very scientific bet of 6.9 meters, a mere 0.1 meters away from the actual measurement of 7 meters.

 ‘A watch’ had a slower morning today which we used to recover from our long and rainy previous night watch. We began our shift at 13:00 under a clear sky. After coming out of hove to, a technique in which you stop the ship by forcing the sails to work against each other (we need to be stopped in order to deploy science equipment), we had an encounter with some fishing gear (again) that became entangled in the propeller. Drew, our valiant Chief Mate dove into the frigid waters from the rescue boat that ‘A watch’ had deployed to untangle the line. Following the brave rescue, we had a muster (ships meeting) on the quarter deck. Jeff (Chief Scientist) led a lesson on the purpose of the CTD, a tool that measures Conductivity, Temperature, Depth, dissolved oxygen, and chlorophyll-A; and how it helps us explore the stratification of the water column. We learned that one of the implications of the stratification is the creation of a variable layer in the column called the “phytoplankton city”. The thermocline acts as a barrier that prevents the mixing of the lower and the upper layers of the column, leading to the ideal conditions for phytoplankton being at the barrier between these two layers.

As part of the science team for the watch, Leo, Adrian, and Kaman sifted through sediment to determine the distribution of different sediment samples. In one of these samples, we found a brittle star, which we then put into our aquarium. We are currently building a diverse ecosystem within our humble aquarium. Unfortunately, shortly after the brittle star entered its new home, it was attacked by some fiendish isopods, and was killed in battle. We finished the day off with chocolate covered strawberries, courtesy of our amazing stewards, Valentine and Brooke, and a dolphin sighting off the portside (left for all you land-lubbers).

– ‘A watch’: Leo, Kaman, Adrian, Alex, Liam, Maddy, and Mary.