A Voyage to Gloucester Mass

Author: Tallulah

After our first few days of sun and light winds that came with beautiful sunsets and many animal sightings, forecasted fog has caught up with us. The beginning of my day along with the rest of C watch started at 1:00 AM.  I was on lab with Cade and Lily where we caught up on our latest Neuston net tow that B watch had deployed the watch before (1900-0100). We examined our tow by first picking out each organism that was over 2cm. The biggest thing we noted from this catch was the lack in biodiversity, usually there would be many various organisms, but our catch only consisted of euphausids (krill), and copepods. After we sorted through the catch, we did a 100 count of all our zooplankton from the Neuston tow to get a general consensus of the diversity. After we logged that info, we collected more samples from the water and put them through a chlorophyll-a filtration system that will allow us to measure those amounts. After that, we prepared our science report for class later in the day, did some line handling, and made a to-do list for the next watch which basically concluded our lab watch.

After getting a few more hours of sleep, I woke up and wrote a whole bunch of letters with some of B and C watch, and helped prepare for morning snack which was prepared by our stews, Seb and Rachel. After the first shower of the trip along with a short nap, I was ready for class. We got the news that we were significantly close to Gloucester Mass, and would be anchoring in the harbor until Sunday/Monday to avoid tropical storm Philippe coming our way. Then Ryan and Isabel did a weather report, Whis and Cass did a nav report, and Lily Cade and I did our science report. After class we did some practice sail handling while entering the Gloucester harbor. When we anchored everyone was so relieved because we were switched to 2 hour watches instead of our usual 6. As the sun started to come down, Ian, Myles, Emma, Whis, Madi, Sophie, Lily and I embroidered our sweatshirts, and read on the lab roof. Then I changed into my overalls so me and Madi could match and take flicks. We were just hanging out when a big wedding cruise passed us and we had to say hi and a big congrats while they circled us. After this, we had delicious pizza made by Seb, Rachel, and Jackson who was the student steward of the day, it was so good. After dinner, Ryan and I had our two hour anchor watch which was full of anchor checks, boat checks, and practicing all of our lines. Finally, after a lotta laughs, we got through it and now I'm writing my blog. Overall it was a gross and foggy day, but our group made the best of it and we had a blast anyways like usual.