Another day, another dollar....not really.

I haven't blogged the last two days because they've sucked. And I've been in an accordingly sucky mood. We had two incidences where the DIDSON did not record; one was my fault and another was due to unknown circumstances. I have, of course, been beating myself up over it and sulking. Everyone keeps saying "it's ok to make mistakes" but there is definitely a lot of pressure. Note to self: if you ever start to feel like you have a good grip on what's going on....you don't. Otherwise, things seem to be going ok for everyone else, and we appear to be back on track for getting the number of sites we need inside and outside the research closure area. I'm on the home stretch...5 days until I'm home. I'll get some boat time this afternoon and be able to get the hell out of the lab, so a little sunshine will do me some good.

Wait for it....productivity!

Behold! We've collected our first data. It was crappy data, but it was data. Getting the DIDSON to 1. work and 2. download it's memory (albeit very, very slowly) is the vast majority of the battle and one I always seem to lose. But, it went off without a hitch. The data we got was pretty fuzzy and had a ton of background noise; we're waiting to pull the camera up from today's deployment momentarily so we'll see how the adjustments we made changed anything. Hopefully the logistical nightmares have ceased so that we can deploy twice a day. I still feel like I have NO idea what's going on, I'm hoping to shake this feeling sometime before the end of my time on this ship (which is thankfully in 6 days. I'm not a fan of ship life). Actually, I'm hoping to shake this feeling sometime before the end of grad school. I constantly go back and forth between being extremely confident (hey, I can explain my research in a coherent manner!) to being convinced they're going to kick me out at any moment (hey...everyone here is WAY smarter than I am...). Peter keeps telling me to "take notes" for when I'm chief scientist...HAH. For now, I'm just going through the motions of assembling, disassembling, charging, downloading, etc. Today was pretty boring...it's a lot of "hurry up and wait." I rush to get everything prepped and ready to go....and then have nothing to do once the divers get it on the boat. This should get better as time progresses and I have more data to pick through, but that also means I'll see the light of day less (I've been outside twice in the last four days). Anyways, off to recover the camera and begin the long process of downloading.

Fair winds and following seas

Greetings from the Nancy Foster! As always, I've promised to blog this trip. As always, I'll probably lose steam within a few days (I'm already exhausted... only two weeks left.........). After the general confusion and chaos that ensues with a lot of really exhausted people who are responsible for a lot of really expensive equipment, we've begun trying to figure out (and test) when it would be appropriate to deploy the DIDSON, and how. For now, it seems like we're going to do a morning diver deployment, let it collect data for 3-4 hours, and then pick it up with the J-frame of the ship around noon. This process gets repeated again in the afternoon, so that we record through sunset. We want to get a comparison between predation rates at periods of low activity (daytime) to periods of high activity (twilight periods). Things are running oddly smoothly. Readers (probably just my dad) should understand that things NEVER run smoothly with this camera. There is always some sort of housing leak, battery malfunction, data malfunction, etc. But, I'll be cautiously optimistic and say that we're on track, and better yet, our timing seems to mesh reasonably well with the 50,000 (exaggeration) other projects going on.

These trips are always a little anxiety inducing for me. I get very anxious that I have no idea what's going on the first few days...and then I get very anxious that nobody else does, either. I constantly re-read a paper Peter sent me on "the importance of feeling stupid in science". All things considered, though, I love what I do and can explain it thoroughly, so I'm father along than most grad students...

And now, for something completely different....

The goal of this year's Aquiarius mission is as much outreach and education as it is science. Moreso, actually. The daily live broadcasts to schools via http://www.oceanslive.org/ is a stellar example of the point I'd like to make about current conservation issues.



First, let me say that I hate, hate, hate organizations like Green Peace for many reasons, mostly that they are ineffective and through their zealot-like antics they actually drive away the people they need to reach-- the general public. The doom-and-gloom, approach towards being "green" and "eco-friendly" and "saving the whales" is absolutely useless. Throwing the general public on guilt trips about throwing out a plastic bottle will. Not. Work. It's a very temporary solution, because people are creatures of habit.



Which brings me back to the education. It's all well and good to say, "children are our future," but in this case, it really is true. Kid's don't understand the concept of "if you don't recycle, the world will end." Kids understand the concept of, "nature is really cool, so you should care about it." I whole heartedly believe that the key to successful conservation is inciting a cultural wanderlust phenomenon...while this can be done in adults, kids are so pliable, and are eager to be fascinated by something.

Anyways, this is all very tangential, and I think I may work on writing something a little more coherent.

Day....what day is it?

It's day 4, I think, and already I'm dropping the ball on the blogging. Sigh. This happens every time I'm in the field and promise to keep a blog (which I'm sure only my dad reads), but it's so. so. exhausting. Por exemple, today was rise and shine at 7 am. Eat a quick breakfast, pack dive gear and confirm boat ops for an 8:30 am departure. Scope a DIDSON site or two and screw around with the SIMRAD (Split-beam sonar, much like a fish-finder) until 1:00 pm. Break for a quick lunch, then DIDSON programming and prep, dive prep, etc for round two. Pack the boat, leave at 4:00 pm. Arrive on pre-determined site, deploy the DIDSON, run SIMRAD transect lines, and then anchor and let the DIDSON run while the divers observe, until it's pulled up around 7:30 PM. Arrive back at base, unpack, clean up, charge batteries, download data, debrief. It is now 11:30 PM.

Anyways, a little more about the DIDSON:
We got data! Night before last. We went to Pennecamp state park and deployed the DIDSON in a mangrove channel near shore. We got some stellar footage of common snook chasing striped mullet up and down the channel, as well as what we think is a bonnethead shark (judging by the shape, size, movement, and the way the fish inspects the sonar-- sharks can detect the electromagnetic signals easily). I also got some water time in yesterday. I can't dive, but we scoped out some shallow reefs with snorkel gear. Visibility was fairly low, which lead to a serious "oh shit" moment with a goliath grouper (4-6 foot grouper, not particularly aggressive but not exactly wary either). It was the highlight of my trip! Today, however, despite the deploying of the DIDSON in full autonomous mode (logging data to a memory card and running off a battery pack) and all systems running fairly smoothly, we got rather crappy footage. The sand ripples in the sand halo surrounding the reef created major background noise, so tomorrow morning is key for zoning in on the right angle to position the lense to still capture the bottom, but avoid this noise. We noticed the same problem with the sea grass beds at Pennecamp.

I feel like I have a lot to say about the purpose of this mission, but I'm too freaking tired to say it now. Tomorrow will be a slight bit more leisurely, so I'll write more then.

We all live in a yellow submarine...

First full day with the fine Marine Sanctuary/NOAA/UNCW folks preparing for the Aquarius mission. More on that later. For now, because of the insane winds, the DIDSON team has been shore-bound and extremely unproductive. The general question has been, "what should I be doing?" and the general answer has been, "I have no idea." The result is a lot of Cuban food, dark and stormys, and visits to West Marine. The house I'm staying in reminds me a lot of the Twilight Zone-- there are a lot of dead bugs, it seems like nobody's been there for years but there's a thriving invert tank, there is a rack of mysterious vials in the freezer, and a clock outside that's always wrong. There are also very creepy insect posters above my bed. However, everyone here (who all inconveniently have some variation of the same name, it seems) is extremely nice.

Now, for the science.
First: DIDSON. The hope has been to deploy the DIDSON in full autonomous mode on various points along the reef and use this data in conjunction with the SIMRAD transducer on the boat. Because we can't use the boats due to high winds, our plan B for now is to just plunk the DIDSON down in continuous mode (with a shore-based power supply) in a mangrove channel and cross our fingers. God willing, the camera will connect to the network, and ideally the battery housing won't leak. Maybe. We'll be deploying it tonight around dusk to see if we can watch juvenile snappers, etc, migrate out of the safety of the channel to feed. All of the cool autonomous stuff, which I happen to need for my thesis, will most likely be done after I leave.

Second: Aquarius. Aquarius is a big freaking deal. At our briefing this morning, I learned that, between live webcasts and tweeting (twittering? twits?) to schools, local media coverage, and national media coverage (think CNN, NBC, etc), the Aquarius mission and outreach project at www.oceanslive.org will reach between 50-60 million people. It's essentially like going to space, and the aquanauts (yes, that is a technical term), train heavily and over two years of prep goes into each mission. It's really quite cool to be a part of something so big (over 30 people are involved in the production and science aspects), and I'll be contributing DIDSON sonar footage to one of the many documentary-type episodes they will be shooting this week. I may even get to appear in one of the episodes, we'll see.