Why I am not changing majors...

11/3 A day in the life of an Oceanographer. . .

6:30am-- Depart campus on mini bus
11:00am--Board the Walton Smith research vessel in Miami

2:00pm--Deploy CTD to measure salinity, temperature, and depth of location in Gulf Stream

3:00pm--Deploy super awesome plankton tow nets

Chillout and whatnot until we let down the CTD and nets again around 10pm

4:30 am-- finally safe and warm in my bed...only to wake up three hours later for Chem lab!

So on our plankton tows we were seeing the differences in plankton type and concentration at the different levels in the water column. It was way cool and super fun and really brought me back to my days on the Robert C. Seamans. Except for on that ressearch vessel we had to measure dissolved oxygens by winkler titration while we were moving on a sailboat, whereas on the Walton Smith we just look at the computer screens... I prefer titrating, I think it's more exciting. But none-the-less it was a wonderful day being an oceanographer. We saw a pod of dolphins partying around our boat, and we saw a bunch of flying fish once the sun went down. No one got super sea sick, and I got to spend some quality time with Justin and Holly (two of the grad students working for Dr. Johnson). Not to mention I got to check out plankton and learn a lot from the pros.

Today is blogging catch up day, so expect some more posts later.

love,

whitney!