The last two days have been the most incredible days of this
entire cruise. Yesterday was so much fun and today was spectacular!
I’ll start with yesterday. We are no longer sampling at 4
am, which means we can sleep in! When Jennifer and I woke up, we immediately
went up to the bridge to explore. The bridge is the control center of the ship
and contains the radar system, the wheel, and all sorts of other equipment
needed to steer the ship. We needed to go exploring between 8 am and 12 am
because our friend, the 3rd mate, is on watch at that time. The 2nd
mate is a woman and she is harsh and terrifying. We made sure that we were out
of the wheelhouse by noon so that we didn’t run into her. Dick, the 3rd
mate, took the boat off autopilot and let us actually steer it! It was awesome,
but it was really difficult to keep her on course. 
The best part of the day was when we sampled the megafauna…
a.k.a… we went fishing!! The ship doesn’t have any fishing poles, so we set up
hand lines all along the stern. We were going to make three passes near a buoy,
which is where the fish like to congregate. I manned one of the poles as we
slowly motored by. As soon as we passed the buoy, all the lines went taut.
Everyone frantically pulled the lines in as fast as possible. I pulled my fish
right up to the boat, but right as one of the crew members went to pull on
deck, it slipped off the line. The same thing happened on the second pass near
the buoy. On the third pass, Jennifer and I worked together to pull it in and
we were able to successfully flip the flopping fish onto the deck. In total, we
caught 10 Bigeye Tuna. 
Notice: People with weak stomachs should NOT read this next
paragraph. I suggest you skip down to the following one.
Now that the
fish were on the deck, they needed to be “put to sleep.” Someone armed me with
a thick stick and told me to hit them until they died. Because of this, I have
earned the nickname “killer.” I
seriously wacked at them, but they still twitched so one of the crewmembers, Carlos, sliced their throats. Blood was all over the deck… and all over me. I ruined one of my favorite T-shirts because it was covered in blood spatters! Then, it was time to clean the fish (cut out the meat). Carlos cut out the best section, the belly cut, and sliced it into smaller pieces. Yajuan, one of the Duke grad students, was already armed with a bowl and soy sauce. We all grabbed a piece of raw fish, dunked it in the soy sauce and ate it! I was skeptical at first, but it was delicious!! You can’t get sushi any fresher than that! Many of the scientists wanted to learn how to clean the fish, so Carlos taught us how. I went first and had a blast ripping apart the fish while my teacher yelled at me to be careful. My fish turned out great! Many of the scientists took turns cleaning the fish, but because we are all scientists, most of the “cleaning” turned into dissections once the good meat had been removed. We found inflated swim bladders, green gall bladders, black livers, and of course, the heart. The crew told us that you could eat the heart. Some of the more adventurous/reckless scientists (myself included) decided to try a bite. I took a large piece and popped it into my mouth. At first it didn’t taste like anything, but it had the texture of a gummy bear. As I bit into it though, the taste of blood filled my mouth and I bent over and almost threw-up. I suppressed my gag reflex and was able to swallow it. It was probably the grossest thing I have ever eaten, but I did it!
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| About to throw up, little pieces of the heart in my hand. |
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| Our artwork!... tragically lost:( |
The next thing we did was much less gross. Normally, we
gather samples from >200 meters. The max depth so far has only been around
300 meters. Today, we sent Rosy, the rosette, down to 4000 meters! At that
depth, the pressure is so great that it will compress anything that isn’t
compact, such as styrofoam. For the past few days, the scientists have been
decorating styrofoam cups, heads, and pipette holders. We were going to send
them down to 4000 meters and when they resurfaced, everything would be tiny.
The pressure would compress all of the Styrofoam into miniaturized versions of
the things we originally sent down. Everyone has a few decorated cups of their
own and we were all really excited. We put all of our beautiful decorations in
a couple of bags and attached them to the rosette. I helped to deploy the
rosette and as it sunk below the water, a lone pipette holder bobbed to the
surface. Of course, it was mine. I sadly watched it float away. Everyone was so
worried that we would lose all of our artwork. The cast was going to take
around 4 hours to complete so we had to wait and wonder. At one point, we saw
the beautifully painted foam heads pop to the surface and float away. We were
still hopeful that everything else would make it. When the cast resurfaced, we
were faced with the harsh reality. A lone bag was dutifully hanging on to the
rosette, but it had torn open and none of our creations were to be found. I
guess I’ll just have to come on another research cruise so that I can finally
make a miniature foam cup!
After so many monotonous days, so much excitement wore us
out and we were exhausted. Unfortunately, we had a presentation the next day so
we had to stay up late to prepare. As soon as my alarm clock went off this
morning, I bounced out of bed and ran outside. We were expecting to see shore
today. I couldn’t see land right when I woke up, but I was treated to a
gorgeous sunrise instead. After breakfast, however, I went to the bow of the
ship and was graced with a beautiful site. The green-covered mountains of Kauai,
one of the Hawaiian islands, sat on the horizon, half hidden by clouds. For a
month, I have seen unobstructed horizons. To see land was… unsettling. It made
me anxious because it meant that this trip was almost at an end and I would
soon have to reenter the real world.
Our presentations began at 8 this morning, but just as
Jackson started to speak, the captain came on the loud speaker and announced
that there were whales off the starboard side! Everyone begged Dr. Johnson to
let us go see them. He relented and let us have a five minute break.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t spot any of them. After the presentations, I
realized that I had cell phone service again and I had a chance to call home.
As I was in the middle of a conversation with Chrissie, I happened to glance
over the water and saw a humpback whale! It was amazing!
The rest of the day was spent packing up all of our equipment.
It was long and tiring work, but we all worked together and had fun. We motored
close to the coast of Kauai for the entire day and it was absolutely beautiful!
We could see cliffs, waterfalls, and beaches from the boat. Throughout the day,
we spotted hundreds of whales and rainbows. The rainbows would shine for a
while and then go away and pop up somewhere else. We saw rainbows in the water
and double rainbows arching through the sky. It was spectacular. The whales
were even more amazing. Every so often we would glance at the water and see
several whales spouting jets of water into the sky. Some surfaced close to the boat. We were able to see their humps rise up out of the water and their tales slap the surface right before they dove.
The best time of day was just before sunset. I kid you not, we saw hundreds of
humpback whales, not just surfacing, but also jumping full out of the water, a
process known as breaching. These huge animals were so graceful. It was like
they were dancing for us! I honestly can’t describe how magical the scene was.
Whale pictures will be added soon!
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