Noah's Ark!

The past two days have been extremely interesting!

Ultra-calm! You can barely distinguish
between the sky and the water!

First of all, last time I posted, I talked about how calm it was here. I was wrong. It was not calm a few days ago. It’s calm today. Like, ultra-calm. It looks like a lake out here. I had no idea the ocean could ever look like this! Especially the North Pacific! It’s like something out of Life of Pi! In all my travels on the ocean, I have never seen it this still before.  I guess I’m so astonished because on the last cruise, the giant waves were crashing over the 35-foot bow. This time, it is calm enough to see my reflection in the water. Once again, the ocean surprises me. I can’t help but see God reflected in the ocean. I mean, He is immense and powerful, yet merciful and loving. I could never fully understand Him, no matter how hard I try. I guess all this time on the ocean makes me a bit introspective! :)

This picture was taken by looking down
at the water from the bow. You can see
reflected clouds as well as my head!

Cold air, calm water

So we have traveled much farther North on this journey than on the last one. Currently, we are at the same latitude as someplace in Canada and it is cold! Along with the colder temperatures, we have noticed an increase in the levels of nutrients in the water column. These high abundances of nutrients cause a bloom in the amount of life in this region. I’m not just talking about Prochlorococcus. I’m also referring to jellyfish, squid, and an assortment of bioluminescent critters in the ocean. We have been marveling at all the creatures we can see lurking right below the surface as we pull the CTD out of the water.

All the scientists eagerly looking
for whales!

Most exciting was when we spotted a whole pod of Pilot whales swimming nearby. There must have been at least 10 of these extremely rare deep-diving mammals. It was exhilarating to see them spouting pretty close to the boat. They were moving fast, but we saw them on the approach and watched them as they passed us. It was amazing!

We have also kept a close look out for birds. It’s not uncommon to see albatrosses and other large birds soaring above the water. However, things got pretty interesting yesterday morning when we saw a bird the side of a sparrow flying around the stern of the boat during the midnight CTD cast. It’s unusual to see such small birds out here in the middle of nowhere. All of a sudden, WHAM! The bird flew into the loading bay and hit a wall! One of the crew members, Lawson, picked it up, thinking it was dead. Believe it or not, the little bird was still alive, but pretty dazed. We think the bird (called a Storm Petrel) had become distracted by all the lights shining around the back deck. Lawson told me to take it up to the bow (where there were fewer lights) and let it’s eyes adjust to the darkness, then toss it overboard so it could return to the wild. So, I went up to the bow and waited until I thought the little bird was ready to fly away. I help it over the water and dropped it, expecting it to fly away to its friends. All I heard was a little ‘plop’ and it hit the water! I screamed, thinking I had killed it (the screaming was probably a bad idea, considering I was on the bow of the ship in the middle of the night. I thought the captain would sound the alarm that someone had gone overboard, but luckily, all remained quiet aboard the Kilo Moana).

Our storm petrel! (check out his
webbed feet!)

Sadly, I walked back to the stern and informed my friends that I was a murderer. Then, a few minutes later as I about to recover the CTD, I saw the storm petrel again! This time it had a buddy and it was happily enjoying the natural environment! Yay!

With all these animals we have spotted, I feel like we are aboard Noah's Ark!