SEA Cruise 2000 (June 29 - July 8)
Tin Klanjscek

I used to be a physicist, so this cruise was my initiation into the wonderful world of oceanography. Although I spent time on a boat during vacation before, this was a completely new experience.

Westward, our 135-foot sailing ship, was beautiful. It looked and felt like a fairytale. Sunsets were bested only by sunrises. At times the fog was so dense that it felt like the ship and the small circle of visible sea around it were the only things that existed. There were nights when the intensity of bioluminescence was unbelievable. Gliding through the water without the noise of the engine added immensely to the adventure. This, however, could have been experienced on any sailing cruise.

What made this one special was our role in the functioning of the ship. There were three watches, so that at any given time, there were two teams at work: science and crew. The science team had the responsibility of collecting and processing samples and data. Functioning of the ship was responsibility of the crew team. Fortunately, we were supervised at all times, and did not sink the ship. The need to cooperate and interact brought all of us together.

Not everything was rosy, though. Remember I mentioned that at any time there was somebody up? Well, guess what... that somebody included me every couple of shifts. Although the idea of sleeping 4-6 hours at a time on an irregular schedule while others are eating just a couple of inches away sounds less than pleasant, I actually felt well rested after the first shock went by.

Luckily (for me :), I was one of the few who did not get sick following big waves the first day out on the sea. For me, the most unpleasant part was "the pinger"—the depth sounder located right below my bunk bed. As the sea got deeper, the pinger got louder. Imagine sleeping with a pretty loud ping every 10 seconds or so. I was the happiest man on board when we got back to the shallow seas. Piece of advice: bring earplugs with you.

The science team had the pleasure of collecting sea surface and temperature data every hour. More interesting duties included plankton net tows, obtaining sediment cores, lowering CTDs (conductivity, temperature and depth meters), carousel (gets samples of water from different depths), and other stuff one would NOT like to lose. Throwing stuff overboard was fun; getting it back, even more so. We tested a couple of current meters SEA was looking to purchase as well.

The crew team was doing everything needed to keep the boat in good shape: looking out for stuff in the water, raising and lowering the sails, piloting, cleaning the dishes, cleaning the galley, morning comprehensive cleaning, and cleaning in general. Did I mention we had to clean stuff? Now, that was not fun... but the other stuff more than made up for it. We had to know the name of every rope (and there were quite a few) on the ship. Sounds like a difficult task? It wasn't, especially since we had a competition between the shifts in rope-naming.

The last day of the cruise, everybody had to make a presentation with the data collected. I decided to check the compass in the current meters. It turned out that either currents in the whole water column consistently changed their direction by 30° whenever the current meters were changed (only one could be deployed at a time), or their internal compasses were flawed. Guess which answer gets my vote!

On this cruise we also had a task to make a "water retrieval device" from stuff around us. The success of the device was measured by how well the conductivity and temperature of the water from the device corresponded to the in-situ measurement done by a CTD. Our team won with the IPFRASWTAS (Inflatable Puffer Fish for Retrieval and Analysis of Sea Water Temperature And Salinity) device. The device was lowered deflated and with a cork in its mouth. The cork was pulled out when the device reached the desired depth. Inflation resulted in water intake. Sounds silly, but it worked.

SEA organizes cruises for schools and other institutions, so even if you do not have the privilege of being a JP student, you might get on one of their cruises. http://www.sea.edu/.