Dispatch 17: Good Morning, Night Watch!

Chris guiding the CTD on deck and Justin controlling the A-frame (the yellow beams that move the CTD from over the water to over the deck).

Justin juggling!

Completed puzzle (minus two pieces that mysteriously disappeared).

A map of the cruise track, with the green star indicating our approximate location.

Annika Margevich

October 1, 2023

Dispatch 17: Good Morning, Night Watch!

Science on board the Louis S. St-Laurent is 24/7. This means that whenever we arrive at station, scientists must be ready to deploy their instruments, with help from the crew of course. To make sure that everyone is rested, some scientists are put onto a day shift (noon to midnight) and others on the night shift (midnight to noon). Each shift needs someone who can operate the CTD computer and someone to lead on deck as well as extra hands on deck to help with operations like bongos. I am on the night shift with four other people: Chris (who is our watch leader), Sarah, Sam, and Justin. When the cruise first started, we all had to wrestle with our sleep schedule so that we could sleep during the day and be ready to start working at midnight. Some days are still harder than others, but once you’re up and have some coffee, it’s easier to get the “day” going. Another thing that is different about the night shift is that there are fewer people around. Only some people get put onto day vs. night shift, and the others are more on their own schedule, or they are up to sample from the CTD and process their samples and squeak in naps during the in between times. Luckily for us, the five of us get along well so we are content to work and hang out together.

Sometimes when we begin our shift, we will come on to a CTD needing to be deployed or we’ll be in the middle of a cast, so we pick up where day shift left off and get it on deck and have a sampling party at 1 am! Once we are done, we’ll store samples, transcribe our hand-written logs from the cast to a digital record, prepare labels for samples on the upcoming cast, and process some samples as well. We do our best to keep busy, but inevitably we end up with a little down time here and there. In that time, we have two very talented jugglers (Justin and Sarah) who put on great shows! Chris and Sam are still working on improving their juggling skills so that they can join the performances too. There is a puzzle on a table outside the board room that gets worked on throughout both shifts. Sam really carries the night shift in our contribution to the completion of the puzzle. He just finished the current one this morning! I like to work on some crosswords in between casts and having everyone’s help when I get stuck is super nice. All in all, being on the night shift isn’t as bad as you might think. Sure, the sleep schedule is a little un-natural, but if you are working with fun people doing super cool science, it is hard to complain!