The slope

January 21 2019 (Note: this is #20 in a series of posts describing my NSF-sponsored fieldwork in Antarctica aboard the Laurence M. Gould).

Today I woke up as we sampled one of our offshore stations (offshore from the continental shelf, in the deeper waters of the slope). Then we steamed about five hours toward the next offshore station to the South. Once we got there it would be a couple hours to bring the CTD down to the bottom and back up again. I used the time to catch up on all kinds of things. I changed the water in my experiment, entered all my recent samples into a database, wrote my weekly science report, and reviewed some more graduate admissions files (for my “day job” back home). It felt good to catch up on the paperwork backlog, but as I was reading those admissions files, we started passing through some rolling waves. I didn’t quite feel queasy, but a was very tired and couldn’t face the thought of working on my computer any more. I checked in with Debbie and then headed off for a nap.

Two hours later I woke up feeling like I had been in a deep dark cave. I wanted to stay in that cave and sleep for another century or so, but it was time to get moving. I shook out the cobwebs, headed downstairs and got ready for our next station. I sampled a bunch more copepods, allowing me to compare the condition of animals collected offshore from those collected in the nutrient-rich coastal waters.