Week 4- Bekka Boyd

This past week at USFSP was full of excitement, pain, and once in a lifetime experiences. Monday we spent the day in the classroom, going over the open ocean, marine research, and marine biodiversity. It was a long day of lecture, but it was exciting because it was getting us all ready for the next day when we would board the Weatherbird!

Tuesday we got the opportunity to spend the day on the Weatherbird II. Walking up to the vessel, it was such an amazing sight. I think it was so interesting to be able to be on this boat and use all of its equipment, especially knowing that it helped out with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill! It took about four hours to get to our first station (off shore) and on the way, we saw dolphins, sea turtles, and numerous fish. Once we arrived, a crew member showed us how to operate an ROV, remotely operated vehicle. It was so neat!! We drove it around under the water with a joystick, kind of like a video game. The ROV had a camera on it so you could see what was going on in real time.

After we all got the chance to drive the ROV, we split off into our groups. My group handled the CTD, conductivity and temperature at depth. It has 12 bottles on it and when it is at the depth you want, you press a button to close the bottle you want to collect the water sample. We fired 6 bottles, 3 at the bottom and 3 in the middle of the water column. When we got the CTD back up on the boat, we drained two of the bottles into their own sample water bottles. We took them back to the wet lab and tested the waters pH, nitrates, salinity, conductivity, etc. 

Overall, this was such an amazing experience I will never forget. We saw so many creatures I've never seen before! There was an octopus, sea stars, sponges, and lots of the same species of crab! It was crazy and hectic, but I will cherish this memory forever.