MISSION DISPATCH 1 • 4/16/01 Today's Weather - images courtesy of NOAA & RSMAS 1630 - R/V SEWARD JOHNSON Departs From HBOI The Marine Operations Crew put the R/V SEWARD JOHNSON into shipshape order slightly ahead of schedule today, allowing for a departure from home port at 1630 (4:30 p.m. to myself and the rest of the unregimented) on Monday afternoon. Scientific and support personnel aboard were setting out on Day One of the Marsh Youngbluth et al. one-week appendicularian research mission to the western Gulf Stream. Curiously, Dr. Youngbluth was not among those present. Instead, Marsh untied our stern line from its cleat and helped us shove off for the fueling dock in Fort Pierce to the south of us. Resignedly, he stayed behind to await FedEx delivery of some video gear that absolutely, positively was supposed to be here three days earlier. If only Easter would not hop around on the calendar from year to year, then surely these best-laid research plans would be carried out without a hitch. At any rate, we're scheduled to take on fuel in Fort Pierce after a quick run offshore to shake the dust off the engines. We'll remain docked through the evening, and Marsh, a couple of technicians, and most of the sub crew will (hopefully) find their way to the ship between 1900 tonight and the scheduled departure time of 0630 on Tuesday. 1700 - Mission Preparations Underway Satisfied that I have shot sufficient digital imagery of the ship getting under way, I stow the cameras and check in with the Science Team. They have begun setting up the various shipboard labs that will become the duct-taped, bungie-corded, cable-tied, or otherwise tethered nerve centers of science operations while at sea. None of the investigators wants to see their computers or mind-bogglingly expensive video/microscope setups toppled off the benchtops if the ship finds rough weather; as each piece of gear is brought up and running, it is fastidiously secured in place. Scientists scurry about, unloading gear, getting the labs set up, wondering how they could have forgotten to pack this or that and improvising ad hoc workarounds that would impress the Apollo 13 flight crew. They exchange introductions with some of us new kids and catch up with one another. I pitch in, securing some computer hardware. I have to slowly overcome a degree of suspicion from this group of water column scientists; apparently, Marsh tipped one of them off about my upbringing as a benthic ecologist. We work until the galley staff, Stewart and Christina, call us to dinner. The ship's quarters may be Spartan, but the meals -- if the initial one is any indication -- are first class. My official story to my wife next week (it's the truth, honey...) is that I enjoyed quarter-portions of everything and stuck unwaveringly to my diet. 2100 - Preparations Continue After dinner, I unpack my sweatshirt and follow Dr. Alexander Bochdansky into the "cold room" a thermally regulated walk-in environmental lab kept cool to accommodate the physiologies of living organisms retrieved from depth during sub dives. Alex has gotten Jimmy Nelson of Marine Operations to build him a wooden base to allow a stereomicroscope to be mounted on its side. This will facilitate viewing appendicularians and their feeding houses in profile -- rather than looking down at their dorsal surfaces such as a typical microscope setup would allow. We spend some time cobbling together successive incarnations of a video camera system to use with this setup. Two CCD cameras, two adapters, and a half-dozen nearly correct cables later, Alex thinks we've got something that'll work. Marsh is back aboard the ship now. He seems satisfied that preparations have progressed in his absence. I change gears and start to get his videomicroscope system together, while he turns his attention to putting finishing touches on a bank of acrylic detritus samplers that will be mounted on the JOHNSON SEA-LINK I (JSL I) research submersible tomorrow morning. Slowly, the scientists begin to turn in for the evening. I leave Marsh and Alexander at about 2330, as they fine tune data collection game plans for the upcoming sub dives. 2300 - Round Up the Usual Suspects In the narrow entranceway corridor I pass Senior Submersible Pilot Phil Santos, who has just come on board. There is still a handful of personnel who will come aboard after everyone but the night watch and the ever cheery @Sea mission correspondent has turned in. A couple of crew members have been watching a tape of Casablanca on in the ship's lounge, while the scientists complete the last of the evening's tasks. I know the film well enough so that I make sure to pass by a couple of times to catch the best bits: "I remember it like it was yesterday; the Germans wore gray, you wore blue... "The problems of three people don't amount to a hill of beans... Major Strausser has been shot; round up the usual suspects..." Ten scientists and science support staff from four different countries have converged to participate in the current mission. Marsh Youngbluth and the four visiting investigators have collaborated to varying degrees on appendicularian projects in the past, but as far as anyone can recall, there has never before been an exploration of this scope devoted solely to these animals. Upcoming Activities The R/V SEWARD JOHNSON will depart Fort Pierce tomorrow (Tuesday) at 0630, for a day of shakedown dives with the JSL I in offshore waters. Dives are scheduled for 0800-1700. During the dives, several new pieces of equipment will be field-tested for the first time, including a pair of large detritus samplers and a new, high-resolution digital video camera system. Science dives, MOCNESS net tows, and associated activities are slated to begin on Wednesday. This expedition is made possible through a grant from the Biological Oceanography Program of the National Science Foundation with additional support from Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution.

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