Week Two Location: USFSP

This week was jammed packed to say the least. We were lucky enough to have memorial day off so class did not start until Tuesday. For the majority of Tuesday we learned the different pieces of equipment that we would be using Wednesday on the Weather Bird. These pieces of equipment included the Bongo net, Neuston net, CTD scanner, Otter trawl, and finally the Dredge. Each piece of equipment has its own purpose. Both the Neuston and the Bongo nets are used to collect plankton data however, the Neuston samples at the top of the water column while the Bongo net samples from below the surface. The CTD scanner is a complex array of different types of probes which were then used to measure Salinty, Temperature, Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonium, and more. Lastly the Otter trawl and the Dredge were used to sample biodiversity in the water column as well as the benthos. 

Wednesday morning came quick as we piled all of our gear onto the Weather Bird, which is a research ship used to survey the open ocean, and began our adventure out to sea. That day we visited two stations and sample from each. The first one however, was roughly 3 hours away from the dock so it was a long ride out to say the least.While under way the Captain gave a safety brief for a little while then we were let lose onto the ship.  During this time I saw a hammer head shark drift down under the waves as well as playful dolphin race our ship for awhile until they got bored and dived under the water.   

While at the sites we were split up into groups of  3-4 people and each given a job. My group was in charge of the dredge for station 1 and otter trawl for station 2. The excitement of seeing new organisms was soon out competed by the need to identify every last creature we had caught. Some of which we had to wait until the final two days too identify. I quickly learned that I don't enjoy identifying organisms so I was able to retreat to the dry lab where I began the long process of complying all of the data into excel so that we could use it for later. Some of our group really dislikes this part but to me its better than staring at something for hours trying to identify it. The day was long and tiring to say the least but it has been the most fun I have had it a very long while. 

We began Thursday later than usual to give everyone time to recover from the long day we had on the weather bird. It was not a pleasant morning because we were tasked with dissecting some sponges we had collected the previous day. They smelt worse then most portable public toilets, it was truly nauseating but on the bright side it was over within 30 minutes and I learned that I will not be studying sponges in the future. After Lunch we learned about plankton and how to quantify them result properly it was said that one our samples held over 97,000 individuals of one plankton species.

We wrapped up the week on Friday. Which happened to be the day that my friend Autumn and I finished putting all the data into the computer. After lunch we analyzed the data and created possible questions to answer with the data. 

Our week at St. Petersburg, but that isn't going to stop us from having fun next week. So tune in next weekend for my next update.