SOS: Sounds on (the) Ship

By Rick Keil

The Secondary Maxes playing tunes on a crazy Friday evening of sampling.  From left; Anna, Emily, Bary, Rick, Osvaldo and Chloe.

The Nathaniel Palmer is a very loud ship.  Engines, generators, pumps, hydraulics, computers, etc; everything aboard ship seems designed to make noise.  Apparently when the ship was built they saved money by eliminating things like mufflers or noise-dampening panels. Profit over comfort…  Anyway, I hear it is even louder when ice breaking, but we are in the more tropical latitudes so all we hear is the sound of the engines and not the sound of crunching ice.  Many of us have taken to covering our ears when moving about certain spaces on the ship, and there are at least four different brands of ear protection available.  Turns out that I favor ‘Skull Screws’.  They effectively tune out the ship and let my tinnitus be the only sound that annoys me.

Luckily, not all the sounds aboard ship are annoying.  Most of our lab spaces have small stereos set up, and Cal in particular can often be found cranking out some good loud tunes.  Conversations are welcome sounds; people sharing jokes, science or just the joys of being at sea.  This is a friendly bunch aboard ship, and it is nice to hear all the happy chatter.

Jaqui on guitar and vocals.

The best sounds aboard ship are found late at night in the wet lab.  Every second or third day a rotating set of us have been assembling to pick up instruments and play songs.  We have created an informal band named The Secondary Maxes (so-called because we are searching for secondary nitrite and chlorophyll maximums).  Several people aboard ship are very adept at guitar, with special shout-outs to Ger, Osvaldo, Bary and Gadiel.  Each one specializes in some sort of amazing guitar sound, and each has an interesting history.  Ger can change chords like nobody’s business and he has an amazing ability to pick up tabs and play a song perfectly the first time.  One time, perhaps many years ago, he was a singer of children’s songs; our on Raffi right here aboard ship.  Osvaldo seems to have the entire repertoires of Jim Croce and Cat Stevens in his fingers.  This is quite fun for me, but none of the young kids (by definition: anyone under 40) know any of the songs!  Imagine that…  Somewhere the education system is failing us.  Gadiel is good at Spanish guitar and Bary can play lead on most songs from the 1960’s with an apparent specialization in the Ventures and other surfer music.

The band also has 3 ukuleles and a keyboard.  People have been switching between these smaller instruments but special awards out to Jaqui for her multitude of talents on keyboard and voice, Emily for her instinctively good chord changes, Erwin on maracas, Chloe for ukulele strumming, Nick for his keyboard wizardry and Anna for so quickly learning her first ukulele tune “Noodling in G with Turnarounds”.  After seeing so much talent aboard ship, I realized that my guitar and ukulele skills were of limited use, so I made a bass out of a broom handle and a 5 gallon bucket.  Thus, I am the unofficial band beat-keeper.

Me on guitar.

What song are we best at?  “The Cups Song” (You’re going to miss me when I go”).  Almost everyone in the band has learned to play the cup-clapping sequence; you should come aboard ship and see us play sometime!  Tickets are free.

El Nathaniel Palmer es un barco muy fuerte. Motores, generadores, bombas, sistemas hidráulicos, computadoras, etc, todo a bordo del barco parece diseñado para hacer ruido. Al parecer, cuando se construyó la nave se guardan dinero al eliminar cosas como silenciadores o paneles de amortiguación del ruido. Me han dicho que es aún más fuerte cuando se rompe el hielo, pero estamos en las latitudes más tropicales tan sólo se oye el sonido de los motores y no el sonido del crujir del hielo. Muchos de nosotros hemos tenido que cubre los oídos cuando se mueve sobre determinados espacios de la nave, y hay por lo menos cuatro marcas diferentes de protección auditiva disponible. Resulta que estoy a favor de “Los tornillos del cráneo. Se eliminan eficazmente el barco y dejar que mi tinnitus sea el único sonido que me molesta.

 

Bary and I laying down some surfer music.

Por suerte, no todos los sonidos a bordo del barco son molestos. La mayoría de nuestros espacios de laboratorio han establecido pequeños equipos de música, y Cal, en particular, a menudo se puede encontrar el arranque de algunas buenas melodías fuertes. Las conversaciones son sonidos de bienvenida, la gente compartiendo bromas, la ciencia o simplemente las alegrías de estar en el mar. Se trata de un grupo muy amigable a bordo del barco, y es agradable escuchar toda la charla feliz.
Los mejores sonidos a bordo del barco se encuentran a altas horas de la noche en el laboratorio húmedo. Cada dos o tres días una serie rotativa de nosotros hemos estado reuniendo para recoger los instrumentos y reproducir canciones. Hemos creado un grupo informal llamado Los Maxes secundarios (llamados así porque estamos en busca de nitrito de secundaria y máximos de clorofila). Varias personas a bordo del barco son muy expertos en la guitarra, con especial grito-outs a Ger, Osvaldo, Bary y Gadiel. Cada uno de ellos se especializa en algún tipo de sonido de guitarra increíble, y cada uno tiene una historia interesante. Ger puede cambiar los acordes como nadie y tiene una capacidad asombrosa para recoger las fichas y reproducir una canción perfectamente la primera vez. Una vez, tal vez hace muchos años, fue una cantante de canciones para niños, en nuestro Raffi aquí a bordo del barco. Osvaldo parece tener todo el repertorio de Jim Croce y Cat Stevens en sus dedos. Esto es muy divertido para mí, pero ninguno de los niños pequeños (por definición: cualquier persona menor de 40) conocía a ninguno de las canciones! Imagina que … En alguna parte del sistema de educación nos está fallando. Gadiel es bueno en la guitarra española y Bary puede jugar conducen en la mayoría de las canciones de la década de 1960 con una aparente especialización en las empresas y otras músicas surfista.
La banda también tiene 3 ukeleles y un teclado. La gente ha estado cambiando entre estos instrumentos más pequeños, pero los premios especiales a Jaqui por su multitud de talentos en el teclado y voz, Emily por sus instintivamente buenos cambios de acordes, Erwin en las maracas, Chloe para rasguear ukulele, Nick por su magia teclado y Anna durante tanto rápidamente aprenden su primera melodía ukelele “Noodling en G con Turnarounds”. Después de ver tanto talento a bordo del barco, me di cuenta de que mi guitarra y ukelele habilidades eran de uso limitado, así que hice un bajo de un palo de escoba y un balde de 5 galones. Por lo tanto, yo soy de la banda oficial beat-Keeper.
¿Qué canción estamos mejor? “La canción de Copas” (Usted me vas a extrañar cuando me vaya “). Casi todo el mundo en el que la banda ha aprendido a tocar la secuencia taza de las palmas, así que debería venir a bordo del barco y vernos tocar alguna vez! Las entradas son gratuitas.

Trapping Time

by Anna Belcher

After 7 days of preparation; piecing together incubation chambers, calibrating instruments, splicing lines, recalibrating instruments, running tank tests, splicing more line and trying to work our way through all the woodshop tools, we were ready to go….it was trapping time! We wanted to collect some sinking particles from the ocean and measure their influence on denitrification and ammonox in anoxic waters. However, seeing Andrew and Nick and all the other scientists onboard running around with their incubation experiments on deck and getting up at all hours of the day to take samples, it really did seem like an awful lot of work to do aboard ship.

Fortunately Rick and his team had developed a cunning method to make the sediment traps do all the hard work whilst they floated around in the ocean; perfect.  For such a great feat of particle science (rumoured by some to be an attempt to answer the most important unsolved questions of oceanography today), we’d need a slick team of eager (and slightly becrazed) oceanographers…introducing Team Trappers….

Emily… lady of the burn wire programming and somehow always managing to have a cable tie at hand just when you need it

Chloe… the sensor fixing queen and knitting instructor to ensure everyone is equipped with dish cloths and ear warmers

Myself, Anna… the foreign import, whose role is still somewhat uncertain other than causing trouble and occasionally being able to reach something up high that none of the others are quite tall enough for 😉  (Rick says I am here for comic relief and as the official dog collar support person)

Jaqui… the cookie queen, chief of proteomics and making sure the rest of us don’t contaminate everything!

And of course chief of operations, Dr Rick Keil, the man with the idea and there to ensure us ladies don’t cause too much trouble out on deck.

Along came 17:30, the last supper before the big deployment. We munched happily on another great meal with Jaqui and Emily looking like they were attempting a last minute carb load with a bread roll, ‘jacket’ potato and pasta all on one plate! Working off a cruise plan deployment time of 1800 we figured we had plenty of time to enjoy our dinner. The call finally came at 1900, trappers to their battle stations. Hard hats and life jackets on, we walked out onto deck armed with adjustable spanners and cable ties, and began chucking thousands of dollars worth of equipment into the ocean!!

Unfortunately our beloved ship has some intestinal troubles and needs regular ‘comfort beaks’ to keep it happy. But nonetheless 7 hours later we had 7 traps out in the water collecting particles, and had managed to fit in a toilet stop for the ship to release its digestive system away from our sampling site (we weren’t so interested in collecting those particles). Having successfully managed to program our sediment traps to do the work for us by collecting particles and running their own incubation experiments, we now needed to filter lots of water to try and collect some more particles for analysis. Naturally we wanted to avoid actually having to do this ourselves, as who really wants to site for hours on end filtering when you could send down a water pump on a line to do the job for you.

With our traps incubating and our pumps over the side filtering, it was up to team trappers to deploy the most important piece of equipment…the camping chairs. Time to sit, relax, ‘watch the line’ and munch on some chocolate (the finest Swiss chocolate of course, none of this American Hersheys rubbish), ahhhh a job well done…until tomorrow when we get the traps back and find out how well behaved they were… Team Trappers out.

Day 3 – The long wait for the van continues…

by Anna

trying on our safety ‘gumby’ suits.

0730:  The day started with breakfast and a safety meeting – time to attempt to gracefully put on our gumby suits and commence sweating! No chance of getting cold in these! Next, to the lifeboat where Chris the first mate explained where all the sea survival supplies were and most importantly the location of the toilet – the bucket in the corner! As nice as it was, I’m pretty sure we all left hoping we wouldn’t have to go back in.

0730: El día comenzó con un desayuno y una reunión de seguridad – tiempo para tratar de poner sin problemas en nuestros trajes gumby y comenzar a sudar! No hay posibilidad de hacer frío en estos! A continuación, para el bote salvavidas donde Chris el primer compañero explicó donde todos los suministros de supervivencia del mar eran y lo más importante la ubicación del inodoro – el cubo en la esquina! Tan agradable como era, estoy bastante seguro de que todos nos fuimos con la esperanza de que no tendríamos que volver a entrar

1100: With the van due to be arriving shortly, we headed for one quick last trip into town. Time for a little more exploring in Valparaiso, joining the hustle and bustle of the Chileans going to work on a Monday morning. Naturally Jaqui and Rick stocked up on more Chis Pops for the big cruise – wouldn’t want to run out!

Anna with her new friend ‘Lamp Post’.

1100: Con la camioneta debido a que llega un poco, nos dirigimos para un último viaje rápido a la ciudad. Tiempo para un poco más de la exploración en Valparaíso, uniéndose a la prisa y el bullicio de los chilenos que van a trabajar en una mañana de lunes. Naturalmente Jaqui y Rick abastecido de más Chis Pops para el gran crucero – no querría salir corriendo!

1230:  Back on board at lunchtime and sadly no van. As bets continued to be placed, and updates of the van arrival got later and later, we all carried on setting up our gear and making sure everything was tied down ready to go. Labs looking pretty ship shape and sediment trap Dahn flags all pieced together…still no van… Well maybe there was time for another last trip into Valparaiso for a leg stretch. With every visit it seemed we found a new area of Valparaiso with new buildings and shops to explore…oooh a random horse chilling out on the side of the road looking pretty content. We climbed up 268 steps of one of the many hills before wandering back down through the streets, now busy with people on their way home from work.

1230: De vuelta a bordo para el almuerzo y por desgracia no van. Como apuestas siguieron siendo colocado, y las actualizaciones de la llegada van llegaron más tarde y más tarde, nos lleva a todos en la creación de nuestro equipo y asegurarse de que todo estaba atado listo para ir. Labs buscan forma de barco bonito y atrapar sedimentos Dahn Banderas monté … todavía no van … Bueno, tal vez no hubo tiempo para otro último viaje a Valparaíso para un estiramiento de la pierna. Con cada visita parecía nos encontramos con una nueva área de Valparaíso con nuevos edificios y tiendas para explorar … oooh un caballo al azar pasando el rato en el lado de la carretera en busca de contenido bastante. Subimos hasta 268 pasos de una de las muchas colinas antes de ir de nuevo a través de las calles, ahora ocupados con la gente en su camino a casa desde el trabajo.

A horse is a horse of course of course…

1730: Back on the ship for dinner time…still no van. But an update, van due at 1900, estimated departure time 2200! Exciting! We were all keen to get the real science started.

1730: De vuelta en el barco para la cena … todavía no van. Pero un día, van debido a las 1900, hora de salida estimada 2.200! Emocionante! Todos estábamos dispuestos a obtener la verdadera ciencia comenzó.

2000:  After a little more preparation of kit and lab space we all sat down for a quick meeting where we received a live update on the van…still not here…but due in 10 minutes! …20:45 and the van arrived!! Wohooo!!! Time to get the show on the road!

2000: Después de un poco más de preparación del equipo y espacio de laboratorio nos sentamos todos para una reunión rápida, donde recibimos una actualización en vivo en la camioneta … todavía no está aquí … pero debido en 10 minutos! 20:45 … y la furgoneta llegó! Wohooo! Es hora de ponerse el show en la carretera!

22:22 …and we are off to sea!

Mark’s van arrives!

22:22 … y estamos a la mar!