Boat

Back to the boat for a week long research cruise!

happy halloween

Halloween on the station for all intensive purposes was friday. I haven't been updating you all recently on my actual research here, and friday was an interesting day of data collection. Basically, after two frustrating months of microscope problems, my mentor and I have taken leave of the microscopy approach and have switched to using radioisotopic tracers to determine the amount of autotrophic matter vs other matter (bacteria). Without getting into too much science detail, I am filtering the traced solution on a few different sized filters and also with a machine to look at accuracy. Friday was my second run at it- and it went much more smoothly than the first.
I usually work from 830- 5 or later, but on friday I had an important schedule change. I told my mentor I had to leave and four, and at 4:15 pulled myself away from work to run to the dock for the underwater pumpkin carving contest.
Rules:
-you must keep the pumpkin completely submerged at all times.
-you are only allowed 40 minutes to carve the pumpkin
-the pumpkin must be 100% intact prior to the dive (no incisions) though a drawn on pattern IS acceptable.

Problems:
-Pumpkins are EXTREMELY buoyant
-in such shallow water, I am EXTREMELY bouyant
-visibility is poor, and fish are distracting



In the end, dive buddy Kristen had intentionally overweighted herself, but was at the point that she could not float if was holding a hundred balloons- Sam and I could not keep ourselves submerged, and no one knew where our carving tools were. A few minutes later, we became more organized. We rearranged when I found that if we positioned ourselves under the dock, we could place the pumpkin upside down on the underside and it would stay put very well on its own. Still without our kitchen knife (nor a true dive knife) I whipped out my pop's leatherman and found it was the perfect carving tool. It was a bit chaotic- we were unsure of how much time we had wasted trying to force the pumpkin to the bottom, but in the end, we were quite happy with our first underwater pumpkin experience. I think the next one will be even better. We surfaced well before time limitation and friends on the dock asked to take our picture with our new jack o'lantern- only poor Kristen remained submerged until we figured out she couldn't surface with her extra weight.



We didn't win, even after attempts to bribe the judges- but we had so much fun!

(second to the right)
Carving ended early enough for us to grab a quick bite, shower and get into costume for the night. Usually, I go all out for halloween and make a detailed costume but this year I felt a bit resource limited for my island halloween. Instead, many of the REUs, and a few others went as (take your pick!) either beach babes, or 'fat tourists'. We bought those oversized beach shirts with the beach bodies drawn on and went on down to the station social club. The shirts can be quite convincing from far away and I don't think I ever stopped laughing at the sight of some of the girls. Other good costumes were a scary jack o lantern, an air hostess who gave out peanuts, and the moon from the mighty boosh (winner of the costume award).

Now it is true halloween- and i'm celebrating by going on a recreational dive with a local dive company. I wonder what I should expect to see on a halloween dive: barracudas? eels? maybe we'll explore an old scary wreck!


much love-Happy Halloween!

Hillevi

delayed post

If there is one thing I’ve come to know that has only been reaffirmed here, it is that biologists are a fun crowd of people to be around. They are smart, take their work seriously, and love to have a good time.

Friday we had a bonfire for a few of the interns leaving after their summers here. We all walked down to whalebone bay where some did some night snorkeling, while others kept to terrestrial s’mores-making.
Saturday was International Sports Day- a holiday limited to the BIOS station where the USA and the rest of the world team up against the UK and the commonwealth to compete in hardcore games of volleyball, football (soccer), cricket (a very boring sport), baseball, and three legged races. It was the most patriotic I think I’ve ever been- and the USA took the victory despite our horrific loss during the cricket portion!
Then on Sunday, I hit the beach with some fellow researchers. We went to horseshoe bay, one of the most touristy, and most acclaimed beaches on the island. The surf was pretty incredible (and unusual for Bermuda) and we all had a great time.

Now it’s a new round of preparation for the upcoming research cruise. I’m going to be going with two technicians from my lab, as well as a handful of anti-seasickness remedies.

to sea! to see all we can see! (in the CTD)

Back out on the R/V Atlantic Explorer!

bringing some ginger and a sense of adventure!

Island Expenses

Island life is expensive!!! Especially here. Even though Cuba was under the embargo, which really hiked up the price on all imports in the grocery store, at least not everything had to be imported because the land was big enough to put to agricultural use! A six pack of soda from the grocery? 11.95. Dinner at a restaurant, 25 dollars for the most simple pasta entrée. I assume that the salaries on the island must be somewhat inflated too with the high costs associated with island importation.

'...and the sea cucumber turns to the mollusk and says, "With fronds like these, who needs anemones?" '

There is no better crowd to watch Finding Nemo with, than a bunch of researchers and some biology teachers’ kids.


General consensus? the movie would be better with more crustaceans in it!

Day 27

Today we are to give a presentation about our methods. Each student’s project is extremely different and so our methods are quite varied. My project is to design an effective protocol so I’m really making a methods section about creating better methods. On the bright side I got the camera on the microscope to work so I have some pretty cool images (taken over very long exposures) of detritus matter and bacteria.

ice cream, you scream!

Today we kayaked across ferry reach to the double dip ice cream shop. Ice cream is wonderful for brightening a day gloomed by frustrating slides and not so bright fluorescent autotrophs. Oh! Also, eric got stung by a jellyfish today! He is fine but we’ll all be more wary in the water now, I’m sure.

delayed posts to catch up to speed

I love the fact that I can tell how many days I’ve been here based on the fact that we arrived Sept 1st. Day 12.

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Interesting weekend. We took the bus to a private member only tennis club where we met the assistant manager who was very accommodating. The whole trip again reminded me of the similarities between Bermuda and Cuba. As I’ve talked about before, in Cuba there are two currencies that distinctly separate tourists from locals because they are meant to pay for things in tourist dollars and national money respectively. It used to be illegal for Cuban nationals to have the tourist convertible dollars or to have foreign currency, but those laws have since been retired. There is only one currency here. Well, the US dollar and Bermudian currency are exchanged equally, so technically two, but in theory only one value. In Cuba I found that even though it was perfectly legal for Cubans to have foreign currency, they most frequently can’t afford things in the convertible tourist dollar price. I have previously blogged about the duality this creates in Cuba between the locals and the tourists.
It certainly is not the same here. First of all, while there is stratification in Cuba, it is nothing like the socioeconomic conditions here in Bermuda. The difference between people who own actually cars (and boats!) to those who drive scooters, to those that take the public bus is great. Those who are rich here, are, well, REALLY rich. I found out that minimum wage is something close to 17 dollars an hour to provide for the high cost of living. Bermuda is a place where mayor Bloomberg comes on the weekends to eat out and recoup after stressful weeks… really. What I’ve realized (mostly by the lack of seeing people my age and especially girls) is that it is likely that the extremely expensive cost of dining out, drinking, and even just the smart dress code required (nice looking for girls, nice slacks, nice shoes, nice shirt for guys) probably keeps half the people from going out on the town too regularly. Of course, any and all are welcome to go into Hamilton to the nice restaurants, but it is very pricey and I think it ends up being mostly the well-off and tourists. Another reason we don’t see people our age is likely because they are all studying at colleges and universities in the US, or if they can’t afford that, then they are working on the island. Sometimes its hard to remember that most of the world is in school session right now.
This rather ‘stream of conciousness’ post aims to illuminate the fact that there are different spheres of existence here just like there are in Cuba and I find both these islands’ spheres to have sharper lines than those in the United States.

9/10/10

I have just begun my algae samples. They look… small and not extraordinary.

Picking up with the blog after the hurricane

This post jumps back several weeks to when i had just returned from my first extended boat trip.

9/8/10

Home again after four more days at sea. The world is rocking and it amazes me how many ants and other living creatures are crawling around. Did not sleep very well, I was trying to protect myself from the insect life that thrives in my room, but ended up being stifled by the heat.

Extreme Makeover: Hurricane Edition

Before, During, During, After




And a view from the front porch

Before, During, During



Before and After the at the Lime Kiln


Pathways to and from



A boat washed up into the shrub

Hurricane has passed

The skys are blue, the air smells green like spring, but the internet is for all intensive purposes out. Safe and sound!

is there still an eye?

Evidently we're in the center of things now but the internet is still up and really, very little damage has been done besides a few branches and plant debris AT the BIOS station. It feels like a very very windy day at the beach. The excitement has died down prematurely to the winds and now people are sitting around watching movies and trying to stay busy until the winds really end.

News sources online say that there has been significant damage to the Southern end of Bermuda and I know that even while we have a back up generator, a great number of Bermudians are currently out of power.

Still Pre Hurricane

Well, while the winds have picked up, Igor has slowed down. It is now a category one, which after all the hype about 3s and 4s doesn't seem like much at all. It is extremely windy out and everyone is staying indoors because there are tornado watches. Now we wait to see what it might be like around the eye wall which is still several hours away. Perhaps I will have internet then, too!?

pre- hurricane update 9/18

Local houses and businesses were preparing early for the storm by boarding up. The station did this as well.

While it is pretty windy here, we're certainly not seeing any of the hurricane yet. The palm trees especially look quite elastic, but also prone to snapping in their middle. We'll see. The hurricane has lessened to a category 2. However, it is still moving quite slowly and could cause major damage to the island.



Various hurricane parties and monopoly games have started here. I think most people are using the internet to send last minute reassurances as none of us know how long we may be without internet. We probably will have it for another nine hours or so, but that is just a guess.
I like
www.stormpulse.com
with 'clouds on' to get a picture of the oncoming storm.

A cat that hangs around the BIOS station has joined our company for the night. No one really knows what to expect but I think we're all interested to see what it is like, and anxious for it to start. Waiting is hard.

Hurricane Igor is coming- and we're preparing

So, for those who don't know, there is currently a hurricane brewing in the North Atlantic projected to pass right over Bermuda. The hurricane is HUGE and it, unfortunately, is moving very slowly so even though it will likely go from a category three to a category two right around the time it passes over, it will cause a lot of damage on its way across.

I hope no one will worry too much. The buildings on the island in general, and especially at the BIOS station, are built with sturdy materials (often rock) and made to withstand these frequent storms. Today in the lab we neutralized acids, put away glass materials and in did much in the way of hurricane proofing.

We have been warned that we will likely loose internet access for a couple days but I will be sure to update this page when the danger has passed.

'Home' for the next three months

www.bios.edu




From across the bay- my first image of the place



Wright Hall- used to be an insane asylum or housing for Tb patients- rumors are conflicting.

A picture post to accompany the previous entry

The day begins


Sylvia Earle and staff from Time Magazine. It was a press day out to sea.
(By the way, I am proud to say I was NOT the 'seasick research assistant' the author notes):
www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2016556-1,00.html

Also, Look for TIME magazine later this month for an in-depth feature on Sylvia Earle and her wish to establish and expand marine protected areas–in particular the Sargasso Sea.



Ms. Earle waves goodbye to the pilot boat that directs us out of the bay and away from calm seas.



The CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, Depth Measurement) of this leg. It went down about 3000 feet.



The contraption is wheeled into the garage and each canister is measured. The one that collected from the deepest ocean felt quite cold.

Out to Sea

10/4/10
12:51 86.4 degrees

Today was QUITE the adventure filled day… This morning three of the girls including myself woke up at 600 to catch a taxi to the Atlantic Explorer. We traveled 18 kilometers into the Sargasso Sea to conduct a water sample from the surface down to 3000 meters. It is part of a time series data collection process that has been executed in that same spot since 1942, which is pretty significant.
Also significant was the fact that a writer from Time magazine and the famous oceanographer Sylvia Earle were there to partake and record our adventure. I had looked up Sylvia prior to the journey and she really is quite a role model. But she is also approachable and relatable, and I feel blessed to have met her considering i’m in the process of becoming a budding biologist.
I got a little nervous as all of the professors and researchers at the station keep telling me how my research mentor is so smart, or is so diligent… etc etc. No one has said- Mike? Aw he is the chillest! But I have been told that he is doing some of the most significant work at the station at the moment and is quite accomplished in terms of publications.
On the ship we were shown emergency plans and left to our own means as we traveled an hour plus to hydrostation S- where our measurements were to be made. I gabbed with Tony- the director of BIOS and listen shyly to Sylvia Earle, and spent every second worrying about doing a self body scan to be sure I wasn’t feeling sick. The swells were pretty bad as a result of Tropical storm Fiona, but I ended up keeping down the little lunch I ate: a mix of hunger held back by fear.
This evening, we got back to the station and bizarrely, the world was rocking! Did you feel it, reader? It has still not gone away completely. I am very excited to go back out on the boat, but I’m also quite nervous about getting sick. Wish me luck.

Lastly tonight there was a welcome party at the BIOS lounge Passing Wind. Most of the REUs and I got together before for some fun and games and then went on over. It was starting to rain which felt SO GOOD and we noticed a couple of the giant bull frogs one sees squished in the road came out to enjoy.

It was an exciting day… and I’m looking forward to being rocked to sleep by lasting sealegs

H

addendum

by the way, in keeping with my Cuba blog, I've chosen a color scheme that i think suits Bermuda. Pink and blue are the colors of the buses, the buildings, the sand and the sea.

First Bermuda Post

Well, day nine in Bermuda. Complying with the desires of my parents and a few others, I’ve decided to start another blog this one pertaining to Bermuda. I won’t be insulted if this is never given a second glance (or if I am writing this to my immediate family only… that’s fine too). I don’t think it is as important or nearly as interesting to blog from Bermuda. If one has the money, he or she can fly here and stay a couple days, and Bermudians are certainly welcome to spend their money in the United States as well. However, I would like to start this blog with the realization of the astounding number of similarities I see between Cuba and Bermuda (and of course the United States) and the warning that this will be a venue where I will compare the two places. I will also start with a promise- one that I truly hope I can keep- I hope to maintain this blog as more of a photo-journal than a written entry account of my time here. I had desired to do the same in Cuba but the internet simply would not allow it. So, be prepared for some explanations of the obstacles I encounter throughout the microbiology research I am doing here, and more random thoughts and observations I remember to jot down (or type later?), and also some photographs taken during my three months on the tiny British territory, Bermuda.