Expedition to the Northern Galapagos Islands: May 17th, 2010

Today was very exciting because today was the day we departed from port. A few of the science team members decided to catch some sun on the deck in the morning and in the process spotted some dolphins and sting rays!

Dolphins seen off of port side

Sting rays seen off of port side as well

We began our two and a half day cruise from the coast of Costa Rica to the Galapagos Archipelago at about 11 o’clock. We raised the anchors and reached our cruising speed of roughly 11 knots.

Above you can see some of the crew members raising the anchor

Some of the science crew celebrating our take off! (Left to right; Cait, Will S., Angela, Cam, Nick, Gretchen, Cushman, Krista, Karen, Bud, Denny, Alison, Dorsey)

Captain Murray

While we moved out of the harbor, the crewmembers and scientists rehearsed safety drills for situations such as a man-over-board, evacuation of the vessel, and how to deploy life rafts.

Safety drill instruction

Some of the science team during drill (Check out Nick in his neon yellow hat conversing with Marques)

Once this was finished, we officially began our four-hour shifts. These shifts occur twice a day from 12-4 (Krista, Gretchen, Cam, and Alison), 4-8 (Mike, Will Cushman, Allison, Angela, Miguel and Denny), and 8-12 (Will Schlitzer, Nick, Marques, Cait, and Eric). Below is a picture of where we collect data during our shifts.

Cam recording data on our Noon-4pm shift!

At around 3:30pm Dan gave us a mini lesson on the tow cam and how it works (a detailed summary of that is on its way). After that we were given a brief overview of the two types of data collecting we will be doing. Denny showed us how we are going to dredge and take rock samples while Eric showed us how to record imaging and gravity data (which is taken from the various computer monitors pictured above). The last thing we did was Brandi showed us how the magnetometer (Maggie) worked and how to put it in the water.