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Location: Mobile Bay, AL 30 14.72
N 88
01.35 W
I'm happy to say that I finally got out
of bed at about 7:30 last night, feeling somewhat better. I
headed for the bow to join the rest of the crew watching for jellies.
We came into a patch and John Martin and Dr. Graham decided to do a transect
with the JellyCam. We saw very little once the camera was in the
water. Although John H. and John R. caught several with a net from the
back deck of the Pelican. These were then taken into the wet
lab and weighed. After we'd finished 'jellyfishing', John Martin said
that there was some bioluminescence in the water. I went up to the bow
and sat for a few minutes. It was really beautiful. The whole
ocean was glowing blue and yellow. I've never seen anything like it
before. After a good dose of Dramamine I went to bed and woke up
feeling great. Today was a very productive day. This morning we
held the live chat. We set up a camera and talked with a group at the
Dauphin Island Sea Lab and also chatted with groups from several schools in
the area, as well as my parents. Because of rough seas, we
remained in Mobile Bay taking samples from the Fort Morgan station. We
divided up into shifts and will be testing the water here not only for
chlorophyll, pigments, and nutrients, but also for copepod RNA and Gut
Fluorescence. Marcus is also taking water samples for copepod
research. While on the back deck today, we saw several helicopters fly
over. I'm sure they're continuing to survey the coast for our nation's
security. Barbara and I learned how to use Niskin bottles to collect
water samples. That turned out to be a lot of fun. Hopefully
Tropical Storm Gabrielle will die down so we can head back out to sea once
again.
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