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R/V Pelican
28º 57.889' N, 90º 29.973' W
We got up this morning and did the standard CTD.
Carter, Mrs. Jacobs (my science teacher from St. Luke’s), John R.
(a student from the University of Alabama), and I filtered the water from
the CTD. Meanwhile, some of the scientists including Dr. Graham and Jessica
went SCUBA diving. When they got back to the boat we untied ourselves from the
rig that we had tied up to for the night and were on our way.
We
immediately went to the bow and started looking for jellyfish; after about
two extra coats of sunscreen (approx. 3 hours) we found a patch of jellyfish
about 75 yards in diameter! It
was the biggest patch they said they had found on this cruise.
We all immediately ran to the stern (back) of the boat and started
collecting as many as we could carry. We
then put the jellyfish in plastic bags and into an ice chest to chill them.
Later we took the collected jellyfish and cut them into quarters for
easy storage and extra pieces for later analysis.
In the mean time we
put in our jelly-cam to look at the jellyfish underwater. We noticed that on
one side of this huge patch of jellyfish the jellies were swimming down, but
on the other side they were swimming up.
Dr. Graham’s explanation to this jellyfish phenomenon was that
there was a giant cell in the water that was circulating and the jellyfish
were in the middle of it.
So far I haven’t gotten sick and am having a
lot of fun. I’m glad I get to
go on this ship and I plan on enjoying the rest of the week.
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