Oceanography in Action!

Here I am doing the uctd measurement:

Halloween at sea: Watch out for pirates!

Lady pirates, Arrrgh!


Here's the artwork we inspired:


Bruce, the artist at work on another project:


Derek with tattooed arms?


Dan with the Jack o'Lantern balloon:


Dave, our fearless leader, scars and all!


Sword fighting


Our tattoos:


Alan's costume was his seatainer/ working van with motion compensation and everything!

Buoys are cool

It's been a while since I updated on the latest happenings at sea.
I finally got to observe the deployment and recovery of the Stratus buoys by the Woods Hole group. It was amazing to watch the organization that is involved in such a large project and it was fun to help for us non-oceanographers. This cruise is different from others that I have participated in because there are biologists and oceanographers doing sea water measurements; usually we just sniff the air and see what that tells us. The air is pretty clean in this no man's land (or ocean, as it were) and that means we sample less and for longer periods of time. Some of this free time has gone into helping do UCTD (underway conductivity, temperature and depth) measurements. There was also a team on board to service one of the Dart buoys which is part of the tsunami warning system. Here are some pics.

Road Trips and Visitors

For Halloween, Robyn and Craig invited me up to Portland for a costume party that was bound to be fun. I intended to fly, but due to typical Northwest weather, I made the 7 hour drive. It was worth it! Some Seattle folks and other out-of-state friends arrived to make the weekend off the hook! Here we are getting ready to head out to Alex and Anya's: Unicorn, Julia Child, Yeti-thing, St. Pauli Girl, and Papa Smurf.


Alex and Robyn


The following weekend my old friend J visited from Chicago. We caught up and made an overnight trip to Sonoma wine country.


We hit a few tasting rooms, explored greater Healdsburg, and celebrated our new president-elect!


Sonoma looks so much like Italy - pretty!