The clear, still night of Friday, November 8, 1996 was the perfect atmosphere for adventure. We waited impatiently at the R/V Gyre on Pelican Island in Galveston, Texas. The only problem with beginning the Introduction to Oceanography Honors Fall Field Trip was the absence of participants.
The ship was scheduled to depart at 10:00 p.m., but by 9:00 p.m. not a single student had arrived. Our concerns diminished, however, as the students trickled in and faced the first obstacle of the eveninghow to board the ship, which was docked on the outside of the R/V Powell. One by one, twenty-four students from College Station and Galveston traversed the path to the ship, hopping on a pipe to balance on the edge of the R/V Powell before jumping to the deck of the R/V Gyre.
After an introduction to the ship and the safety procedures, the students stowed their gear as the ship left the dock. Yawning, they joined us around midnight at the first station southwest of Galveston, where we were sheltered by the island from 25-knot winds. We began by taking a box core, which contained worm tubes that we inspected under the microscopes in the ship's wet lab. Next, we towed a small MOCNESS (Multiple Opening and Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System) off the stern to collect zoo-plankton samples. Amy Graham, an Undergraduate Fellow on board, would later use these samples to study the distribution of postlarval brown shrimp in the water column.
Throughout the night, as the students drifted in and out of the lab in various stages of consciousness, we completed two other MOCNESS tows in addition to a plankton net tow. The students used a hand refractometer and an oxygen meter to measure salinity and dissolved oxygen from water collected by a line of Niskin bottles.
On Saturday morning, daylight crept above the horizon to reveal a beautiful, sunny, calm day. The sampling continued using a gravity core for deeper, more compact sediment collection. We attempted a bottom trawl, but the equipment snagged and yielded a rather uninspiring catch of a starfish, a hermit crab, and several rocks. Nevertheless, the crab and starfish were cradled and photographed by the attentive students.
As the ship returned to port, the students and staff retired for a well-deserved rest with the sound of the gulls in their ears and the wave motion rocking their dreams. Back at Pelican Island, everyone unloaded the equipment and the adventure was over. The students started for home Saturday evening having experienced a short taste of the life of an oceanographer through physical, geological, and biological sampling on a true research vessel.
"Textbooks and lectures came alive on a rolling
ship with the ocean, the night, and the wind. The delight, curiosity, and
understanding in the faces of the students reemphasized to me that some
things are best learned outside, in addition to the classroom."
--Elizabeth Harris
Graduate Assistant
"I think [the students] got some valuable, hands-on experience with real oceanographic equipment in a real, scientific, experimental situation. I think it makes them feel privileged and special and adds to the enrichment side of education that you cannot get in your average lecture class situation."
--Amy Graham
Honors Undergraduate Fellow
