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The Project Part 1: Part 2: Part 3:
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24 July , 2005:
Smooth Sailing There’s nothing like a scopolamine patch (and some TLC) to ease the transition from land to sea! We all seem to feeling pretty good today as we push further south. We’ve seen flying fish (yes, they flap their fins like wings), pelicans, dolphins, whales and a cruise ship on the horizon this morning. And off to the port side, we can see the mountainous coast of Baja California. The New Horizon is about 25 miles off Baja. The scientists are preparing their equipment for a test run today; the CTD rosette, which measures conductivity (a measure a salinity), temperature and depth was deployed after lunch over the starboard side. The pumps failed to fire on the test run. Rob, our resident technician and Elisa, a marine geologist from Italy, have just about got it working again. Chris is checking his equipment to search for trace metals (nickel, zinc, cobalt, iron) because phytoplankton require small amounts of minerals to live. He must take care to not contaminate his water samples from metals leaching off the bottom of our metal-clad ship or from any other metallic surfaces onboard. Math Question: The CTD rosette has 24 ten-liter bottles. How many liters of water is that? Can you convert liters to gallons? How many gallons does the CTD hold when all the bottles are filled with water? If one gallon of water weighs 8 pounds, how much does all that water weigh? Trivia Tidbit of the Day: The word starboard, which designates the right side of the ship, is derived from the original steering board and rudder that the Vikings used to steer their ships. The actual paddle part of the rudder was in a star shape for good luck. The board that was used to steer their boats was lashed to the back end on the right side. The tiller man manipulated it to steer the boat. From this we get the word starboard.
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