Early January, I had the pleasure of attending the Everglades Coalition Conference in Captiva Island, a small beautiful place on the Gulf Coast. The conference was filled with a diverse group of people dedicated to the conservation and restoration of what has come to be one of my favorite National Parks. The weekend was filled with invigorating discussions of the challenges the Everglades faces including limited water flow, decreased space (because of pesky people moving onto Everglades land), as well as the all-present problem of pollution. To a newly inspired Everglades advocate, these challenges seem insurmountable, however, without skipping a beat the panelists at the conference presented numerous ways to face each of the listed challenges. The sessions were filled with nods to environmentalism - "Climate Voter" buttons, Dr. Seuss' The Lorax making his appearance on one attendee's shoes - and it was frankly inspiring to be in a room of people not daunted by the local apathy or corporate greed which threatens the very existence of our Park. A Park that I might add that is not only valued in the United States as a region of important value, but has also been listed a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The 2020 Everglades Coalition Conference Scholarship Recipients (photographed by Cara Capp). I was among a lucky 20 students who were granted a scholarship for participation in the conference by the Everglades Coalition and the National Parks Conservation Association. These students were fellow graduate students as well as undergraduates who had a passion for the Everglades and conservation on their mind. Our weekend was filled with panel discussions, breakout sessions, and more networking than you could shake a stick at! From 8:00 in the morning at breakfast until 9:00 in the evening we were learning and listening and trying to keep up with the science, policy, and politics of an enormous Everglades watershed. One inspiring notion that I know I and a number of the other scholarship recipients was spoken by Dr. Melissa Abdo of the NPCA; "we have hope instead of dwelling on doom and gloom." Another wonderful feature of the Conference was something organizers did not take advantage of (in my opinion): the Full Moon. Walking down the beaches of Captiva Island with nothing but the moon shining bright enough to cast a shadow while discussing all of the things we learned was one of those nights that I think I will carry with me for a long time coming - along with all of the friendships that were solidified in the nights after the lectures had stopped with boisterous conversation ringing out into the chilly nights. Jumping dolphins in Captiva Sound The end of the conference was a trip out on Captiva Sound, the water body to the east of the hotel we had been staying in. During the tour we learned about the cultural and natural history of the water body, punctuated with visits by diving cormorants, leaping dolphins, and a single bald eagle staring out at our boat from a sandbar within the sound. Each piece of the trip was a reminder of the importance of protecting beautiful natural areas, and the value of raising your voice. Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Everglades Champion and personal hero of mine, once said, "Speak up. Learn to talk clearly and forcefully in public ... Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action ... Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics - but never give up. You have to stand up for some things in the world." Between this incredible woman who fought for what she believed in for her entire life, and the energy at the Everglades Coalition Conference, I have been inspired to continue raising my voice for what I believe in, which in this day and age is the protection and conservation of natural places in the world. Mangroves in the morning sun In addition to the conference attendees who have dedicated their careers to the conservation and restoration of the Everglades, I find myself inspired by the amazing women I got to spend time with at the conference. Women who have such passion and drive for the outdoors that they all collectively decided to get up and explore the Ding Darling State Park before our wildlife cruise on the sound, just to get a sense of the place we had been staying in. The crisp morning air and the shared sense of wonder wandering through mangroves brought a hushed chapel like atmosphere rather than the exuberant one expected from a group of twenty-something year-olds. Caroline Lewis of the CLEO Institute looked out at the conference and told us "I'd rather choke on greatness than nibble on mediocrity," and I think these young women are doing just that.
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We did it! And by "we", I of course mean Me, Myself, and I. But here we are! The other side of grad school. I received my masters! Bree Gibbs, Master of Science at your service! So what did it take? Let's take a walk back through what's gone down since leaving the Maersk Launcher behind. Steps to Receiving My Master of Science After October 2018:
Me rocking my best Marine Biology Ms Frizzle dress and getting ready to rock a defense presentation pictured above. So I guess we understand that Post Grad Joy but where does the existential dread come into it? Let me let you in on a little secret: it's really hard to get a job in today's world. That whole "go knocking on some doors" method really hasn't panned out, and honestly I've been more than a little disappointed to learn that the game in getting a job has more to do with who you know than your qualifications for the job at hand. That said it hasn't been all bad! I've picked up a couple of jobs working in positions I really didn't expect, and yet love just the same. The main place I've been spending my time has been working for Key News, a local online newspaper where I have had the opportunity to learn about the ins and outs of being a journalist. I even get to write about an article a week and am the self-dubbed "Environmental Contributor" - getting to write about topics that I care about while also improving my computer skills? Dream come true! In addition to exploring the world through a journalist's eyes, I am also proud to announce that I am The Billfish Foundation's Winthrop P. Rockefeller Fellow! This means that I get to continue using my skills as a scientist to work on a project where I am analyzing the changes in technology and gear used to capture billfish since the 1970s! It's a fun project with a lot of moving parts and has been really eye opening in a way that I couldn't get from sitting in a classroom! Both organizations are non-profits, which is pretty cool too! Finally, I'm going to be starting 2020 at YET ANOTHER NON PROFIT and I'm thrilled to announce that I am going to be starting work as the National Parks Conservation Association's first Everglades Restoration Fellow. This position will be involved in advocacy and outreach, which will be an amazing opportunity to give back to one of the most incredible places in South Florida while also learning about the legal side of protecting natural areas. All in all I'm really excited to be moving forward in life but also trying to dampen the existential fear that set in as soon as I realized I needed to find a new "big girl" job to go with my "big girl" degree. Bree Gibbs, Official Trash Scientist For now, I live in Miami-Dade County Florida, where sea turtle nesting season (typically) ranges from May 1 to October 31. Why am I writing about it in November? Well this is the first time I've had to catch a break and take a moment to breathe and reflect on the crazy year that's almost over! But beyond the personal stuff - let's talk turtles! Given that I grew up on the West Coast, I knew next to nothing about sea turtle ecology when I started working. In the 6 months I had the pleasure of working with sea turtles I learned a lot, and so I thought I'd take this time to get up on my soapbox to share some of that knowledge. :) Here in Miami, we have 3 main species of turtles that nest: Loggerhead (Caretta caretta), Green (Chelonia mydas), and Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea). In addition to the 3 main nesting species, we have 2 additional species that like to hang out in Miami waters - the Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and Kemp's Ridley (Lepidochelys kempi). Sea turtles have a pretty cool life cycle, starting their lives as tiny little hatchlings that emerge from the sand at night. These hatchlings crawl towards the ocean where they swim OUT and they swim FAR to spend their young years out in the open ocean. Shockingly, only about 1 in 100 hatchlings that makes it to the ocean survive to adulthood. That statistic is CRAZY - how do we have any turtles today? Especially considering that they were hunted to near extinction not so long ago (sea turtles are currently protected under the Endangered Species List in 1973). But I digress. Once they make it to sexual maturity, the sea turtles move inshore during breeding season to mate. After breeding males will return to their offshore existence - they never come back on land after leaving it as a hatchling! - whereas females will come up on shore to lay their nests. Depending on the species, sea turtles can nest a few times a season (2-5 times), laying between 80 and 120 eggs per nest! These eggs will incubate in the sand and, like other reptiles, the sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the sand around the nest. Warmer sands make female turtles and cooler sands make male turtles - so we say that we get Hot Chicks and Cool Dudes, a phrase which gave me no end of amusement throughout the season. So what do you do as a sea turtle nest monitor here? Well, as I mentioned in my first post on turtles in April, we get up early. An hour before the sunrise we get to work, and begin surveying half an hour before the sunrise so we can see the tracks with the best accuracy (in addition to the perk that there are fewest people on the beach at this time of morning). Loggerhead sea turtle tracks. Each species has a unique pattern to their track making identifying the turtle easy even though we haven't seen the turtle nesting typically. When we locate tracks we have to take data on whether the crawl resulted in a nest or not. If it resulted in no nesting attempt, this is called a "false crawl". Mother sea turtles will false crawl for numerous reasons including people or anthropogenic lights disturbing her, her not liking the sand, or other reasons. However, if the crawl results in nesting, we get to mark off the nest to make sure that no one interferes with the incubating eggs. A loggerhead sea turtle nest. Similar to how each sea turtle species has species-specific tracks, each species that nests in Miami has a specific nest shape! After the eggs incubate and hatch, the county sea turtle nest monitors get to dig into the nest to take data on the nest itself like how many eggs hatched. Sometimes, we'd get stragglers too - hatchlings that didn't quite make it out of the nest with their brothers and sisters. By far this was my favorite part of working with the sea turtles because these were the only living turtles we got to see while working! When we'd get these stragglers, we'd get to let them rest in a safe and dark environment and let them go at night. The first hatchling release I got to do was probably one of the most magical moments I've experienced to date. And to be entirely honest, I felt a little like Moana in the first scene of the movie where she helps the baby turtle safely to the sea. And I think that's about as close to being a Disney princess as I'm ever going to get so I guess there's really not much more I can look forward to in my career (I'm KIDDING). A loggerhead hatchling to complete our loggerhead nesting adventure. A leatherback hatchling because I just think they are the coolest turtles around. Not gonna lie, I love how derpy they look. Leatherbacks spend the vast majority of their lives in the open ocean which is why they have enormous flippers. As babies I think it really just makes them look disproportionate and I LOVE it. **All photos in this section of the post were taken by me in Miami-Dade County under FWC Permit number 19-017. Sea turtles still face a lot of threats! A really large concern that I feel after working in Miami is the problem of artificial lighting. Artificial lighting causes sea turtles (both adult and hatchling) to become disoriented. Artificial lighting leads to the death of thousands hatchlings every year in Florida. Why does this happen? Great question! To begin our story, sea turtles evolved millions of years ago and as a way to get to the water, hatchlings have evolved to emerge from the sand and go towards the brightest horizon. On a secluded beach (or a beach before civilization), the brightest horizon will be the sky and horizon as well as the reflection of the stars on the ocean. This all changes when we throw people and big cities into the equation. If you've ever been outside at night in Miami, you know how BRIGHT the city is - and from the water, you can see the glow of downtown for an alarming distance off the coast. This has deadly implications for our hatchling sea turtles, and can also lead to the disorientation of mother sea turtles as they attempt to nest. All in all, it is a heartbreaking situation with a relatively easy solution. Sea turtles are not disturbed or disoriented by long wavelength light. Specifically, amber lighting is particularly good for sea turtles and allows us humans to be able to see at night without leaving areas unlit. Win win, right? This solution is only kind of effective here in Miami because although we have lighting ordinances, they are poorly enforced, which leads to the disorientation of dozens if not hundreds of hatchlings each year. Another problem associated with turtles is plastic. Plastic affects not only adults sea turtles, which commonly mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, but also recently hatched turtles, which will eat plastic instead of food particles and die. Another viral video features a scientist removing a plastic straw from the nostril of a sea turtle (it's really graphic so please take this as warning). Obviously the plastic issue is one that is near and dear to my heart, but it is manifesting in these peaceful, incredible creatures that have been on Earth a lot longer than we have. Of course, the solution to this problem is one that has far reaching implications, but the use of plastic bags and straws and products can be mitigated by exercising consumer choice and spending money where you want to see it going - such as to organization working to decrease the amount of plastic in the oceans or by reducing your own plastic footprint. (I'm getting off my soapbox now XD) Green sea turtles (mostly) contract a disease called Fibropapillomatosis (FP) which manifests in tumors. These tumors can hinder turtles numerous aspects of their life including swimming, feeding, and seeing. This disease can be transferred turtle to turtle through touch, and is commonly transferred through sexual activity. Though these tumors can lead to death, they can also be removed by sea turtle hospitals with the appropriate facilities. :) Yay for there being hope sometimes. A healthy green sea turtle I spotted snorkeling in Maui! If you encounter a sea turtle in distress in Florida, please call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Injured Animal Hotline at 1-888-404-3922.
I went to a conference in November that reminded me of why I love the scientific community - the passion, the sharing of ideas, and the optimism facing the future. And then life caught up with me - being a student enrolled in classes, trying to finish my thesis in time, financial uncertainty in facing graduation without a job lined up - the normal parts of being a graduate student, I guess. But I started this blog to communicate what science I'm involved in! And that hasn't been happening! So here we go! No one told me that science would be so much writing. You hear jokes all the time about how scientists do science because they were bad in English and BOY that was incorrect. I have to write all the time - essays for classes, my thesis is basically a short book I'm writing about how and why I did what I did for my thesis, and then if I want to go further into science there's the grant and proposal writing for funding - IT NEVER ENDS!!! But it's kind of cool because you go from texting your friends in emojis and memes to having a super professional voice that makes you sound like a PRO - all (sometimes) within minutes of each other! Crazy world we live in!!! Anyway... I got a new job! I'm working for Miami-Dade County (yup that's still Florida) as a part-time seasonal Turtle Nest Monitor. Though it's a position I never thought I'd come anywhere near in my professional field, it is something that makes sense given my passion for conservation and education. I get to aid in monitoring the beaches in Miami-Dade County for nesting by the sea turtle species that come up onshore at night to nest! This entails getting to the beach before the sun comes up, and checking for evidence of turtles and on occasion doing outreach events with the public!! What an amazing way to get to participate in conservation (turtles are a federally protected species) AND getting to teach people about some of our aquatic neighbors!!! Loving life right now despite the impending deadlines of finishing my thesis! Here's a rad view of my new "office" at one of Miami's incredible beaches that we survey. ...yes this is a sunrise - I'm back to early-bird mornings! Hello all (if anyone is still reading XD) and welcome to 2019! The year ended with some rough news on the Wilson/System 001 front, but I'm here to talk about why though this news is disappointing, this is an important step in the scientific method. The scientific method is what allows us to move forward in the world - we get to test hypotheses in a rigorous way, but a lot of the process is riddled with what may be perceived as failures by some, but are just as important as, if not more important than, the "successes". For those that didn't spend nearly every class in both undergrad and masters going over it, the scientific method involves the following steps:
In case getting to be-bop around Oahu and Maui for the week(ish) following the trip on the Launcher, I flew home to California for a mere 40 hours before doing laundry and re-packing to go to Boston, Massachusetts for the 2018 National Ocean Exploration Forum, which was held at the MIT Media Lab. The idea behind the conference was that because the ocean affects EVERYONE that we need to make the ocean accessible to everyone. This spoke to me because, well that's more or less what I've believed for my entire life/career, and all it takes is looking in a newspaper to see that the message about conservation is not being communicated effectively to the general public. The organizers of this event wanted to bring some diversity to the figurative table, and as such, the members in attendance were as diverse as was feasible. We had people of all ages - I was in a workshop in discussion with a 13 year old who's voice was heard with the same weight and value as the professor also in the same small group! In addition to a variety of ages, we had a variety of interests - we had artists, scientists, educators, film makers, and many more! Bringing together so many types of people led to some incredible discourse - the conversations ranged from silly to serious and spanned all topics! But before I dive deeper into that, I'd like to talk about the focus of the talks and workshops. The event was centered around 6 themes that are critical to ocean exploration in this day and age. These themes are:
Play. For the first theme, play seems an odd word to associate with science. It is something deemed childish and a word that I found myself using less and less in my vocabulary as I grew up. But play most certainly played a HUGE role in my love of the ocean - from playing in the waves at the beach to pretending to be a mermaid in pools as a young girl - play is something that not only inspires but it ingrains a sense of ownership over the places we played as children. I'm comfortable at the beach and in the ocean because I played there growing up - and I think that integrating play into how we teach the public and especially the youth about the oceans will ensure that the oceans have a bright future - not the dim future we hear about in the news. Imagine. A powerful word that can sometimes get lost in the learning of science in the modern day. As a young biology student at university, I was taught to memorize facts and regurgitate information, often with little to no imagination involved. However, as I grew into the field, it was DEMANDED of me to think and use my imagination to solve problems and, scarier, to come up with ideas that might explain what is happening in the natural world. Though I (obviously) made it through these challenges, I don't think (and I am happy to be wrong about this assumption) that imagination isn't associated with marine science. I'd love to bring imagination to the forefront of marine exploration. Immerse. An important point in the conference was how to immerse people in the ocean. If we can't literally bring people to the ocean and show them just how incredible it is, then there has to be a way to communicate that with the public. One way we talked about immersing the public was through story-telling, something that I have been trying to accomplish with this blog! Pictured below is me talking at a workshop on transmedia story-telling (it only seemed appropriate to post it on my transmedia story-telling page XD). Through interacting with people that tell and create stories for a living, I have been inspired to continue the blog, and maybe post a little more. We shall see. Create. This seems like a given, but it is increasingly important to come up with new ways to explore the oceans more efficiently. Some of the speakers at the conference were designing autonomous underwater ROBOTS that are going to be able to explore the coral reefs in ways that would take people hours upon hours of underwater documentation! Truly creativity is crucial to coming up with ways to document the oceans if for no other reason than that our oceans are changing at unprecedented rates. Explore. A pretty obvious theme for the National Ocean Exploration Forum, but the idea of exploring is one that I feel has been left out of the ocean science conversation. There is still A LOT to be learned about our oceans. Connect. The final, and arguably most important theme of the conference was connect. How do we connect EVERYONE to the oceans? Well my current plan is to continue sharing my passions about the ocean using everything I've got - blogging, talking to high schools, and ideally getting involved in a career that lets me share the oceans with EVERYBODY! First step in that career path is … COMPLETING MY MASTERS!!! So welcome to the next phase of the blog: connecting the ocean to the rest of the world - buckle up, it's a gonna be a wild ride! Land was a shock after the weeks aboard the Launcher, but the most magical part of going ashore in Hawaii has been the sheer ABUNDANCE and DIVERSITY of LIVING THINGS FREAKING EVERYWHERE!!! I think this was especially apparent to me because although I do love me a good Velella velella (By the wind sailor) or occasional crab found living on plastic, my love of the ocean stems from the absolute mind-blowing variety of life found in the oceans! This love was absolutely reaffirmed upon my journey to Maui, after wishing safe travels to the last of my friends from The Ocean Cleanup. Lucky for me, I have an incredible friend living on Maui and she showed me the magic of the island from coral reefs right off the beaches to waterfalls that you have to SWIM to get to (!!!) to sunrises with turtles returning to the sea with the sun. A common theme has come up in multiple conversations recently - and that has been about death and life from the perspective of a biologist. Pictured above (thanks Dani!!!) is a (dead) baby hammerhead shark that my friend and I found on the beach. This lil buddy must have washed up with the evening tide because the decomposition had just begun. Though the loss of this shark is a bit sad, as someone who has spent far too much time loving animals that aren't at the top of the food chain, I have had to learn that death is a necessary part of the ecosystem! Death fuels life - this shark is providing a meal to lots of different types of decomposers, and the nutrients will be integrated into the beach ecosystem. This death-fueled nutrient cycling is seen all around the biosphere, from whale falls in the deep sea (which are totally real and totally cool) to humpbacks feeding on schools of fish. I must say I do prefer living organisms, there is a lot to be learned from animals like the one pictured above. With all that death talk, here's a picture of baby tiger shark at the Maui Ocean Center (another TOTALLY RAD PLACE TO VISIT if you find yourself in Maui) Is it really holiday if you don't have unforeseen mishaps? I don't think so. Yesterday, Deb and I packed up the babe-mobile (pictured below) and drove back on over to Honolulu from the North Shore in order to go snorkeling at the famous Hanauma Bay! The only problem we encountered was: Hanauma Bay is apparently closed on Tuesdays... Not to be deterred from our adventure day, we continued along the coastline exploring the wonders that the southern coast of Oahu had to offer - we got to see blowholes, beautiful coastline, and most tragically, a beach absolutely covered in plastic. Though it was a sober reminder of why we ended up in Hawaii in the first place, it was hard to walk along the beach without feeling insignificant. After a small beach cleanup, we wanted to try to go for a hike at the famous Manoa Falls, but were deterred by the flash flood warnings in the area. The tropics are WILD y'all. We returned to Honolulu for lunch at a hole in the wall sandwich shop where we were both DELIGHTED to eat gigantic veggie sandwiches washed down with kombucha (a probiotic drink, for those unfamiliar). After lunch, we headed to Banan at the University of Hawaii so we could meet up with a friend and that's unfortunately when disaster struck - FOOD POISONING! Deb and I have since figured out that the kombucha is to blame, but the hour-long BUMPY and rainy car ride back to the North Shore was filled with groans of discomfort and laughter at the situation we found ourselves in. Followed by napping and some giving up on the day, we were invited by another Ocean Cleanup Crew member to watch the sunset on Sunset Beach and WOW the beach lives up to its name! Even despite the food poisoning and rainy day and random beach closure, we got to witness and appreciate one of the best sunsets I've seen in a long while. I feel the need to talk more about the plastic beach we saw. I think that it's important to remember that EVERYONE can help contribute to the plastic problem and that there are simple ways to help keep the ocean happy and healthy - bringing reusable bags to the store and refusing or minimizing plastic packaging are good starts! The problem of plastic is a global one, and the U.S. is a significant contributor to the plastic debris in the ocean. A favorite professor of mine taught us that from little things big things grow, and that's the stance I've taken on environmental change and conservation - even if it's one little change, every little bit counts. I don't want to have my legacy be the generation that shrugged its shoulders and said that plastic pollution was too big a problem to tackle - I want to be a part of the generation that learned from the mistakes of the generations before us and made changes to promote the stewardship of the environment and planet! Here's a scary picture of JUST SOME of the microplastics we found on the beach. This is what is scaring me this Halloween! Happy Halloween everyone! Seeing as it took me approximately two months to get used to life on board the Launcher, it is only suiting that it will take me at least that amount of time to get used to life onshore again, right? Today's adventure began at the Airbnb we are staying at in the North Shore of Oahu - quiet enough beginnings for a holiday. Well, my friend and colleague Deborah and I have been traveling together since we got off the vessel, which has led to more funny moments than I thought possible - most of which relate to the realities of living life like a normal person again. For one, money is a concept that pretty much ceased to exist for me offshore. I bought candy and chips from the "shop" on board, but the idea of carrying cash slipped my mind for almost two months. Which brings us to today. Deb and I left the Airbnb with some cash between the two of us, leaving our comfy pad behind for the wonders of Waiamea Bay including a turtle, surfers everywhere, and HYDROFOIL SURFBOARDS!!! We wandered the beach for most of the morning, enjoying the sand between our toes and the crashing waves on the sand without too much difficulty. All this changed when we went back to the market for lunch food. Together, we had enough cash on us (using some of our emergency gas fund) to buy food for the week. Which left us both with $14 total. No problem - we were going back to the Airbnb! Side note: the eggs we picked up from the market were totally excellent. They were packed in styrofoam which is totally lame...BUT when I dropped them because I am an absolute butterfingers apparently, ONLY 2 OUT OF THE DOZEN BROKE!!! WHAT?!?! Anyway - good job on the eggs and their packaging Oahu! After lunch we immediately raced back out to the car for more adventuring and stopped at a macadamia nut farm...upon our arrival realizing that we still had exactly $14 to our name. We picked up nuts and coffee, because that's what you do, and had fun chasing the roosters around in the front part of the farm. Another important sidebar to this tale - did you know that in different parts of the world they have different noises that animals make? We learned this on the Launcher, and specifically we talked about roosters because they make the CRAZY noise in the States of "Cock-A-Doodle-Do!!!" - which one of the Navigators found really funny. So naturally today Deb and I spent a lot of time chasing roosters on the island trying to film them for our navigator friend Rasmus. Cock-a-doodle-do Rasmus (I hope you're still reading). Anyhoo...on our way back from our after-lunch adventure, Deb turned to me in the car and was talking about how we should totally buy pasta to make for dinner! To which I had to remind her, "Deborah...we have 3 dollars" which was of course followed by peals of laughter from the both of us. So adjusting back to normal life has been both totally awesome (I haven't fallen over putting my clothes on in at least a day) and really confusing (why is money so important???) - more updates on the adventures of two grudging seafarers making their way back into the non-boat world. **Edit: Deb has pointed out that 4 eggs were broken...2 were very obviously broken and 1 other had to be thrown away for fear of E. coli BUT we got 9 eggs to cook with DESPITE my clumsiness and I think that's a win. As all good things must come to an end, so has my trip aboard the Maersk Launcher ended. Though the trip was not without it's stresses and bad weather and bouts of sea sickness, I found it amazingly hard to leave the comfort and familiarity of the ship behind. In almost a two-month voyage, the crew of The Ocean Cleanup and the Maersk crew felt more like family than anything else, and it was more difficult than I would have imagined to pack up all my stuff and leave! For the record, I did not cry upon seeing my first tree on land, though I definitely paused and had to touch a palm tree to make sure I wasn't dreaming! The craziest part of all of this is that I am ON OAHU NOW! There are birds and dogs and OTHER PEOPLE and ocean that meets land, which is NUTS!!! Adjusting to non-rolling ground underneath me has been a struggle as well - I tripped going up the stairs on the Launcher while we were in port...the first time I tripped going UP the stairs and naturally we weren't moving. Another awesome aspect of being on solid ground is that when putting say shoes on you don't have to THROW YOUR WEIGHT against any forces of the waves moving the ship...so needless to say I've almost fallen over while getting dressed more than a couple times...even since actually moving into Airbnb's and not even being in the ENVIRONMENT that the ground underneath me was rolling but I guess it'll be fine... I am wishing Wilson the best and am looking forward to seeing the results of the trial in the GPGP, but for now I'm gonna go enjoy the salt and sand and waves at the beach - the first beaches I've seen in nearly TWO WHOLE MONTHS!!! Goodbye Launcher, it's been a real pleasure and adventure and I know you'll have a place in my heart forever, but aloha Hawaii, I think we're gonna get along just fine. In the spirit of my favorite holiday being right around the corner, I helped in the organizing of a Halloween Party on the Maersk Launcher. There were paper bats lining the halls of the deck, there was excessive candy and coffee, and best of all almost HALF of the people that attended went in costume!!! As one of the only Americans on the vessel, I felt it was my duty to bring some spooky cheer to the crew, especially as our trip is winding down - we've all been working so hard together and such long hours, it felt like the least we could do was lighten the mood and share a night of laughs! As we were not planning on having a Halloween party onboard, the costumes had to be creative AND made using only the materials available to us on the vessel. We had a mermaid trapped in plastic, a witch, a blue whale, a fish, a mummy, a castaway and many more! Yours truly attended the party as Marine DeBREE (thanks to a friend in Miami for giving me the idea AGES ago) and we had a lovely night enjoyed in the company of friends and silly costumes and just a little too much sugar. It's the little moments like this that I'm definitely going to miss, but I'm excited that we got to share at least one last night of genuine fun on the Launcher. In addition, I'm beyond THRILLED to have a costume that matches my blog title: This costume is, in fact, trash! I'm a little nervous about seeing shore for the first time in almost two months, but I'm also definitely looking forward to not having the world constantly moving. A couple days ago we left Wilson behind to the GPGP. It's super crazy to wake up in the morning and not have the barrier somewhere nearby, and even stranger when at night the only lights outside the boat are the stars and moon. Another crazy part of leaving the barrier behind is to be going so quickly! We are FLYING at the breathtaking speed of 10 knots! I know, I know, we're speed demons out here, but to be entirely honest, we've been traveling at the snail's pace of 3 knots (and slower) for over a month now. Seeing the ocean passing by so quickly is exhilarating! We are en route to Hawaii as our final destination for this vessel, and I can't imagine how weird it's going to be to see people OTHER than the people on the ship! Another super crazy concept to me is the concept of PLANTS!!! WOW!!! I can't even describe how THRILLED I am to see a real living plant - I might cry. Nature is lovely and the ocean is SPECTACULAR but I think I've missed green more than I'd like to admit. More updates on my reaction to plants to come! 42 is the magic number that has been defined in my life as the answer to life, the universe, and everything (thanks Douglas Adams, and especially Mom and Dad for hooking me on scifi early), so every 42 has a little bit of extra meaning. Today marks 42 days at sea, and I thought I would share some of the lessons learned and wisdom that comes from spending this much time offshore. #1) Adult life is sharing a post on Facebook and restraining yourself from yelling at your friends and family "WOOOO WE OUT HERE" because it's a tad bit unprofessional, and instead sharing it on your blog because honesty is important and the mission of this blog. Sometimes I'm amazed that I hold a degree because I have been known to talk to fish (or beg them to jump out of the water again), or name my buoys (Not Bob, Scuttle, Hei Hei, Sebastian, and Kasper are attached to the barrier folks), and generally have continued using the same beach/surf slang I've gathered since childhood. In moments like this I do have to remind myself that it's okay to be myself, especially because there's not a whole lot of science to be done other than waiting for my buoys to continue taking their measurements. #2) As long as you can play off that you almost fell over as being due to something OTHER than the ship's movement in the swell you can TOTALLY make it as a passenger on an offshore vessel. #3) I totally want to keep on living that good boat life and REALLY want to sail across the Pacific in a sailboat. Not wisdom per se, but definitely something I've learned on this journey and thought I would share. WE MADE IT FOLKS!!! We have successfully installed Wilson in the U-shape in the GPGP! To be entirely honest, it doesn't quite feel real yet - after almost a month and a half of towing and testing to get to this point is pretty crazy! It's been a long time coming - and yesterday we even got to install my buoys on the System! I can't believe that after a year of pondering this project and its possible implications I have the opportunity to help monitor the biological impact of the system ACTUALLY sitting in the Patch!! It's a great start into the second year of my Master's for sure! An even better ending to the day yesterday was a GIGANTIC rainbow that spread from one side of the Launcher and stretched to the sea on the other side! Nothing like a lucky omen for the beginning of a project (or you know, master's research thesis but hey)! With respect to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, well, there's definitely more plastic here than elsewhere we've been. It's really more disheartening and sad to see than I was expecting - I've seen marine debris before. Somehow knowing that even though we're almost as far from land as you can be, there's still the overwhelming sense that humans are having an incredibly negative impact on our oceans. This effect was magnified when we went out on the Megamaid today and could see firsthand just how much plastic is out here - the sizes range from big to around the size of a fingernail - and that's just what we can see moving at around 3 knots! Who knows how much more we'd see if we had gotten to go out for more than just a few hours? At any rate, there's a LOT of plastic, and I'm excited to see how the System performs under these circumstances! Aside from the elation of finally being where we've been trying to get, boat life has really changed after 6 weeks! I can proudly say that I can sleep comfortably with most any swell (within reason), however I still apparently cannot put pants on in 3 meter swell without falling into the wall of my room so I guess we haven't come as far as I might like, but you can't win them all! Though things have been pretty good - last week I hosted a screening of Disney's Moana for those onboard that would be interested in THE COOLEST DISNEY MOVIE TO DATE! This has the benefit of sharing a happy animated with the crew and (my favorite part) is there is a subset of grown men singing "SHINYYYY" at any and all opportunities, which is honestly a fantastic part of ANY day! Well this week has been another week of towing Wilson behind the Launcher, which invariably leads to relatively limited activities. The sun came back out yesterday and I think it definitely helped with bringing spirits up - I know it helped me out a bunch! This week marks an important event in my life - I GOT TO SEE DORADO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!! There was a small school of them hanging out off the bow of the Launcher! The ship tows pretty slowly - the other night I calculated it and we are moving at approximately the average speed I swim when I'm in a pool doing a workout! Me and the Launcher could TOTALLY race (except that she can go REALLY fast if she wants). Another thing was brought to my attention by my friend on the vessel yesterday: a couple posts ago I mentioned the time change and how we all gained an hour and got to sleep extra. Well my buddy is a navigator and has the watch from midnight until 4am (I'm pretty sure) and so when the time changed and went backwards at 1am...well his watch was an hour longer. Major bummer, but I'm really glad we have navigators that take watches because making sure nothing bad happens on the ship while I'm sleeping is a big comfort. Thanks Navigators! Growing up in California, rainy days and "real weather" were few and far between. As such, rainbows have always been a treat and they're something that my mother has delighted in for as long as I can remember. Because of this, I have always viewed rainbows as a sort of magic and have thought that good luck follows spotting them. In Miami, I have delighted in the near-daily summer rainstorms that bring with them lovely views of rainbows at sunset over the research vessel at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, but I'm not sure anything prepared me for the magic of seeing a rainbow over Wilson while in the middle of the Pacific Trials. Since I have received multiple requests for more pictures on the blog, I'm looking at you Uncle Mike, I thought I'd share this one with y'all. This was captured from the relative comfort of the Megamaid, my home away from home (where home in this case is the Launcher, but hey it is what it is). There may be no days fully dedicated to rest, BUT we did have the pleasure of a time change as we are moving west and have made some serious distance since we started our trip 31 days ago! 31 DAYS AT SEA?! The time has absolutely FLOWN. At the same time, the comforts of home and land do seem really far away, so it may just be a matter of perspective. In addition to a time change that allowed everyone an extra hour of sleep, we had BRUNCH yesterday AND a barbecue! Life at sea isn't so bad when you're surrounded by AWESOME people! The seas are picking up, which has definitely led to some stumbling around in the stairwell and hallways but it also made the jam session in the rec room last night all the more magical - you didn't have to put any effort into swaying to the music! And YES I did mean jam session, we had a guitar and a ukulele and some wonderful music being made as the day was winding down. Music has been a passion of mine as long as I can remember and being able to share it on the high seas with the coolest crew around has been an absolute highlight of the trip! Happy Monday y'all! I feel like I spend an inordinate amount of my free time on this vessel napping, and I don't think I'm alone in that use of time. Existence at sea is apparently one that lends itself well to the cat lifestyle: sleeping whenever and where-ever possible. I thought I was good at napping on shore but my existence on the Launcher has turned that thought on its head - I think this week alone I've napped more days than not...which is probably where all of the excess energy comes from while I'm awake. At any rate, towing days are tough because even though we're busy there isn't exactly a TON to do - not to mention it limits my time aboard my beloved Megamaid but its chill - it gives me more time to SLEEP! Since I was a kid, I feel like it has been reinforced that the scientific process is one of trial and, far more often than I'd like, error. As a kid I learned about science with a sort of starry eyed wonder - how could scientists just go out into the world and DISCOVER? And as I grew up, I took the required science classes and discovered, much to my dismay, that science can be pretty aptly described as a series of happy, well-timed accidents with a little bit of brilliance and good luck (*and on more than a few occasions, bad luck) thrown in the mix. Confused and intrigued, I continued to pursue my fascination with science by chasing down a Bachelor's in Biology. This endeavor took me around the world to Australia where I was faced with my first serious struggle with the scientific method. I'll paint the picture - there we were on the Great Barrier Reef, tasked with studying a symbiotic relationship between a species of crab an type of coral. Putting our four heads together, we engineered this brilliant system of mounting GoPros above the coral colony of interest and PRESTO we'd have video footage of the crabs' interactions with their coral host! Well that design was an INCREDIBLE failure. We couldn't see ANYTHING in the footage we took. This was the first experimental design that I had had the opportunity to contribute to EVERY aspect of the experiment and was my first true head-on interaction with the absolute FRUSTRATION of having a brilliantly (or at least so we thought) design come back and just crash and burn. Determined to try again and, if for no other reason than our grade relied entirely on having a project where we had SOME FORM of successful data collection, we managed to put our heads together again and come up with a different form of observation which allowed us to cover even more colonies each observation AND gave us reliable results! This process has since been ingrained in my mind as part of the scientific process. For every success there has been lots of thought and reconsideration and occasionally just throwing your best at the problem and hoping for the best (at least in ecology to my experience), so with good faith and a fair dose of hope, I had the opportunity to try out my buoys at their attachment points on Wilson during the Pacific Trials. With hope and some trepidation, I prepped my two buoys (an arduous task of removing a single magnetic pin from each buoy being deployed), and gave them to the people going out in the workboat to attach to the System 001. Pictured below, I'd like to introduce Bob the Buoy. Bob was deployed for TWO WEEKS on the barrier during the Pacific Trials, and for the most part, he performed SPECTACULARLY! As the days wore on and we conducted our tests and monitoring of Wilson during the Trials, I got to say "hi" to Bob on pretty much a daily basis. As my first buoy in the water, I was particularly attached to this little dude. However, we hit a pretty rough spell of weather (see Bree almost falling off the treadmill for an approximate 5 day period) and both buoys remained attached at their critical attachment points! YAY! The experimental design WORKED! But then as the time passed, it became apparent that one of the buoys had suffered some damage either in the storm or due to the storm, and eventually, Bob stopped working and had to be removed from the trial. Well this is my goodbye and obituary to a fantastic buoy. Bob was a fixture in the Trials, and he will be remembered as we continue our way to the GPGP and beyond. Thanks for the soundings Bob, you will be missed. Y'all we just got the okay to GO ON TO THE Great Pacific Garbage Patch! Wilson was put through numerous tests in the Pacific Trials including the U-shape installation, maintaining sufficient speed through water, ability to reorient when wind or wave direction changes, and effective span (opening-width) in steady state! Go Wilson go!!! We have been sitting around 350 nautical miles off the coast of California through some rough weather, through the installation process, and through monitoring Wilson closely for the last 17ish days! I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am (and I think the rest of the crew too XD) to see the system in action in the Garbage Patch! Hopefully we'll get there in relatively good time - crossing our fingers for no storms en route (I did knock on wood writing that - GOTTA BE SAFE). The trip to the GPGP is two weeks of towing approximately, though if I've learned anything on this journey, it's that the ocean determines our speed and effectiveness of towing and other operations. So we shall see what kind of timeline we are looking at as we begin to make our way out to the Garbage Patch. It has come to my attention that there have been a number of spelling errors on my blog and seeing as our operations on board the vessel tend to be more limited while towing I'm going to be on the lookout for my typos - though if anyone has any that jump to mind if you wouldn't mind leaving a comment on that post it would be much appreciated by this Trash Scientist. Happy October! Gross post ahead: not for those that don't like bugs! Alrighty well here we are - out in the middle of the Pacific and it IS the month of spookyness and too-much-sugar-ingestion so naturally I stumbled into some bad luck! I got LICE!!!! In all of my 23 years I've managed to avoid the nasty little bugs that have recently taken up their unwelcome residence on my head. BUT ever the optimist - I went to the ship's medic and we are combatting the problem head-on! HAHAHAHAHA At any rate, moving on, another American on the vessel and I are trying to plan a Halloween celebration on the Launcher because we have SO MANY TOOLS at our disposal to make some of the coolest spur-of-the-moment Halloween costumes EVER!!! Additionally, there is a little "shop" where sweets can be purchased on the vessel - so basically it's gonna be the coolest Halloween on the high seas (and quite possibly one of the only Halloweens on the high seas but it's chill)!!! Today I am feeling really thankful for the day and age we live in - I have been able to call my mom whenever things have been overwhelming (read I GOT FREAKING LICE THREE WEEKS INTO MY CRUISE!!!) and she's always been there with a song when I've been low, the most recent being about gross bugs crawling all over me...but it's the thought that counts <3 and I guess hearing her voice helped me laugh about it a little harder than I would have before. Sorry about the gross post for the day but THIS IS THE REALEST THING TO HAVE HAPPENED OUT HERE SO FAR! Welcome to the wonderful world of working and living and staying on boats! Happy Spooky Month! Hi all! It's been a while - I've been up to some all-day adventures aboard the work boat we have on the Launcher which has definitely left me with minimal time to be writing. At any rate: working on a boat that is deployed off a bigger boat is such a TRIP! I thought parallel parking in Miami was a tricky business, but getting a small boat that is influenced by waves back on a bigger boat that is only kinda influenced by the big swells is WAYYY more hardcore than that! I have a daily reminder that offshore life is so much more complicated than my day-to-day onshore - it's CRAZY. Another note on being in a small boat - you really feel the ocean moving beneath you. In the Launcher we tend to roll with the swell, which has been significant a couple times this trip (read 5-6 meter swells OH GOSH) but even 2 meter swell feels GIANT in the work boat, though the nice part has been that it's JUST LIKE being on whale watching boats as a kid - and I KNOW that I look exactly the same as when I was out on those boats - beaming from ear to ear as my hair gets tangled in the wind. There's nothing quite like it. An update on our favorite plastic-eating U-shaped Wilson: he's been put through a couple week of Pacific Trials, and there are a few more things that need to happen before we can move out to the Garbage Patch, so we're keeping on keeping on and going through the tests so that we can go and try to catch some plastic! Well, we have been sitting for a couple days with REALLY BIG swells and honestly it sometimes feels like I've been out here for hours rather than days! I think of these swells as really big because they are rocking the boat a LOT more than they have in the calm days we had when we first got here - I'm sure that REALLY BIG waves make these look really small, but everything is about perspective so we're HANGING OUT IN BIG SWELL. Now there's been quite a bit of stumbling around on my part and some days it just feels like I'm a toddler stumbling around confused by gravity - for example, I'll be on deck talking to some of the Maersk crew and as the swell lifts the boat I'll end up "falling" a few steps in the direction the boat is tilting only to return to my original place as the boat rocks back. The offshore crew, of course, stay in the same location through all of these exchanges, which leaves me to be moderately flustered (to really flustered if I've really miscalculated the size of the swell), but at any rate, I laugh at least as much as I stumble around the boat. XD Something that is dramatically IMPROVED by having significant swell is movies that feature boats and/or space ships! I hosted a movie night with Star Wars Episode 4 and WOW IT IS INTENSE WHEN THE SHIP YOU ARE ON IS SHAKING WITH THE SPACE SHIPS IN BATTLE!!! Who needs 3D movies when I can just watch them offshore??? We're looking at a nice weather window for the next couple days so I'm hoping for a mellow spell and am crossing my fingers for another day off soon! Let's take a second to appreciate how BIG the Maersk Launcher really is. There are THREE BOATS ON THIS BOAT!!! This boat is BIG ENOUGH TO HOLD THREE SMALLER BOATS LIKE ITS NOTHING!!! I'm still reeling at the concept. Y'all I went a full WEEK not knowing where the third boat was HIDING?!?! WHAT??? Anyway. I think it's pretty cool. Moving on... Yesterday I got to go out in the workboat to help conduct some tests during the Pacific Trials and WOW! Even the Launcher looks small in comparison with the rest of the Pacific out here. I thought I had a concept for how big the ocean was, but let me tell you, being out in it on a relatively small boat is truly humbling. The swells are no joke and even Wilson seems like a small speck in a HUGE body of water (which is exactly what he is but STILL). The ocean is HUGEEEEE. It brings to mind Douglas Adams, only instead of space it's the ocean...The ocean is big. Really big - it's just so big you can't wrap your mind around just how big it is... Today has been a rough day on the water so I've mainly been inside crunching numbers for thesis things, though this morning I did get to spend some time on deck. It takes BIG swells to rock the boat like this, so seeing them and feeling the wind on my face was enough to convince me that being inside all day may be worth it. Looking forward to helping conduct more tests in the Pacific Trials when the weather calms. Hoping for some calmer seas tomorrow! Last night at a group meeting we were informed that today would be a day off – a much needed break, I might add. So what’s a girl to do on her day off? Well first of all, I had the luxury of sleeping in ALL THE WAY UNTIL 7:45 before my body was like LET’S GET STARTED. Not one to miss out on a cup of coffee over the water, I made my way down to the mess (where there’s access to coffee 24/7) in my manatee pajama pants and poured myself a BIG OLE CUP of black coffee and climbed the you-guessed-it 75 steps to the bridge where I could enjoy the coffee looking out over the blue water. I don’t know what it is about spending time at sea/out in nature but it always somehow brings out the deep down love I have for black coffee. It’s odd. BRUNCH was served at 10:00, which I learned later was a real treat since apparently normally Sundays are days off but meals usually occur at normally scheduled hours. After brunch it was such an odd feeling to just putter around the boat, but that’s what I did! It was MAGIC!!! I got to read on the bridge WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY of not doing anything BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE DAY WAS FOR!!! After reading in the sun and fearing a sunburn, I bought another bag of Salt and Vinegar Chips and watched a big chunk of Disney’s The Princess and The Frog. After the fun of watching a movie, I got to help set up for the BARBEQUE WE HAD ON THE MAIN DECK!!! We got to go digging around in the working part of the boat looking for chairs and tables and setting them up on the deck and scrubbing them down. It was a great team effort and the barbeque was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon because it started at 4, when the sun was still high in the sky. It was really a treat because we got to pass around a rugby ball – what’s a barbeque without backyard (or in this case back deck?) sports?! Also, who else gets to say they played (sorta) rugby on the open ocean? NOT MANY I CAN TELL YOU THAT! The day was rounded out with a couple hours of playing cards with both other The Ocean Cleanup crew as well as Maersk crew. It has been a much-needed day of rest after almost 2 weeks of going from morning to (sometimes late into) the night! Even rewarding work requires a break on occasion, and today was the perfect day to recharge and reset for this week! Looking forward to what the week will bring! |
AuthorBree Gibbs, here. I'm a recent Master's Grad just trying to share what it's like to be a trash scientist (for those who aren't in the know, I'm a marine biologist). Categories
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