July 9th, 2003
Greeting from the McArthur II. This is the first day of our sixteen day journey at sea. We started off from the Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary headquarters in Santa Barbara at 0615 and arrived at the base entrance to Port Hueneme at 0700. Security was tight so we had to wait a while to gain clearance...it's a good thing the ship was scheduled to depart at 1000. When all were aboard we had a science meeting on the main deck. We received basic information about the ship schedules and drills and tried on our gumby suits a.k.a. abandon ship suits.
You might be asking yourselves

"Why are you on the McArthur II, and what will you be doing?".
I am part of the teachers at sea program. My job is to gain all the understanding I can about current research practices and then translate that information into a lesson that my students can understand and relate to. Basically, I will be bringing real science into the classroom.

"What is the purpose of the McArthur II cruise?"
What we want to know is how human activity affects the sanctuary. Now this is a BIG question that requires a lot of time and data. On the first leg of the cruise (July 9-18) we are focusing on mapping the sea floor around one section of San Miguel island. We are trying to find out about the habitat first. During the day we use side scan sonar (more on that later) to characterize the ocean floor...is it rocky, muddy or sandy; is there a shipwreck down there? At night we tow a camera and can see real footage of the ocean floor and the life that flourishes in this habitat. We record whether it is muddy, rocky, or sandy and what kind of organisms are found on the different substrates. This is all called habitat characterization. We are asking what is the sea floor like and what lives there? Obviously this is one small part of the big picture. Being out here gives me a perspective about how long it takes to answer these questions. To give you some perspective: we are only characterizing one area of the island. This will takes 10 days and an entire crew of scientists (about 10 + 2 assisting teachers) as well as the ship crew. Questions that we still need to be answered include: How do the organisms interact? What environmental stresses are present? Whew! We've got our work cut out!

"Why do you use both side scan sonar and bottom tow camera?"
The side scan sonar allows us to get a larger area of data so we can cover larger areas of the floor in less time. The camera just show us small areas of the floor at a time. We use the cameras to "ground truth" some of the sonar data. This allows us to see if the side scan sonar is interpreting the data correctly.

Highlights of Day One:

* Seeing humpback whales and blue whales swim by us.
* Fried catfish with black bean sauce. The NOAA cooks rule!
* Talking with the scientists from USGS and getting a better understanding of their role in this process.
* Staying up from 2300-0300 watching the cameras and seeing the different organisms that live in the sanctuary.

Stay tuned to learn more about life at sea, the research and the research we will be doing during the second leg of the trip.

Amy Brown-Teacher at Sea-Day 1