By Kenneth and Susan Coale  (15 September 2015)

When John Martin came to MLML in 1973, he brought with him an interest in oceanography that stretched the capacity of the MLML fleet. Several high profile grants with prominent scientists, both national and international, brought vigor and national recognition to the study of metal and nutrient cycling, well beyond the bounds of California’s 3-mile limit. With an expanding program in Oceanography at MLML, the Marine Laboratories were rapidly outgrowing the meager and primitive accommodations of the R/V Oconostota, a converted ocean-going tug boat, more affectionately known as the Rolly “O”.

The R/V Oconostota was a “gift” from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, yet due to it’s inherent unseaworthiness, propensity for violent rolls and a nefarious captain, John Martin was looking for another vessel and an upgrade to the oceanographic profile of the MLML fleet. Having been recently installed as the Labs’ Director, and also holding a new position on the UNOLS Council, John had a bird’s eye view of the entire US research fleet. He had recently sailed aboard the R/V Cayuse out of Oregon State University (OSU) in a crossing from Honolulu to Moss Landing in the summer of 1977, and was thinking this kind of vessel could be a good replacement. When OSU took possession of the newly built R/V Wecoma, MLML was able to bid successfully for the acquisition of the R/V Cayuse. This is an example of institutional positioning. John always positioned MLML in the waste stream of other, richer institutions, and in that position, shit happens! MLML proudly took possession of the R/V Cayuse in 1979 and by the early 1980s John and his group were deep into the CEROP (NSF, Chemical Exchange Rates with Oceanic Particles, with UCSC) and VERTEX (NSF, Vertical Transport and Exchange) programs with many collaborators.

The Oregon State University named many of their vessels after American Indian features and peoples of their region and MLML did not discover until later, that the word “Cayuse” also meant “bucking horse”. The R/V Cayuse was not originally built as a research vessel, few boats were in those days. She was a fishing boat with a large empty front hold with a hundred tons of buoyancy. The staterooms and heads were installed there. She was known for being “lively”. Not only could she jump and buck, she could pitch, roll, yaw, lurch and kick. Even under calm conditions, many “blew their cookies” and pitched their lunch, breakfast and dinner across her rails. We found out later that OSU knew about this ride, in fact there had been a few instances where the mates on watch actually passed out on the bridge. A doctor was called in to evaluate the vessel and measured acceleration forces in excess of 2 g’s when the ship would right itself while rising from the trough of a swell. The crew were blacking out due to the type of g-force hypotension normally experienced by jet pilots wearing compression suits and breathing oxygen. The R/V Cayuse, however, was not so provisioned, but we were not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

With increasing oceanographic activity, a steady stream of students and technicians set to sea aboard the R/V Cayuse to sample water, plankton and sinking particulate matter. Free-floating sediment traps, known as PITS (Particle Interceptor Traps), were deployed and followed for days to measure carbon flux. Water samples were spiked with ¹⁴C to measure primary production. Chlorophyll, nutrients, salinities, oxygens, were all measured on board, while trace metal samples dripped through Chelex columns and PIT samples sloshed back and forth in their petri dishes under the dissecting microscope. The R/V Cayuse supported all of the activity of a vessel twice her size with half the people. Many students piled aboard and got their degrees using the data collected on these cruises, but even for the die-hard committed and determined researchers, these cruises were exhausting.

The vessel had been rode hard and put up wet, yet propulsion and engine control systems were basically sound and, aside from the normal winch and electronic demons that surfaced from time to time, the vessel was serviceable and compliant with Coast Guard standards…except for one thing. The State of California had established wastewater discharge criteria that were more stringent than the Oregon standards and within three miles from the coast the R/V Cayuse had only a few options to bring her waste treatment system into compliance: Hold it, Treat it, or Burn it. One problem was that the jurisdictional concept of the three-mile limit had recently been adjudicated in federal court. A suit brought by the fishing community contended that the limit should be 3 miles from shore, yet there are special considerations for bays and estuaries. The courts found that for Monterey Bay, the three mile boundary extended outside a line drawn between Point Santa Cruz to the North and Point Piños to the South, the entire bay was within the waste discharge restriction area as mandated by the California Department of Fish and Game. Because more and more of the research was conducted within the Bay and there were no pump-out facilities in Moss Landing at the time, engineering options were explored. The expansion of holding tanks was ruled out due to the fact that the hold was built out with staterooms and heads. The installation of a treatment plant was ruled out due to the lack of room in the engineering spaces for the bulky treatment units of the time, leaving incineration a promising alternative.

New stainless steel heads replaced the porcelain thrones. Accessory ventilation was installed and diesel fuel line extended from the engine room to the head and a spark plug was rigged in every unit. This seemed the kind of system that was designed with the exuberance and ingenuity of a mischievous 8 year old boy. Students Debbie Fellows, Susan Coale, Madeleine Urrere, Merrit Tuel, and Ginger Armbrust were accompanied by Technicians Sara Tanner and Craig Hunter with Researcher George Knauer on the maiden voyage of this new system. Their cruise plan called for 24/7 operations in Monterey Bay and offshore regions doing hydrocasts for seawater, tows for plankton, deployments of PITS and lots of shipboard analysis. Little did they know that those of salps, copepods and euphausiids were not going to be the only fecal pellets they would study on this voyage.

About day two out of the dock, the heads malfunctioned, about the same time that the crew’s initial constipation was beginning to ease. A flow of waste and vomit entered the new system. The engineer worked to free the clogs and adjust the fuel jets. There was some improvement, but maybe too much. The next person to the head, upon flushing, ignited the entire mass of debris. The load started burning and had to be subdued with a fire extinguisher. Smoke, flames and heat blackened the walls. It has been said that the next flush blew the entire contents out of the head, covering the walls, ceiling, and occupant, but this account may be more myth than fact. What is undeniable is that the heads filled with spew and scat in a swill of diesel fuel and toilet paper. The stench of diesel smoke and fumes, mixed with sewage, burnt and raw, filled the staterooms and the labs above, aggravating the nausea that was already setting in. Although the heads were never secured, the bowels of the scientists and crew stopped functioning for the remainder of the 5-day cruise. Some could relieve themselves over the side, others used a bucket, but this was dangerous on a pitching and rolling platform. People switched quickly to a liquid diet in spite of the sumptuous fare served up by the cook, MaryJoe. The officers together with the scientific party and crew soldiered on.

Upon docking in Moss Landing, the disembarkation was urgent and direct, still the mission was successful. As the story spread, a legend began to take shape and those participants and their super-human constitutions became unwitting celebrities. Tee shirts were silkscreened, memorializing the now famed “Flaming Heads Cruise”. In spite of this notoriety, the toilets were quickly remodeled, heads removed and a more conventional disposal system installed. All participants went on to promising careers and the story only buttressed Moss Landing’s reputation for producing some hard-core, bad-ass oceanographers. MLML has remained in the waste stream of some very renowned institutions and it has served us well, as several significant acquisitions have been realized in benefit of our students, staff and faculty. The R/V Cayuse continued in service of the UNOLS fleet for many years, only to be replaced by the more capable R/V Point Sur (formerly the R/V Cape Florida) from the University of Miami (another institution with a rich waste stream). Captain Don Bradford delivered the R/V Cayuse to a research consortium in the Gulf of Maine where the ship was renamed the R/V Argo Maine and Don sailed as Captain until retirement. Although John never looked a gift horse in the mouth, he paid more attention to the other end of the beast from then on.

By Mike Foster (28 August 2015)

Warm seas, cardóns at the shore, whales, turtles, boobies, rhodoliths, naked rocks, fish tacos, crema de cacti – it is no surprise that the Gulf of California has long attracted MLML scientists. We follow the tradition of early Gulf adventures including the famous Ricketts and Steinbeck expedition, and the seaweed studies of E. Yale Dawson. Dawson is particularly noteworthy as he was affiliated with the Beaudette Foundation, precursor to MLML, which sponsored a number of expeditions to the Gulf using the chartered vessel Neptunus Rex. Early on the MLML created a course, “Ecology of the Gulf of California,” centered on a series of cruises in the Gulf on the ship Makrele in 1969. Among the students participating were Genny Bockus (now Anderson), Shane Anderson, Jim Houk, Jim Norris, Don Wobber and Dave Mayer who all went on to notable careers in marine science.

The completion of the Baja Trans-peninsular Highway in 1973 greatly improved vehicle access to the Gulf and Pacific Baja, stimulating various informal expeditions by MLML faculty Greg Cailliet (sharks), Jim Harvey (whales), John Oliver (whale feeding) and Bernd Würsig (marine mammals). As is the MLML tradition, numerous students were included.

I became Baja bound in 1989 as the result of a phone call from Diana Steller, calling from Mulegé and asking if I knew anything about subtidal beds of purple-pink balls she had discovered while snorkeling in Bahía Concepción. It turned out these were rhodoliths, free-living non-geniculate coralline algae. Dawson had previously published on their taxonomy in the Gulf but little was known about their distribution and ecology in Baja or elsewhere in the world. Sounded interesting and I needed a break from the post-earthquake MLML blues. So it began – trips with other grad student volunteers to help with what became Diana’s MS theses on rhodolith bed ecology. This led to re-establishing the Gulf of California ecology course, now led by Diana, that includes various biological and geological studies depending on faculty interest, with a number of students going on to do their MS theses in Baja.

A highlight has been a collaboration with Rafael Riosmena Rodríguez that began in 1994-95 when I was on a Fulbright at Universidad Autónoma de Baja California Sur in La Paz. Rafael, now a professor at UABCS, subsequently came to MLML to do his MS on rhodolith taxonomy, went on to a PhD in Australia, and continues to collaborate on research in Baja. His students have frequently joined the MLML Baja class and various research projects. The collaboration also led to founding the International Rhodolith Workshop that convenes every three years, the 5^th held in Costa Rica in 2015.

Part of the success of these forays into Baja is due  to John Douglas (JD) and the rest of the Marine Ops staff who made sure the outboards and boats performed well, and who provided mandatory maintenance lectures if they returned abused.

No doubt MLML Baja adventures will continue with good science, collaboration, and excellent crema de cacti.

By Mike Prince (21 August 2015)

Moss Landing Marine Labs has always been about providing our students with research experiences in the field, which for them is at sea, or in estuaries and bays like Elkhorn Slough, Stillwater cove in Carmel Bay, San Francisco Bay and Delta and far flung locations like the Gulf of California and Antarctica.   Our students conduct their own class projects, Thesis research projects and benefit by supporting and participating in research projects conducted by our Faculty and associated researchers. One important way that MLML has supported these objectives has been through the maintenance and operation of a fleet of Research Vessels and small boats.

Our former Director, Dr. Kenneth Coale says it well.

“The mission of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories has been to provision the pioneers of the future.  This means that we deliver our students safely into the marine environment; with the physical and intellectual resources they need to push back the frontiers of science.  Some need only a pair of waders and a quadrat, others a SCUBA tank and a meter tape, others a submarine, still others an aircraft.  Many have relied upon our fleet of research vessels that have safely conveyed our students, faculty and staff above the waters, so that they could peer below it's surface.  It is this fleet that has distinguished us from other institutions and because our needs are so varied, our fleet has represented a diversity varying from simple kayaks to NSF regional class research vessels over 500 tons. This fleet is unparalleled in any other Masters program.  Where this fleet has not met our needs, the National Science Foundation, NOAA and the Office of Naval Research have provided additional opportunities on icebreakers, global class vessels and submarines.”

My own employment with MLML started as a crewmember in the Research Vessel Cayuse in 1980, but there were several vessels that pre-date the Cayuse. I will cover some “sea stories” about some of our vessels in more detail in subsequent blogs. This piece will focus on an overview of our fleet and the vessels that have called our docks their homeport. I encourage you to comment with any sea stories, memories, or additions you might want to share.

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MLML also maintains a fleet of small boats, inflatables and kayaks including the very imaginatively named White, Blue and Navy Whalers, the Slough Boat and the Orange RHIB along with many others over the years. Some were well outfitted for work in Monterey Bay and near coastal waters such as the R/V Ridgeway and the Bay Whaler while others such as the smaller whalers and the Slough boat are very basic stable platforms suited for the shallow waters of the Elkhorn Slough. Trailerable inflatables and whalers allowed for diving and field work anywhere along the coast and as far away as Baja California.

With the retirement of the R/V Point Sur from the UNOLS fleet and the sale to the University of Southern Mississippi this year our Marine Operations program is in a state of transition. We still operate the R/V John Martin, R/V Sheila B, and the many smaller boats. We are looking for opportunities to continue getting our students to sea on larger sea-going research vessels and also for the resources and opportunities to acquire a new vessel to support the important educational and research programs at MLML. Any good ideas are welcome!

We just recently added another vessel to the fleet. The R/V Tombolo is a 24-feet Munson Packcat outboard motor boat that was donated to MLML by Kathy Dickinson. It is presently located in Puget Sound, and is operated by Gary Greene, MLML Emeritus faculty member.

By Jim Harvey (12 August 2015)

If you come to the main lab of MLML today you see a spectacular building (LEED Gold certified), with amazing views, and well-outfitted teaching and research spaces. What you don’t see is that there are two large cement foundation slabs and one smaller one nestled under the cypress and eucalyptus trees just to your right as you come up the hill (Fig. 1).

“In the days immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States military scrambled to provide personnel for the protection of America’s vast unguarded coastlines from incursion by Axis powers” (Breschini et al. 1996). In April or May 1942, the all-black 54^th Coast Artillery Regiment arrived under cover of darkness to establish an encampment on the hill where MLML now resides (Fig. 2).

Lou Calcagno (former Monterey County Supervisor and supporter of MLML) remembered that there were five buildings in the grove of trees, and the four gun emplacements were dug into the sand at the crest of the hill, at the location of the future water tower. The 54^th had arrived to protect the central CA coast, and remained on the hill at Moss Landing until mid 1944.

At the end of WWII, the Sandholdt family came into possession of the buildings, and they were eventually sold and moved off the property. During the archeological dig before the new MLML building was constructed they found shell casings, military dog tags, and a large pile of catsup bottles, a testament to the cuisine of the 54^th.  Amazing history on this hill.

THE BEGINNINGS OF MLML

In recognition that 2016 marks the 50^th Anniversary of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories .

By Jim Harvey  (29 June 2015)

Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) was conceived by professors at San Jose State College in the early 1960s, and in December 1965 the facility was purchased for $210,000 from the Beaudette Foundation for Biological Research (Fig. 1). The MLML consortium initially included the California State College campuses from San Jose, San Francisco, and Hayward (now East Bay),  each contributing $20,000, which along with a grant from NSF for $150,000 provided the purchase price for the property. Almost immediately the campuses from Sacramento and Fresno joined the consortium.

Dr. John Harville (Fig. 2) became the first Director, and under his leadership the Policy Board established curriculum, staffing, and operating policies.

James Nybakken (CSC Hayward) was the first permanent faculty member joining Harville to teach the inaugural classes at MLML in Spring 1966. The first complete set of courses was offered in Fall 1966, when Oceanography, Vertebrate Zoology, Invertebrate Zoology, Marine Ecology, Literature of Marine Science, Research, and Algology were taught. We now realize that algology is an incorrect use of the word because it refers to the study of pain, and that phycology is the correct terminology (for which I am reminded by Drs. Foster and Graham all the time). Fourteen students attended the Fall 1966 classes, they came from the campuses of Hayward and San Jose (Fig. 3). By Spring 1968, there were 55 enrolled students, 30 of them graduate students, representing all five of the consortium campuses.

The official dedication of MLML occurred on 28 April 1967, and was attended by 250 invited guests and the MLML community. Lieutenant Governor Robert Finch delivered the dedication address and Chancellor Glenn Dumke provided introductions. The following day approximately 500 persons attended the first MLML Open House, establishing a tradition that continues today.

Much of this information was taken from the History of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories: The Early Years by James Nybakken.

This blog will be one of many, posted once a week until August 2016, as we celebrate 50 years of excellence in marine science and education at MLML.