{"id":6105,"date":"2012-08-27T09:53:22","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T17:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=6105"},"modified":"2020-10-21T18:04:01","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T01:04:01","slug":"buoy-riding-in-the-name-of-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2012\/08\/27\/buoy-riding-in-the-name-of-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Buoy Riding in the Name of Science"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n\t

By Diane Wyse, Physical Oceanography Lab<\/h3>\n

Among the coolest aspects of interning at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) are all of the opportunities for new and exciting experiences in marine science and engineering. On a beautiful Moss Landing summer day, fellow intern Samantha Peterson and I enjoyed one of those opportunities on a day cruise aboard MBARI\u2019s R\/V Zephyr.\u00a0 We steamed out of Moss Landing Harbor early in the morning, and after two hours of getting our sea legs and munching on snacks (to avoid sea sickness, for sure), we arrived at our first of two stops for the day. The cruise plan included a visit to the M2 mooring<\/a>, a buoy deployed and maintained by MBARI scientists and engineers in partnership with the National Data Buoy Center (ID 46044), to download acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) data and perform routine maintenance.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
R\/V Zephry from the M2 moored buoy. Photo: D. Wyse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whole process of visiting and maintaining a mooring was really exciting to experience, especially as a student of physical oceanography.\u00a0 I got a kick out of the adventure inherent in maintaining oceanographic and meteorological instruments bobbing at the surface, moored 1000+ meters below on the seafloor.\u00a0 As I stood at the back of the Zephyr taking in the experience- the albatrosses gracefully landing to investigate our activities, the sea lion curiously poking it\u2019s head up around the buoy, the scientists and technicians climbing onto the buoy from the side of the ship- I wondered what sort of training or security clearance one has the endure to work on the buoy.\u00a0 After pondering this aloud to my fellow intern, I inquired with the ship operator.\u00a0 His job was to carefully back the boat up to the buoy to transfer people and equipment, then to maintain a safe distance from the buoy while the technicians were working on it.\u00a0 As it turns out, it was surprisingly simple; I had to confirm with just about everyone on that day cruise that I am not sensitive to seasickness before getting the go-ahead to disembark the trusty Zephry and climb (well, pounce, really) aboard M2.\u00a0 I could see immediately what everyone was driving at once I was aboard the mooring.\u00a0 Because the platform is only about 10 ft in diameter, it is much easier to get tossed about with the swell. \u00a0You feel much more in touch with the ocean on a smaller vessel.\u00a0 While ocean observers Mike Kelley and Jared Figurski downloaded the ADCP data, I climbed to the upper level to investigate the meteorological instruments.\u00a0 With my finely tuned CSI skills, I observed the evidence of seabird visitors on the solar panels and offered to clean off the droppings, you know, in the name of science.\u00a0 Surprisingly, they were more than happy to oblige that request, and I grabbed a cloth with seawater and scrubbed those panels squeaky clean.<\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Diane Wyse, Physical Oceanography Lab Among the coolest aspects of interning at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) are all of the opportunities for new and exciting experiences in marine science and engineering. On a beautiful Moss Landing summer day, fellow intern Samantha Peterson and I enjoyed one of those opportunities on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[114,214],"class_list":["post-6105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drop-inblog","tag-fieldwork","tag-physical-oceanography-lab"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6105"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20898,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6105\/revisions\/20898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}