{"id":7032,"date":"2013-05-13T09:15:02","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T17:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=7032"},"modified":"2020-10-13T17:27:15","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T00:27:15","slug":"ptsurtrip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2013\/05\/13\/ptsurtrip\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking to the High Seas on the R\/V Point Sur"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab<\/h3>\n

Last Monday, I bussed it to Santa Barbara then hopped a train to San Diego. One night in a hotel and an overpriced taxi ride later, and I was laying eyes on the R\/V Point Sur for the first time since November 29, 2012, on it\u2019s way back from its 17,000 mile round-trip journey to Palmer Station in Antarctica.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The majestic R\/V Point Sur.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By this time, what was once a full house was down to 11. The crew consisted of a mix of those who had spent the past five months on the boat and in Antarctica, and a few others who had boarded in Mexico two weeks prior to my arrival.<\/p>\n

Much to my delight, I was not the only scientist on board. Ashley Wheeler, a master\u2019s student in geological oceanography, had boarded in Mexico in April to work with the Naval Postgraduate School collecting oceanographic data.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Antarctica crew, who were probably packed in, I had my own bedroom and bathroom. I was also privilege to three square meals a day, crafted by an amazing chef who had no problems making inventive and delicious vegetarian food.<\/p>\n

We couldn\u2019t have asked for better weather, which was great, as this was my first overnight trip on a ship. Land lubber no more! I had some nagging nausea the second day, but it passed after some time outside with the ocean breeze, a handful of ginger chews, and an iron will!<\/p>\n

So why did I trek all this way to jump aboard the R\/V Point Sur?<\/p>\n

This trip was the kick-off of my thesis project, which, among other things, will include an assessment of the risk of ship-whale interactions in the shipping lanes off California. To do this I need to figure out where the whales are. And this of course is done with old-fashioned shipboard surveys.<\/p>\n

Most of my time was spent standing in front of the bridge scanning the sea for whales with my trusty binoculars and Rite in the Rain data sheets. I stared patiently out into the expansive and seemingly empty blue ocean.<\/p>\n

After about 16 hours of surveys, I saw 11 whales (mostly humpbacks), dozens of California sea lions, gangs of bow riding dolphins, and sea birds, which preferred wrack lounging to flying.<\/p>\n

I was also lucky enough to have Ashley keep me company the whole time during my surveys. Thanks, Ashley!<\/p>\n

Ocean life seems to agree with me. Of course I might get a little homesick after months at sea, but being on a ship in the middle of the ocean had a freeing feeling. And the crew made excellent conversationalists. (And did I mention the food!?!)<\/p>\n

Next up: get on as many cruises as I can. Some one recently suggested cruise lines. Not a bad way to do thesis field work!<\/p>\n

\"Humpys!\"<\/a>
Humpys!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Angela Szesciorka, Vertebrate Ecology Lab Last Monday, I bussed it to Santa Barbara then hopped a train to San Diego. One night in a hotel and an overpriced taxi ride later, and I was laying eyes on the R\/V Point Sur for the first time since November 29, 2012, on it\u2019s way back from […]<\/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":[310],"class_list":["post-7032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drop-inblog","tag-vertebrate-ecology-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\/7032","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=7032"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20736,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7032\/revisions\/20736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}