We Have Arrived...and We Have Not Left Yet...

Hey, folks!  If you want to learn more about my scientific-like shenanigans, please also visit:

http://teacheratsea.WordPress.com/category/Teachers/staci-deschryver

You'll love it, I promise. 

Well, here I am! It is a small miracle that I have arrived in Kodiak with only 2 near misses to speak of. 

As I boarded the plane to leave Denver, the pilot happily announced that we would be "shoving off" early.  Pleased with this information, I quietly settled in with a book and began reading.  And reading.  And reading.  And then I noticed we were not moving.  After about twenty minutes we were politely informed that a navigation issue would put us "slightly behind schedule."  For an hour and fifteen minutes.  Now, this is the first of three legs I have to make to get to Kodiak, and I only have an hour and a half to get from my current plane to the plane that will eventually bring me in to Anchorage.

Needless to say, my years of Olympic sprint training came in handy when the plane finally did land in Seattle.  I also utilized some hurdle skills over what I have now determined to be poorly placed gate seating in SEA-TAC.  As the blast doors were closing on my portal to Alaska, I ran down the ramp with only seconds to spare.  My BAGS, however, decided to stop and get a Cinnabon during the transfer, because as I eagerly awaited them in Kodiak, they did not arrive in style as I did.  I pondered what it would be like to travel on a ship with two t-shirts and a pair of shorts for three weeks in forty degree weather.  Thankfully, Alaska Airlines did not want my bag as much as I did, because they promptly dropped it off on the next flight in to Kodiak.  I learned that it would be quite easy to acquire my sluggish cargo when the airline employee took me out the front door and pointed at my motel which was across a field about 100 yards away. Since it doesn't get dark until 11:30 in these parts, I just made the quick trek back over when the plane came back. 

Kodiak's airport is...tricky.  Let me describe to you how the landing went from the passenger perspective on a plane where EVERYONE got a window seat.  It went like this:

Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean, Ocean - Runway - 5,000 foot tall mountain.

You may have recognized the absence of buffer words such as "field," "space", "grass", "hangars", "parking lots", or "cows."

To put it bluntly, the pilots were pretty gangster, in my humble opinion.  Imagine what that looked like from the cockpit.  I would try to imagine it, but I was busy witnessing it out the front window myself while simultaneously trying to not to pee down my own leg.  Three cheers for those guys.  They were beasts.

After spending the night in the Hotel I made my way to the ship where I made my grand entrance in true Staci fashion by promptly tripping over this:

 Ah yes, welcome aboard, girl with two left feet.  You will get along swimmingly here, especially when the boat is actually moving.  You might want to consider practicing your walking before we actually shove off and nasty words like "pitch" and "roll" invade your pedestrian vocabulary.

Of course, three to five people saw the whole thing.  An excellent first impression, I suspect, as the crew knew in that instant that they would at the very least have some entertainment for the next three weeks. 

As we were waiting for our staterooms (I love that word - stateroom - having a stateroom makes me feel ever so slightly more important and dignified.  Excuse me, sir, could you please get out of my way?  I have a stateroom to go to),  there were abandon ship drills taking place.  As if that wasn't a friendly enough reminder that being on a ship is, indeed, dangerous, someone was injured during the drill.  This extremely unfortunate situation has put us in a position to wait for a few days before we are cleared to sail.  So,we are patiently waiting in port until we have someone to replace the injured party.

So, for now, I will have some outstanding adventures on shore in Kodiak.  I discovered they do not roll up the streets until about 5 am around here, mostly because it doesn't even get dark until 11:30 at night.  So there is plenty to do and plenty of daylight in which to do it.  Hopefully we will be underway shortly so that I can report on how well I cannot walk when the ship actually moves.  For now, the door jambs do a nice job of reminding me just how much I don't know.

Till next time, folks...

So, I'm on a ship, but i's a DIFFERENT ship!

Hello, everyone!  Well, we finally got everything straightened out.  The R/V Thomas G. Thompson fell a little "ill" and is currently sick in drydock.  As a result, the trip got pushed back to the point where I could no longer make it onboard with that crew.  I am so thankful to the members of this ship who were willing to take me on board, and I wish them good research and happy sailing!

However, I did get my cruise placement yesterday on the Oscar Dyson!  I will be leaving on July 21st to do a Walleye Pollock Fisheries Assessment in the southern portions of Alaska.  I will post more as I learn further details of the trip - for now, visit teacheratsea.noaa.gov if you get some free time.  We've had our first teacher of 2011 set sail in the gulf of Mexico to do some hydrographic surveys and based on his blog, he's had a fantastic experience!

So much time, so little to do...Wait...Strike That. Reverse it.

Well, it's almost time.  I've trained, I've communicated, I've met, I've chatted. 

I have not packed.

As one might suspect, packing for an ocean trip is not easy.  As my momma always used to say when I panicked about forgetting something when traveling "Gee, Stace, you aren't going to the moon.  It's not like there won't be a Walgreens where you're going."  Well, I think it's safe to say at this juncture that there will be no mid-ocean Walgreens, much to my chagrin.  But do you know what I found out from my partnering teacher about what IS in Alaska?

 Birds.  Who knew? 

This adds a whole new dimension of anxiety for me.

 Those of you who don't know might find it interesting that my relationship with birds is tenuous at best.  Well, let's not mince words.  I'm deathly afraid of birds.  Now, I understand they are a functional part of our ecosystem, they eat mosquitoes, and I'm sure they perform some other perfunctory purposes.  But YOU try getting attacked by a stump-footed pigeon in front of the Natural Histroy Muesum of London for your sandwich and tell me how fantastic they are.  Trust me, the Mary Poppins "Feed the Birds" song most certainly does NOT play out as depicted in the film.  The second you throw your last kernel of corn to the flood - I mean, flock - their beady eyes turn to you like a crazed 4-year-old who just discovered his older sister took the last donut.  It's apocalyptic. 

Despite my misgivings, Cat (the other teacher who is traveling with me) told me of one type of bird living in Alaska that might actually be kind of cute.  The Puffin.  Here is what I decided about birds, particularly the Puffin, with respect to this particular boat trip:

 If I had to reintroduce myself to an appreciation for the species, it would be by manner of puffin, dodo, or penguin. Since dodo and penguin are not hemispherically accurate in this instance, one might suspect that a puffin would be an excellent candidate as a "gateway bird" for viewing and, I shudder to think, enjoyment.

So, my friends, as I depart on my adventure, I would like to take this moment to pay homage to our friend, the Puffin.  Any opportunity to see a Puffin is an opportunity for me to reconcile my differences with our beaked ancestors.  As Cat pointed out, birds stemmed from the T-Rex on the evolutionary chain, meaning that by definition malice and a voracious appetite flows through their blood. 

Happy trails (sails?) my friends.  My next post will be from the Big Blue! From Seward's Folly! From the last Great Frontier!  From the Lido deck!  Wait...

(Still) Getting Ready!

One thing I've learned over the course of the last three to four months is that even change changes on the ocean!  Since I last touched base with all of you, my latest travel orders indicate that I am going both into and out of Kodiak!  You all may recognize the name "Kodiak" because it is painted on the back of almost all of the Deadliest Catch ships.   (You may also recognize the name Kodiak because it's the coolest island in Alaska.  And I'm going there. Twice.)

I am hoping to get the opportunity to hike out to the 1964 Alaskan Tsunami line on the island if I get some time.  I've heard that it is accessible in a few locations on the island.  If you've never heard of the 1964 earthquake, I'll give you a quick rundown.  Armed with this information, you will now be able to hold your own in style at any cocktail party thrown by members of the US Geological Survey, should you ever find yourself there.  One can never be too prepared.   

On Good Friday (of all days) in 1964, a large (9.2) earthquake struck the area of Prince William Sound.  To date, this is the largest recorded earthquake in the United States.  Let's keep it that way. 

All of my Earth Science Honors students know to practice caution when throwing around magnitude numbers, especially with very old and very large earthquakes. (In this case, it's a double whammy.)  The moment magnitude scale was not introduced until a few years after this particular earthquake.  If you recall, seismologists use Moment Magnitude to measure very large earthquakes, so when you see a number like 9.2, the automatic assumption would be that this particular scale was used.  Not so, in this case, as it wasn't invented yet.  It's like assuming that World War II fighter pilots used GPS to land planes.  The technology didn't exactly exist.  Now, I will say this with a caveat -  the numbers may have been back-measured with this particular scale after the fact and the 9.2 is a revised (and legitimate) number.  I'm having a hard time finding any information on what type of scale they used to arrive at this number.  Any smart people out there who can help me with this?

*I took this photo from:  http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1964_03_28_seismogram.php
This is the long-period seismogram, the vertical component.

 According to the USGS website, the quake was so bad that the seismograms couldn't even keep up with the darn thing and they had to reset the machines the following day because even the seismographs gave up after about 1 minute of recording.  Either way, it was quite ugly.  Until the Sendai quake (Japan Quake this year), this was the Cloverfield of Earthquakes - particularly because it was a giant monster, and no one really knew any details - just that they were getting attacked, and get they needed to get out.  Run first, ask questions later.  Stay out of tunnels. 

As if the quake wasn't a nasty enough beast, the fault that it occured on was a thrust fault at the bottom of the ocean.  (Earth Sci kids:  If the bells and warning whistles are not going off in your Earthly-adept heads right now, I've failed you as a trainer of natural hazards.)  When the Earth moves (as in a quake) along a thrust fault (as in Alaska) at the bottom of the Ocean (as in the Pacific), our planet gets the added bonus of a tsunami threat.  This particular threat was carried out in true planet fashion shortly after the quake struck.  A thirty foot wall of water overtook little Kodiak island.  Fortunately, most people knew to get to higher ground, and few lives were lost.

Now, you may ask: "What did our lovely Earth accomplish in performing such a show?"  According to the USGS, maximum displacement in some locations was a much as 14 feet.  Let me help you put this in perspective.  If you built a house along this displacement line, and your house managed to survive the ride (probably not), you would need to stand on your own shoulders almost THREE TIMES to get from your mailbox to your house.  Armed with this information, you should never complain about bringing in groceries again.  At least you don't need a ladder.  Keep in mind also, that displacement is a vector quantity and goes in three dimensions, so your house could be moved 14 feet down, right, or left (or some combination of the four), depending on where it was located.  In Kodiak, the ground subsided (sank) about 5 feet in some places.  One might say that Mother Earth "rearranged the furniture" that day, and by furniture I mean coastlines.

*I took this photo from:  http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID.   This is the area of maximum displacement, which doesn't occur where the man is standing, it's actually closer to the trees. 

*I took this photo from http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/show_picture.cgi?ID=ID.   This is on Kodiak Island - in the area that subsided 5 feet.  Apparently, this road is not the place to be during high tide, as it gets washed out - which didn't happen before the quake struck. 

This historic earthquake almost always gets an honorable mention in the question "What was the largest quake ever recorded?"  As you know, (or may not know) that question doesn't really have an answer, and anyone who gives you one is just giving you their opinion.  He or she should, however, make mention of a few noteworthy quakes, this being one of them. 

Did I say that I would give a quick explanation?  I lied. 

Either way, some of the scientists have graciously offered to give me a lift from the hotel to the ship (hallelujah!), so depending on if I have time or not, I would like to make the hike up to the uppermost wave line on the island.  What can I say?  Some people like to look at animals, I like to look at rocks.  Nerd alert!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have stalled long enough for today. It is time to return to school prep work for next year.  Until next time...