Hello to all! I am a Geological Oceanography major at the University of Washington. I am travelling to Glacier Bay, Alaska to study the differences between Alpine Glacier sediment deposits and Marine Glacier sediment deposits in relation to amounts of POC. I will also be analyzing surface area of sediment, grain size distriubtions, and mineralogy.

BLOG (Friday, March 21, 2008)

My Trip to the Reef

 Around 15:00, Chase and I, along with fellow crew members, went on quite an expedition to recover Chase's drifter that was stuck on a reef. First, Chase and I suited up in bright orange floatation suits. The raft that we were to board and take to the reef was lifted off the side of the boat. We then loaded the raft by crawling over the side of the R/V Thompson and onto the raft. They lowered us onto the water where the tide was a little rough. We sped away and headed towards the reef.
 It was thought that we would be driving directly to the drifter that was floating onshore and pick it up. Instead, the crew explained to us that they would drive around to the other side of the island where it was easier to let us off, and we could walk ashore and retrieve the drifter. This was a surprise to me because I thought I was going to stay on the boat. When we arrived within 10 meters of the reef, the crew tried to figure out how they could get as close to shore as possible. They explained to us that once they were close to shore, we were to hop out of the boat into the water and go onshore.
 As soon as I jumped out of the boat, my boots filled with water. I ran onto shore as fast as possible and lost sensation in my feet. I was very fortunate my feet had become numb since the water was extremely cold at 3.575 degrees C. Chase and I ran across the reef over the poorly sorted rock that ranged from large cobbles to sand. We ran past empty oyster shells, algae, snow, and animals! When we reached the drifter that was stuck on the rocks a little offshore, Chase ran through the waters screaming, "I can't believe this thing is still working! It works! It works!" While he continued to struggle in the water with his drifter, I noticed we had been followed by medium sized, black birds with long orange beaks and black beady eyes. I believe they are oyster catchers. They had the oddest sounding bird calls and would hide when I tried to come closer to them. Finally, Chase had pulled his drifter onshore and disassembled it. This whole time, I had been recording everything with Rick's video camera.
 On the way back, we ran into some creatures laying on their bellies. They looked exactly like sea lions, but something seemed a little odd about them. As we stared at them, they hopped up on four tiny legs and began walking off. Alaska had grown the largest otters we had ever seen in our lives! We rushed to the water where the boat was ready to pick us up. The first attempt, failure. Being a small person, the water had risen to my belly. The second attempt, success! We crawled up the ladder off the side of the raft and belly flopped onto the floor. We pulled away from the reef and rode the rough waters back to the R/V Thompson. It was an adventure that I would never forget!