Well we left the dock at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce, Florida just after sunrise this morning to catch the incoming tide. We sailed down the Indian River estuary towards Fort Pierce Inlet and were greeted with a healthy breeze and a mild chop as we turned to face the Atlantic Ocean. Our clear blue day for some of our crew was colored by the 6-foot seas of the Gulf Stream (this is the distance from the crest to the trough of the waves). Once we crossed this northern current of seawater, a few of our missing members returned to the deck to sun themselves and return to a more life-like condition. Fortunately Craig Brauer and I avoided motion-induced gastrointestinal distress.

We cleared customs at the West End of Grand Bahama Island and went to work. About half of our total party of 20 were involved in learning the delicate art of deploying and controlling the CTD bottle rosette (CTD = Conductivity, Temperature, Depth) and this particular instrument can also measure the fluorescence of the seawater and those data can be used to estimate the amount of phytoplankton (small, typically single-cell plants and phytosynthetic bacteria). The rest of us colleted and filtered seawater and then filled the bins in the cold room. If all goes well, we will be in the Bahamas where the air temperature is in the mid-80s and working in a 54-degree room.

Just before we began our steam to the first dive site (see map below) we were fortunate to take a quick plankton tow to collected developmental stages of invertebrates called larvae. The tow was filled with a cornucopia of larvae and the lab was bustling with activity as we saw larval forms that were new and unusual to many of the crew.

Tomorrow begins our first day of submersible operations to collect deep-sea sea urchins and sea stars. As luck would have it, Craig Brauer and I will be making this inaugural dive to a little more than 700 m (2200 feet). I will be in the sphere of the Johnson-Sea-Link and Craig will be in the aft chamber and our dive should take nearly 4 hours (I will forego coffee in the morning). Our target species will be sea urchins and this will be quite an adventure tomorrow!

In the second expedition of a four-year project funded by the National Science Foundation, Illinois Wesleyan Associate Professor of Biology Will Jaeckle and biology student Craig Brauer ’08 will collect and study the invertebrate larvae of deep-sea species.

They will be spending 2 weeks aboard the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution’s R/V Seward Johnson and will be using a Johnson-Sea-Link submersible to collect adult sea urchins and sea stars from depths of 500 to 1,000 meters.The collected adults will be induced to spawn and their embryos and larvae will be used for experiments designed to learn how they get sufficient nourishment to survive and develop.

The grant project is a joint endeavor between Jaeckle and Drs. Craig Young, Michelle Wood and Richard Emlet from the University of Oregon. Learn more.

Below is the planned path of the research vessel.