Station 1: all hands on deck!
- Manuel Brito
- Apr 7, 2025
- 1 min read
It’s always a bit of chaos at the first sampling station; a mix of stress and excitement as the first CTD is lowered, and we get the first glimpse of what lies beneath us. Today’s agenda relies on maximum efficiency from all the scientists and deck crew as we race against the clock until the early hours of the morning to sample, collect, filter, observe, incubate, store, and repeat. And somewhere in between, make time to go to the kitchen for an ice-cream as it’s ice cream day today!
Today we recorded very productive waters in the upwelling area off the coast of Namibia with lots of tiny critters and marine ‘snow’ (particles). This was good news for our zooplankton expert Marja Koski from DTU (and her sidekick Manuel from VU Amsterdam), who is researching how zooplankton influence the ocean's export and sequestration of carbon, particularly through diel vertical migration, respiration and faecal pellet production!
Another beautiful day of sampling with a modified 55 micron WP2 net (left) and Marja concentrating the plankton (right), including her precious copepods!
This sounds like such an intense but rewarding day! I love that even with all the chaos of sampling and racing against the clock, you guys still made time for ice cream—priorities, right? The part about marine snow and those tiny copepods being so productive in the upwelling waters is fascinating; it's amazing how much life is packed into a single drop of that water. Speaking of which, I bet some of the photos from the microscope could pass for a "low quality image" with how grainy and pixelated they can look, but honestly that just makes them feel more raw and authentic. Hope the rest of the stations go smoothly!