Sea Log: 2024-03-17

Published

March 17, 2024

The science is done,¹ the cleaning has begun! You’d think that a mere 16 nets wouldn’t be too bad, but when some of the nets are 20+ feet long, and you have to rinse, then scrub with soap², then flip inside out, then rinse the inside, then flip right-side out, then rinse the outside… It is a process to say the least.

I volunteered as tribute³ and I got soaked. Like, dump-water-out-of-the-rainboots, abandon-the-rain-pants-because-they’re-not-doing-anything-anymore soaked.

And to round out the day, we had an on-theme St. Patrick’s Day meal with the dregs of the food stores. Then we started our transit back to San Diego and land!

image of many boxes and bins stacked in the forward hold of the ship — The final Goopy Guy counts: 40 Bongos and 23 MOCNESSes and we’re done!

several people stand on aft deck, hosing off nets — v grateful for v sunny day for hosing some v smelly nets⁴

many nets crowded into the hangar to dry, amidst a bunch of other equipment that is partially packed — The hangar has an almost ethereal atmosphere when it’s filled with wet nets strung out to dry

Sea fun fact of the day: So I googled why zooplankton smell and learned some interesting tidbits about the role of sulfur in the ocean. Both for good⁵ and for less good.⁶ If you also wanna fall down this rabbit hole, here’s a video and article to get you started.

Footnotes

our last MOCNESS was finished in the wee hours of March 17th↩︎
Grace + giant trash barrel + some dish soap = DIY washing machine↩︎
meaning I held up the nets while they got their final two rinses↩︎
zooplankton fresh from the sea smells a little funky… but zooplankton dried and crusty on a net are real funky smelling↩︎
exploding plankton release the sulfuric smells, both attracting predators to their next meal and helping to make clouds and regulate earth’s temperature↩︎
Some seabirds can smell the sulfur and get confused and then chomp down on plastic because it is covered in algae that also smells sulfuric↩︎