It is very late here right now, and I’ve been busy working on my next article for the Ventura County Star series. So today’s blog post is mostly visual.  Enjoy!

The first dolphins I’ve seen so far!

The rack room is crammed with all kinds of equipment.

This is during training for the multibeam sonar.

Red and yellow is shallower, blue is deeper.

The bottom triangle shows “backscatter” data. The thin vertical line is a plume of gas rising from the seafloor. This data was collected in the Gulf of Mexico.

In the control van during multibeam sonar training.

In the control van during multibeam sonar training.

The device that Nicole is holding is called an expendable bathythermograph, or XBT.

Radioing the contral van with the serial number of the XBT.

The XBT records depth and temperature.

Nicole teaching Juan how to deploy the XBT.

Getting ready to deploy.

Success! It is on its way.

Back in the control van, the data collected by the device.

Analyzing the data in the control van.

The blue line is the data just collected. The red lines represent data collected here before – ours falls just slightly out of the previous range (shown in red).

Showing how to export the data and save it properly.

A booby soaring near the bow of the ship, scanning the water for fish.

A flying fish!

Flying fish, with the marks it has left on the surface of the water.

Flying fish, with the marks it has left on the surface of the water.

Tonight we had a beautiful sunset.

The full moon just starting to peek out from behind some clouds.

Full moon reflected on the water.

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