OCTOPUS!!!

Today was incredible. I woke up at 6:30 as usual, showered, ate a giant breakfast, and by 8, we were all ready to go. The bio box was secured, the ROV was running, and the sun was shining. We got into the water and got to the wall within an hour and a half (fast compared to previous dives). We collected so many corals within the first hour, that we decided to come up to the surface, empty the bio box and go back down.

On the second dive, we saw a dazzling red jellyfish with long, spindly, tendril arms drifting behind it. Oh, and even before we got to the deep wall, we saw a shark! I'm not sure what kind of shark it was, but it was very cool. Ahh--I'm so tired, I'm not explaining everything as well as it deserves... But, anyway, as you can tell by the title, we saw the most amazing, beautiful, sultry octopus lingering on the bottom. It was a weird pinky grey with giant dolls eyes. (someone said its eyes were like mine) It moved like jelly across the ocean bottom, expanding and contracting the skin around its eyes, lifting the papillae along its mantle, giving it the appearance of an alien with goose bumps studying the ROV.

I think Les thought that this cruise would help push me over to the side of deep sea research and leave the cephalopods behind (he basically said as much today), but... after seeing that octopus...he's got a challenge ahead of him. Although, I am loving this deep sea research. But--I just love science. I don't discriminate. This is why I just need a TV show to talk about science for the rest of my life and tell people why they should love invertebrates :)

We brought the ROV up around 8pm and started to process the corals. When we brought the Paramuricea on board, we turned off all the lights in the wet lab and saw the most splendid display of phosphorescence. Also, there was a dumbo octopus egg case on one of the corals--I got to keep it!!! There was no octopus in there, but still... very cool. Also, we had some crabs, some isopods, some crinoids, hydroids--a plethora of organisms from the deep!!

One sort of frustrating thing that has developed is that I've come to discover that being a grad student and a women doesn't really gain much respect on this boat...Or in science in general. I'm given a task to do, and then someone hovers over me the whole time making sure I do it correctly. Usually the task is something a monkey could do. But, I'm getting over it.

I'm exhausted. There is really no such thing as a weekend or a break...We work at least 14 hours a day and then collapse into bed. Oh well, I'll sleep when I'm dead. :)
Tomorrow will be another exciting day at a new site--we're on our way there tonight. Apparently there is supposed to be bad weather tonight and tomorrow, but hopefully we will still be able to get the ROV in the water.

More updates tomorrow...