On our way!

Hello, everyone!  Heather J. here and wanted to share what we’ve been up to since arriving to our home for the next two weeks, the R/V Pt. Sur docked in Gulfport, MS.  Yesterday was a flurry of activity as the team loaded gear, put equipment together and made sure we had everything ready to head out by midnight.

Part of team spent the day building the acoustics pod and the MOCNESS net while others worked in the dry lab setting up all the identification stations, the genetics station, and the data processing computer, scale and printer.  Fourteen of us descended on our favorite barbeque place nearby for dinner and ended the day with our safety briefing by the captain before we all headed to bed.

We are now underway where the work continues with the MOCNESS net set up (more on this later) and we should be deploying our first nets around 9 pm tonight so we can pull them up around 2 am tomorrow and start processing our fascinating specimens!

We have lots of people who will be posting blogs throughout the trip so keep checking in on our adventures!