Last post for leg 1! Before the ship pulls into port .. last but not least, Jim Europe!

NF1502 (Leg 1) completed stations

Leg 1 of this cruise comes to a close today! Before the scientific party and crew gets to literally refuel the ship and food stores (as well as some much needed rest) during their port stop in Montego Bay, we will meet the last member of the scientific party, Jim Europe! 

Jim, Nick and Alexis recover CTD

LTJG (that’s Lieutenant Junior Grade for us non-military folks) “Jim” is currently on his “land assignment” at the Miami Lab in Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC). He is the Vessel and Dive Operations Coordinator which means he handles all small boat and dive operations at the SEFSC. Jim is also a Field biologist for National Coral Reef Monitoring Program. 
He tells us that he manages "8
 boats ranging from 19 ft to 27 ft that engage in work such as dive operation supporting coral restoration and research as well as the multi-agency reef fish population assessments. Small boats are used in ecosystem and mangrove studies, habitat characterization, marine mammal tracking, tagging & photo identification ...  and lots of other projects at SEFSC that I am still learning about!" [the ELH lab used to do a lot of small boat work back in the Florida Bay research days!].

Jim shared with us that “I have done about a dozen dives for SEFSC, about 40 for NOAA and about 500 scientific dives prior to NOAA studying habitat restoration in Peconic Estuary System, Long Island NY. So far the most interesting thing I’ve seen during my land assignment in Miami was diving to recover endangered coral (Acropora sp.) from the area around the Port of Miami’s dredging project to widen and deepen the Miami cruise and container ship channel. The dredging had put so much silt in the water that everything had a thick layer of silt covering it. Some of the smaller corals were completely covered over!” Jim took part in some  coral restoration that was in the news! Sadly the corals in Biscayne Bay (our Miami-backyard) are still at risk from multiple sources and were covered by multiple news venues and organizations (article). 

Jim joined our cruise to get experience seeing the research "ops" that take place aboard the NOAA Ships from the science parties' perspective and to learn about his next "at sea" assignment as an Operations Officer. You see, Jim is one of the 321 commissioned officers that serve for the NOAA Corps and usually would be driving the ship instead of being one of the science crew.

Jim and Aras recovering the S10 net (plankton net)

The NOAA Corps is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The Corps Officers operate NOAA's 16 ships or 9 aircraft and provide support to NOAA's missions. Some of their duties and areas of operations range from launching a weather balloon at the South Pole, conducting hydrographic or fishery surveys, maintaining buoys in the tropical Pacific, flying snow surveys and into hurricanes. For more info, check out their website and recruitment video (ELH has several cameos in that video! Skip for minute 0.25 for me, and minute 2.51 for TG!). The officers will typically have different types of deployments that last for about 2 years each (at sea or in the air, and then their "land assignments.").
We thank LTJG Jim and hope that he enjoyed being part of the science-crew during leg 1 of NF1502. 

Stay tuned for some photos from the science crew! For now some group shots for everyone on leg 1: 
On "day" shift: John Lamkin, Sarah Privoznik, Dan Otis, Vanessa Wright, Josue Millan, Trika Gerard, Ryan Smith. On awesome "night shift": Kathryn Doering, Aras Zygas, Alexis Sabine, Grant Rawson, Jim Europe.

Day and night shifts aboard leg 1