Cruise Experience Spotlight: A Full-Circle Moment at Sea
Mallory Boell trying on an  immersion suit during drills – Photo by Annie Effinger, UCSD, SIO, CalCOFI
Written by: Mallory Boell
SIO BS/MS Student in the Semmens Lab
Hi, my name is Mallory! I’m a current Master’s student at SIO, and I had the opportunity to help with CCE and CalCOFI data collection on the 2511 CalCOFI cruise.
As an undergraduate student, I worked on consolidating and organizing PRPOOS plankton data from the CCE-LTER database, so it was a satisfying, full-circle moment to finally be out on the ship, seeing the origin of where that data came from.
Other highlights included the morning send-offs of the birds who had overnighted on the ship, and a station visit from a pod of humpback whales! It was such an emotional experience getting to watch the whales dive under and around the boat, and then to listen to their calls using the marine mammal team’s acoustic receiver headset. Aside from the critters, I also had a great time getting to know everyone aboard, from the crew to the science team. It was amazing to see folks from different backgrounds coming together to contribute their own expertise for the sake of science and a shared love of the ocean.
