Millport 12.10.2012-16.10.2012

iyaa :)! 

Just a wee update about my week. I spent most of it on the Isle of Cumbrae, Millport. It's a little town near Ayrshire. Honestly though it would have been a bad 5 days, because I went a few years ago on another field trip with my undergraduate class and it wasn't too great. This time however, I worked my ass off and enjoyed the experience. So here we go,

I live pretty far from where I study, about an hour away so it was a pretty much early start. We had to be on the mini bus by around 8:30ish. I definitely dressed for cold weather as the picture below shows.  

Wooly hats, 4 layers and a waterproof. Yes. I was well dressed. Too well dressed. Even wore my penguin gloves and my stripy wellington boots. I pretty much slept the whole journey to the ferry. 

It was a short ferry across the Clyde. Really windy! 

Once we got there, we had time to unload and chill out then straight onto the RV Aora. We did a beam trawl and grab samples. Also spoke to the skipper and he showed us the different tech they had. 

The RV Aora! 

The beam trawl in action. It was lowered down to around 40 odd metres at a speed of 2 knots ;) (I remembered a wee bit of what I learnt) 

The trawl gave us a lot of goodies. We threw a lot back of course. Just took some to identify. 

The day grab after it was lowered 

Some of the stuff we gathered and took to the lab to identify.

Our main theme of the week was to see if we could build marine renewables in the area. We had 5 presentations to do in 5 days! Holy moses right! I don't bode well with presentations as most people know. I look like a right idiot and go a wee bit geordie. We managed to gather information in such short time and present it in the evenings. 

(photo from Jo)

One of the highlights of the field trip was the experience in the hyperbaric chamber! This was one of the best experiences ever. The dude who ran it took us down in pressure to around 50m. Obviously, if you stay too long you get narced. Nitrogen narcosis. Our voices changed as if we sucked in helium (kinda..). The photo above was in the chamber. Obviously, you're not allowed phones etc, so it was when the door was open :)! It got really hot as we went "down" then freezing as we came back up. Pretty neat! 

We got to do some shore work too. I usually hate it as it's always raining when I do shore work. This time however it was dry. Our transect was masssssssive! Learnt what a bryozoan was too. Although still unsure, will find out in a future lecture :)! 

I managed to get drunk at some point. I am the biggest lightweight ever. And well, shots don't bode well with me, and..yeah. I'm so glad my friend stayed with me otherwise I would have had one of the lecturers put me to bed. Not cool! Pretty funny bus ride back to the hostel. Something about carrots. Hahaha! 

The second last night was awful. After dinner I felt really ill. Ill enough to vomit. NOT COOL. Not when I'm away and not in my own bed. Not that I actually went to bed. As stubborn as I am. I still carried on with my presentation. I did work 6 hours on it, and really didn't want to let my guys down. We also had to create a presentation and gather our information from the few days together for a presentation in the morning. I didnt want to go to bed so stayed up and helped with research. I should have, but then I would have missed out. I felt better later in the night, probably because I had nothing in my stomach. Somehow stayed up all night, and had about 2 hours sleep. The presentation went well! Although, I was still a bit stumbly and said a few things wrong. I was told I improved, didn't feel like it but I managed to speak a lot more.

Bunch of us crazy marine biologists mimicking bryozoans :)!  

Fish Whisperers! 

My main goal during this field trip was to not drop my phone in a rock pool or overboard the vessel. I didn't! But I managed to drop my phone right before we got on the mini bus and smashed the screen. And safe to say, I got a bit angry. Threw my stuff into the mini bus and had to take a wee time out. Oops. I didn't cry at least :)! 

Over and out

x