French Road Sampling Trip Saves Sorcerer II From More Rough Weather!
September 28th 2010
With one last sample to collect and the weather still rough in the Mediterranean, we made the decision to make the Banyuls sample a road sampling trip. So Jeremy and I loaded up a rental car with carboys and headed out at 5 am to drive the 125 miles (200km) to Banyuls France from Barcelona Spain.
After being on the boat for a few months straight, the 2 hour drive was a welcome adventure, even with the 5 am departure! We were greeted at the Observatory of Banyuls by Dr. Ian Salter. Ian showed us around the laboratory and down to the dock to their research vessel.
They have a station less than ¼ of a mile offshore, which they have been monitoring for many years. We motored out to the site, they did a water column profile with a CTD that was very similar to the CTD we have on Sorcerer II, and then we collected our water from a few meters deep with a niskin bottle. Once we got back to the dock we loaded the carboys into the car and drove back to Sorcerer II to process the sample. It is always good to collect samples with collaborators that have long term monitoring sites and are interested in working with the Venter Institute to analyze the data!
