The last few days have been incredibly busy, so I apologize for not posting. I also apologize for not having any pictures in this post. I don't have pictures because all the interesting stuff I've done in the past few days has been on the boat in iffy weather, so I didn't want to risk losing my camera. I helped collect emergence traps, which form a bubble submerged in the lake that midges get caught in when they fly out of the lake. I got my first lesson in how to drive the boat that day! It was pretty fun.
Then we had a hectic 24 hour period where a different experiment, zooplankton movement traps, had to be sampled every 8 hours. This is an undergraduate independent project headed by Summer, and it is based on the known fact that zooplankton in most lakes drift up and down depending on the amount of sunlight. They're photosynthetic, so when there's a lot of light, they want to be near the surface, but on the other hand, that makes them an easy target for fish to eat, so they move to the bottom at night. But Iceland has no night in the summer - what do the zooplankton do then? Hence the sampling every 8 hours in a 24 hour period. If 8 hours doesn't sound that bad, you should know that it takes an hour to prepare the boat for launch, one to two hours to do the sampling, and another hour to process the samples for storage. And that the first and last time points were at midnight.
I went out on the afternoon and the second midnight run. It was pretty windy the first time I went out, almost to the point where we wouldn't be able to go out at all (when we see white caps, that's the cut-off). There was no problem with wind, except that the waves made me start to feel seasick while sampling! The midnight run was also in high wind conditions, chillier but still light out, with mist coming off the water and a distant fog from the ocean rolling over the mountains. I distinctly remember commenting on how beautiful the fog looked before we left shore. Once out on the lake, sampling went pretty smoothly despite the wind, and I had brought dramamine along and felt better this time.
We weren't paying any attention, but while we were working, the fog had reached Myvatn. By the time we were done sampling, we couldn't see the shore, although it was clear in the middle where we were. We knew the general direction to head back in, but once we got into the fog bank, it was difficult to tell where we were - Myvatn has a lot of islands. With some good luck and some good boat driving by Summer, the second island we found was the landmark for the turn into the bay where we park our boat. That island has a rusty old cannon on it. I don't know why. No pirates on Myvatn as far as I'm aware. Anyway, we knew that there was land about fifty feet from the cannon island, but while we were headed in that direction, we completely lost sight of all land. It was pretty scary actually. We took the shortest distance to shore and drove along land until we found our car with no problem.
The next morning, we were informed that any time fog is in sight, the boat should not be out on the lake. The fog rolls in quickly and with all the islands in Myvatn, it is very easy to get lost and we were in a dangerous situation! But nobody blamed us - no one had told us about fog safety. Now we know. Believe me, we'll be careful about the fog next time.
Then we had a hectic 24 hour period where a different experiment, zooplankton movement traps, had to be sampled every 8 hours. This is an undergraduate independent project headed by Summer, and it is based on the known fact that zooplankton in most lakes drift up and down depending on the amount of sunlight. They're photosynthetic, so when there's a lot of light, they want to be near the surface, but on the other hand, that makes them an easy target for fish to eat, so they move to the bottom at night. But Iceland has no night in the summer - what do the zooplankton do then? Hence the sampling every 8 hours in a 24 hour period. If 8 hours doesn't sound that bad, you should know that it takes an hour to prepare the boat for launch, one to two hours to do the sampling, and another hour to process the samples for storage. And that the first and last time points were at midnight.
I went out on the afternoon and the second midnight run. It was pretty windy the first time I went out, almost to the point where we wouldn't be able to go out at all (when we see white caps, that's the cut-off). There was no problem with wind, except that the waves made me start to feel seasick while sampling! The midnight run was also in high wind conditions, chillier but still light out, with mist coming off the water and a distant fog from the ocean rolling over the mountains. I distinctly remember commenting on how beautiful the fog looked before we left shore. Once out on the lake, sampling went pretty smoothly despite the wind, and I had brought dramamine along and felt better this time.
We weren't paying any attention, but while we were working, the fog had reached Myvatn. By the time we were done sampling, we couldn't see the shore, although it was clear in the middle where we were. We knew the general direction to head back in, but once we got into the fog bank, it was difficult to tell where we were - Myvatn has a lot of islands. With some good luck and some good boat driving by Summer, the second island we found was the landmark for the turn into the bay where we park our boat. That island has a rusty old cannon on it. I don't know why. No pirates on Myvatn as far as I'm aware. Anyway, we knew that there was land about fifty feet from the cannon island, but while we were headed in that direction, we completely lost sight of all land. It was pretty scary actually. We took the shortest distance to shore and drove along land until we found our car with no problem.
The next morning, we were informed that any time fog is in sight, the boat should not be out on the lake. The fog rolls in quickly and with all the islands in Myvatn, it is very easy to get lost and we were in a dangerous situation! But nobody blamed us - no one had told us about fog safety. Now we know. Believe me, we'll be careful about the fog next time.
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