Sabrina at the helm as we leave the dock.

At 0930 this morning, we pulled in our dock lines, headed to an anchorage, and rolled into the rest of orientation - safety drills, line handling and science deployments. After a long second day, we decided to delay our departure from San Juan until tomorrow. The Trade Winds are light in the morning and strengthen through the afternoon. We anticipate calm seas as we leave the harbor tomorrow morning, making for an easier transition to life underway. In the meantime, students are settling in to the routines aboard the Cramer.

With the reported Sargassum inundation this winter throughout the Caribbean, we are looking forward to collecting record amounts in our surface net tows. Sargassum is a brown seaweed that drifts on the ocean surface as individual plants or in aggregated mats that are 10s of meters across. Sargassum hosts a unique biological community adapted to hide among the leaves and provides nursery and foraging habitat for juvenile sea turtles, larval tuna and swordfish, and seabirds in an otherwise barren open ocean environment. About half the student biodiversity research projects are focused on Sargassum and its associated community. . . Stand by for updates on our scientific observations.

- Amy