Russia Trip Report

On the Boat

Skipping over a lot of stuff not having to do with the actual project...

11:20 AM -- on the boat

We're nearing our first sample site. The boat is slowing down.

2:50 PM -- on the boat

At the first site I went ashore with Genia and the boys. I dove while they stayed on the beach. The beach and surrounding water is pretty clean. Lots of sea grass - which tickles when I swim through it - and some jellyfish. A few clams and oysters and one or two mussels but not much. Andrey and Alex and Vladimir took the rowboat over to the base of the cliff and found mussels there.

They unloaded the samples on the boat and the team cleaned off the barnacles and seaweed and sorted out the starfish, crabs, oysters, fish, etc. that tagged along and threw them back. Andrey took a bottom sediment sample with this winch that looks like it's been around since tsarist times. The first sediment sample was only sand so we moved to a different site.

The first site was near a former "pioneer camp".

After lunch we moved on to the second site.

The second site was next to the landfill. Lots of black-tailed gulls. I could smell the landfill before I went up on deck. Typical landfill - stuff spilling into the water. Vladimir brought up more mussels and the team processed them same as before. Alex's son played with the tiny crabs. He was a little squeamish of them. He tried to frighten Slava with them but did not succeed.

The bottom sediment samples from the second site were full of stuff - starfish mostly. The team takes the thick gray muck with a spatula and puts it in labelled plastic bags and plastic jars. The mussels go into a metal container. Back to the lab for processing.

4:55 PM -- on the boat

We're doing another site. The last one of the day. Alex is shoveling muck into a plastic bag.

Marge is taking her turn at practicing English with Slava.

Maurice is sitting at the bow reading Time Magazine.

I wish I could be more useful.

The boat is old. Probably WWII vintage. The winch is creaking and rusty and jams periodically.

Everything around here seems to break down regularly. Yesterday, Margery got stuck in the elevator while Maurice, Genia, and I were waiting for her on the sidewalk to walk down to the boat. She had to crawl out on a chair. We had a good laugh about it.

I'm finding it challenging to keep a journal. The things that strike me to be written down seem tangential to the whole experience. And I forgot to write down the whole thing about Margery getting stuck in the elevator until much later. Slava's questions, the rocking of the boat, the cold water, the black-tailed gulls by the dump, two cormorants taking off, moon jellies everywhere, that jellyfish with the long tentacles that made it look like a lacy tube, families on the beach at the former Pioneer Camp...

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