Day 23 - Booby sanctuary

The Boobies resting on the bow of the ship have travelled over 500 nautical miles in search for food. Here they take advantage of the viewpoint on the bow to scan the sea for schools of flying fish they can devour.

The term “pecking order” certainly applies to Boobies as they jostle for top spot on the bow. This prized position offers the best viewpoint of the sea and the advantage of not being pooed on. Pity about the front deck - read: “poop deck” - it was only repainted yesterday!

Media training

Huw Morgan, the CSIRO social media officer onboard, gave a great tutorial on how to talk to the media. While most forms of social contact can be daunting for most scientists, talking to the media is particularly challenging. However, in this era of ‘fake news’ we have to be more vigilant about communicating scientific findings to the public clearly. Particularly because the public are our stakeholders.

Tie the knot

Huw also taught us how to tie knots.

The monkey fist knot is used to throw an end of rope to a boat mooring. We're just 5 more days at sea so we're well prepared to tie the knot ➰ Thanks to @HuwMorganCSIRO for showing us how it's done! #RVInvestigator @EarthByteGroup pic.twitter.com/IVeElf95HI

— Ben Mather (@BenRMather) August 29, 2019

Dredge 49: Horsehead Seamount

Hard to believe that we’ve accumulated 49 dredges so far on this trip. Here is a stellar basalt from dredge 49 that samples the northern end of the Lord Howe seamount chain.

This is a relatively unaltered sample that will be very useful to date so we can constrain the age of the “Horsehead” Seamount.