First Day On Board
So this is Iceland. And the name fits the weather, especially compared to the weather we had in Woods Hole just before leaving for this research cruise. It’s about 50F, very windy and scattered rain showers and rizzle. Not so unusual for an island in the middle of the northern part of the North Atlantic….
On our Way
Here begins the chronicle of my experiences as a scientist who is blind. My hope is that these posts will be interesting to anyone who is curious about how professional blind people continue to follow their passion in a largely sighted world. I also hope to share information that will convince visually impaired and blind…
Welcome to Amy’s 2014 Cruise Blog
This is going to be a great cruise! We are traveling to Iceland tomorrow to join the R/V Knorr.
An Exciting Day of Science for Perkins Outreach and WHOI
A thick fog blanketed Woods Hole on the morning of Saturday, June 1st as my husband David and I drove to WHOI to meet eight students riding down from the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. I was reminiscing about where I was this time last year—on a plane heading for Iceland for a…
A Multi-sensory Iceland Visit
After pulling into Reykjavik, Iceland on June 24, formally bringing to a close our research cruise to the Irminger Sea, I had a chance to do some touring around the city and nearby natural wonders with shipmates Heather, Hilary and Alison. We rented a car for the day, and our first stop was a national…
It’s a Small World After All
As a little kid, I was always fond of the song that went with the Disney attraction, “It’s a Small World After All.” I remember having a 45 rpm record of the song, which I would play over and over. I’m guessing that I saw the attraction at its debut at the 1964 New York…
OSNAP Float Field Phase Draws to a Close
For the past several days, the focus of activity on board the Neil Armstrong has been on the OSNAP project. OSNAP stands for Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program, and is an international effort to measure all the currents moving northward across 60N latitude, as well as the heat those currents carry. As described…
Sound for Science
I find it so interesting that the object of my research is mostly invisible. No one, sighted or not, can “see” ocean currents below the surface. In the same way, no one can “see” the wind—we can see and hear the effects of wind—blowing leaves, horizontal snow, rattling windows. But the human eye can’t actually…
Anticipation…
We are a week into this cruise now, and the weather has still been amazingly cooperative. Every now and then, the winds pipe up to around 20 knots (short for nautical miles per hour—mariners and fliers measure distance in nautical miles while landlubbers use statute miles—the nautical mile is about 15% longer than a statute…
A Sentinel for Observing the Ocean
This research cruise is dedicated to four different projects, of which ours is just one. The primary activity is the annual replacement of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) moorings in the Irminger Sea, which is located east of Greenland. The Irminger Sea Array is part of the much larger OOI project with long-term observing sites…
About Amy Bower
Amy Bower is a physical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She has been chasing ocean currents in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans for over 25 years, primarily by releasing acoustically tracked floats far below the sea surface. Legally blind since her mid-20s, Amy uses adaptive technology to continue her research.
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