{"id":158343,"date":"2020-06-03T10:40:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T14:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/?p=158343"},"modified":"2020-06-05T16:11:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T20:11:08","slug":"endeavor-makes-it-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/publications\/aboard-gso\/endeavor-makes-it-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Endeavor makes it home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Endeavor makes it home<\/h1><\/div><\/div>
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\"\"<\/div>

GSO Responds to COVID-19<\/h2><\/div><\/div>
A COMMUNITY ADAPTS<\/div><\/a><\/div>\n
\n

At sea during the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Endeavor<\/em> returns to Narragansett Bay in April.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When University of Rhode Island oceanographers Rainer Lohmann and Rob Pockalny flew to Barbados in February to board the research ship Endeavor<\/em> for the beginning of a 22-day expedition across the Atlantic, their only health concern was whether they needed a vaccination for yellow fever. COVID-19 wasn\u2019t even on their mind.<\/p>\n

But as they monitored the news during the ensuing weeks, they began to worry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe heard about the virus situation in northern Italy and then Spain, and then Trump issued the travel ban and URI canceled classes,\u201d Lohmann said. \u201cThat\u2019s when we realized that things were really in bad shape, and our anxiety started to rise about how we were going to get home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we left, everything was normal,\u201d he added, \u201cand then we read about toilet paper hoarding and pasta flying off the shelves. It was like being in a strange film; you don\u2019t know if it\u2019s real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite what was going on around the world, the scientists completed their research as planned. They collected sediment samples at 10 locations across the Atlantic in an effort to establish an age for the black carbon found on the seafloor and determine whether any of it could be traced to recent African wildfires.<\/p>\n

\"Night
Researchers and crew continue their work during the last \u201cpre-COVID-19\u201d cruise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But as the research team arrived in Cape Verde on March 13 \u2014one day before the harbor was closed to all arriving ships\u2014they knew they were in trouble. All flights home were canceled.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo keep the ship free of the virus, the decision was made that if anyone got off the ship in Cape Verde, they weren\u2019t going to be allowed back on,\u201d Lohmann said. \u201cTwo health officials came on board to take our temperature, and then they ran off. It was very surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

With no other options, the GSO researchers\u2014including graduate student Sam Katz\u2014remained onboard the ship, which departed Cape Verde the next day. Instead of going to Florida as originally planned to begin the next research cruise, the ship headed for its home-port at URI\u2019s Narragansett Bay Campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ship\u2019s officers took our temperature every day and logged them in so we could use the transit home as our official quarantine time,\u201d Lohmann said. \u201cWith 21 people on board, we knew we were
\nbreaking the rules of social distancing, but we knew we were clean since no one got on in Cape Verde.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was planning to stay on the ship back to Florida to prepare our samples anyway, so my schedule wasn\u2019t disrupted much at all,\u201d said Katz. \u201cIt was a nice cruise home, and we got some work done. The ship took a detour and sat offshore for a day to fulfill the 14-day quarantine period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ship\u2019s arrival at the dock in Narragansett was met with little of the usual fanfare, except for customs officials checking passports while wearing facemasks and gloves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want anyone to come aboard that could potentially contaminate the ship, so we unloaded everything ourselves,\u201d Lohmann said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we were virus-free when we left the ship, but as soon as we met someone on land, we weren\u2019t so sure any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The expedition, which ended up lasting 40 days, was particularly notable to Christopher Armanetti, who filled in at the last minute as the ship\u2019s captain for the first time after earning his captain\u2019s license only weeks before. He usually serves as the first mate.<\/p>\n

\u201cChris had a saying that you\u2019ll never forget your first time as captain,\u201d Lohmann said, \u201cand we all agreed he would never forget this one. Nor will the rest of us.\u201d \u2014Todd McLeish<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At sea during the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic, Endeavor returns to Narragansett Bay in April. When University of Rhode Island oceanographers Rainer Lohmann and Rob Pockalny flew to Barbados in February to board the research ship Endeavor for the beginning of a 22-day expedition across the Atlantic, their only health concern was whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,2403,1987,2594],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aboard-gso","category-issues","category-publications","category-spring-2020"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158343"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180926,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158343\/revisions\/180926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/gso\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}