I have been pretty quiet on this blog for the past year! The reason for this is at the end of 2019 I had a few medical issues which resulted in a pretty scary surgery. However, I am now fully fixed, back smiling and hopefully when COVID allows I will get my full ENG1 (seafarers medical) and HSE diving medical back in full. I have been restricted to the UK for the past year!
This last year, I have had a happy time learning how to drive Seol Mara!!https://www.sams.ac.uk/facilities/vessels/
Although I missed out on a few cruises and travels I think it has been really good for me to connect with Scotland properly, as since living here last year was my first summer here! And, being locked down in Scotland this summer during COVID has resulted in lots of networking, learning and an epic amount of Citizen Science interaction! So all things happen for a reason, right?
Which brings me onto my second reason for being quiet, whilst also going through my medical issues my boss Prof David Pond decided to move to Stirling for various reasons, but one big factor was that they have an epic lipid lab! He kindly asked if I would like to go over there with him as his tech, I declined because I had literally just bought a house near Glencoe and was starting to get settled here! I have still been doing various outreach for the project through the Changing Arctic Programme. One of the last things I did during this role was to go to the CAO programme meeting.
Some of the analysis that I completed during the DIAPOD project went toward Anna Belchers postdoc, some super interesting science!
There also some interesting ARISE data about isoscapes!
Some of the outreach I did for DIAPOD was attending Millport Marine Symposium, where I gave a talk about the trials and tribulations of collecting data in polar regions.
With all of the funding from the DIAPOD project gone and, which had originally brought me to SAMS, Dave managed to pay my wage for the first few months after he left but then I was without a job!
Luckily, SAMS needed a new Ships Operations Manager and were keen for me to continue working there (yay)...a role which I jumped headfirst into as so many things needed to be sorted out, this, however, still left my wage unfunded so that's when I reached out to the principal investigators across SAMS to see what upcoming projects I could get involved with. 18 months later I have a full-time contract at SAMS and in this dynamic role, I am learning so much! I am moving over to the physics and robotic department alongside the Ship opps role because I really like playing with bits of scientific kit and getting the best data we can out of our instruments! I now spend a lot of my time on this pontoon and on and off the vessels.
During all of this, I was somehow awarded the RYA and Trinity House Yachtmaster Scholarship. So for the past year, I have been working hard the theory and practical side of my Yachtmaster. Norman the skipper at SAMS has been a great mentor and really let me get stuck in with all sides of the job.
Me cleaning out the toilet straight after it had been on the slip, they accidentally turned the pump on and it dragged lots of mud, yes mud into the toilet haha.
Unfortunately, the first week of lockdown also coincided with my Yachtmaster prep week and exam, so this has been postponed until further notice!
There are some good articles here about the scholarship: https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/226674/Marine-scholarships-with-Trinity-House-and-RYA
The next blog post will be about the work we have been doing on the SAMs vessels over the past year!