Giveaway Deep Sea Oceanography Giveaway (1 Viewer)

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NotRealNameNoSir

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Thankful for the mooks on this forum, and got the chance to demonstrate some properties of the deep ocean. This may be of no interest but we'll see, love to share my passions. Grew up as a beach bum on the Jersey shore.
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Deep sea oceanography is fascinating, but not in the same way most expect. There's less giant sea serpents, and more just empty, inky blackness with incredible amounts of pressure. Without light there's far less energy; yes, there's hydrothermal vents injecting energy into an otherwise barren environment, but otherwise food drops down from the shallows and warmth is scarce. We don't expect to see megaladons or giant squids at the very deepest depths, there's little food to support these beasts, we expect to see fish ranging from the size of your pinky nail to the size of an American football. These animals have adapted to crushing pressure, no light, and very little food & energy, much like a graduate student. At these depths, it has the same pressure as 400+ bowling balls resting on every square inch of your skin. Pretty intense, and very tough to even imagine.

If you bought coffee in the 90s, it probably came in a styrofoam cup, why? Because there's small air bubbles trapped inside that insulates the heat. Same reason its still used for packaging dry ice and other boxed goods, its efficient packing material due to those air bubbles. Horrible for the environment because it takes centuries to break down, but fantastic as a tool.

We customized some styrofoam cups, attached them to an instrument and dropped them to 5000 meters deep in the North Atlantic. Those air bubbles are crushed, leaving a much denser material! I find this process fascinating and made one for the wife, one for my brand new nephew, and one for you mooks. This giveaway is for the PCF cup I made, and if we do another deep cast next week I'll make one featuring whatever you request. I've used these as ornaments, gifts, lessons, whatever works. Sorry about my handwriting, its bad BEFORE I get on a ship and start moving around.

*NotRealNameNoSirGuide HOARD ALERT: Full disclosure, there's other cups in a private hoard somewhere....
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To enter, just give me your best memory of the ocean or beach in a comment below. *If you've never been to the beach, first off I'm sorry but second just be honest and say so and you're good to go. I'll use MATLAB to pick some names randomly and run a poker hand of some game that I decide later; if there's less than 9 people interested I'll just run it. If no one wants it I'll keep it as a Christmas Tree ornament! I'll close this tomorrow, 6/8/23, Thursday at 21:00 UTC. It'll be a few weeks before I'm on dry land and able to ship it out, will probably throw in some other random goodies.

*I still consider these cups to be in very good condition with minimal to no bowing.*

Styrofoam Cups, difference of 5000m worth of pressure:
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Soapbox moment: please keep your trash out of the ocean, and roadways that spill into the ocean. We've found cigarette butts and Coke cans in the deepest depths and it depresses the hell out of me. Cigarette smokers that toss them out their car windows are the worst, those butts are found everywhere. Out of sight is out of mind for you but it remains in the ocean for a lifetime.
 
Are you still out on the ocean? How about sending a poker chip down?
Yup, got another leg of the mission. Huh! Alright, I've got a shuffle stack, not a bad idea. I'd have to package it in a way that it won't hit the other cups. If we do another cast I'll see what I can do, cool idea brother.
 
I seen giveaway and the first photo was a dolphin, I thought I was going to get the chance to win a free dolphin!!!!!

2021, I join PCF

I've been to the ocean several times, one fond memory I was sitting out in on a sand dune about 300 yards off the beach in Hawaii, fond memory. But ... my best memory of the beach was most recent...

2022, I went to my first meet up, SQM, it was a blast, met a lot of PCFers, and stayed at a hotel on the private beach. After playing for hours the second day, I arrived back to the hotel around 2 am, I went out on the beach, there was overcast, so you only seen the full moon in bits, it was like a void of blackness and the tide would break just a little as the water splashed up on the beach. It was cool, and the water was ice cold, one of the best times around the water. There wasn't a soul to be found on the beach, tiny human, gigantic ocean.
 
As a child I lived in California and my parents would take us to the ocean. The beach was carved out of a skyscraper type cliff. I loved playing in the ocean but the added bonus was a roasted peanut vendor at the top of the skyscraper cliff!
We played for a couple hours and then got a treat at the end.

Fond memories- the ocean always brings a calmness to me

Interested in entering- would love to see what happens to a poker chip.

All my Best Jeff :)
 
Went to the Caribbean last summer as my first ever adult vacation which is why it was special! After being sea sick on a catamaran for awhile in Saint Thomas (wish I knew the ginger trick. Thank you @notr, arrived at this cool little private beach and took what I think is a pretty cool photo…

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Bonus pic of me being very photogenic :
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Very cool giveaway! Thank you sir :)
 
Whoa! This is awesome! Almost as awesome as the time that I (probably 6 years old) went to Wildwood with my family, one of the few vacations my dad joined us on. He took me out into the water and said he'd pick but up when the big waves came in....big wave coming and he instead pushed me into it hahah. Got a mouthful of salt water and probably cried. Great times!
 
I’ve spent almost my entire life at 36N latitude and 95-105W long. Not a lot of ocean there! I never know what to do when I go to the oceans?
Probably my best memories of the sea are on cruise ships. The breaking of waves on the bow, the long twin trail propeller tracks leading back to the horizon, it’s all good when you’re cruising. Can’t do anything about stuff back home so just forget it and relax.
 
Your info is amazing! Very informative!

My favorite ocean memory is the first time I saw the Atlantic Ocean. We walked the beach at night and saw a pod of dolphins swimming parallel to the shore!
 
This is super cool, thanks for sharing! I have tons of memories, but I'll only share a few. One is from many years ago when I was a very little girl and my dad actually went to ocean city with us one year. He used to put me on his shoulders and walk way out when the tides were out and throw me into the crashing waves off his shoulders. I had a blast lol
Second would be in St Augustine Florida, at the beaches with my mom and grandfather, I scoured the beach for hours collecting as many sharks teeth as I could find. I still have them in a box.
He also took us deep sea fishing, I had so much fun catching Mahi and Tuna. Always wanted to land a sail fish or sword fish!

I hope one day to do some deep sea diving, it's on the bucket list. The ocean is such a cool place
 
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Very cool giveaway.

I have a couple of memorable beach trips, first trip to Destin was one of my dad's last vacations after getting ALS and the whole family went. Several return trips to Destin have just reinforced our love for the area, just wish we could work out going to first or last week of the off-season every year, makes for a lot less traffic.

The other memorable beach for me is the northern most beach in the US and Point Barrow, AK. Lived up there for 2 years and actually got out to the actual northern most point a time or two. Also, followed a polar bear down the beach one night, and went to a couple of whaling catches to watch the process. When the pack ice comes in and turns the ocean into a block of ice, the blue colors of the ice are amazing.

The biggest thing on these two beaches is the stark contrast. Destin has some of the whitest sand I have ever seen, and the sands in Barrow are black.
 
Probably has to be the first time in Corolla, NC (OBX). Growing up in PA we spent our beach days in South Jersey or DE. In one week in NC I saw my first dolphin, first pelican (my kids still call them dactyls because my daughter thought the were pterodactyls), and a sea hawk dive bomb a fish. We've been back every summer since. This year will be our 24th straight.
 
This is a pretty cool giveaway!

One of my favorite memories of the beach was visiting Siesta Key with my family and my inlaws. We rented a house a half block from the beach. We would wake up and go for a swim in our pool. Then grill out for lunch. After that we would head down to the beach and chill all afternoon until it was time to head back to the house and grill out for dinner. A super relaxing vacation!!! I always had fun exploring down by the water and getting some cool pictures. Also I got to wrestle a mean gator on that trip. ;)

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This is an amazing giveaway! It’s very cool to see just how powerful the ocean is

I’ve spent my whole life living on the western shore of Lake Michigan. The sound of lapping waves is one of my favorite sounds in the whole world. We have a college reunion almost every year at my friend’s cabin on Green Bay, and waking up to the sounds of the water is incredible. I never want to leave!
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I try to recreate the sensation at home as much as I can, and have been guilty of leaving early for work to watch the sun rise over the lake with my windows down. Really tough to turn on the car again and go to work after that!
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As much as I love Lake Michigan, nothing will compare to getting my feet in the Pacific Ocean. I was staying with some friends in LA (actually the same one with the cabin now that I think about it), and before they took me to the airport on my last day, we drove down the 5 so I could see the ocean. It was a gorgeous day, and despite not being a spur of the moment guy, I asked him to pull over so I could get a closer look. The water was so clean (not always (ok, ever) true of Lake Michigan) and seeing seals not too far in the distance was a real head turner for me. I had been in the Gulf of Mexico on my honeymoon, but it didn’t even hold a candle to this. Absolute perfection.
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Honored at the interest and love the pictures! Bump, closing this later today at 6pm EST, and will run the hand when I get the chance.

We're getting back on station later tonight. Will include pictures, dropping a mooring down to the seamounts, very excited for it.
 
This is one of the coolest things every on this forum! I have so many great ocean memories, though I grew up in Louisville, KY. Went to Daytona Beach for the first time at 5 years old, and, didn't make it back until I was in my 20's. Since then I've made it a point to be in, or, near, the ocean AT LEAST once a year, usually more. That's where my soul feels at peace. Probably 20 years ago my wife and I went to Naples, FL (we'd gotten married there on the beach at sunset in '96) and I tried to swim out to a sand bar, only to realize it was too far and I should turn back. I got caught in a tow, panicked initially, then, relaxed and worked my way out of it. My wife kept wanting to come out and help, but I kept yelling for her to not get in it. I remember rolling over on my back, looking up at the sun, and thinking "is this how it all ends?" After 15-20 minutes of working my way back in I collapsed face down on our blanket, thinking, I didn't drown, but, I'm going to have a heart attack because it felt like my heart literally might explode it was beating so hard and fast. About that time my wife said "there's manatees out there!" She'd been saying that about every body of water we had passed, as, she was in love with them and desperately wanted to encounter them in the wild, it had become a running joke. I'm thinking this isn't the time for a joke, I seriously thought I might have a heart attack! She took off running into the water, and, sure enough, there was a group of manatee that were swimming back and forth along this stretch of beach. The beach wasn't crowded at all, maybe 30-50 people in a 100 yard stretch. We spent about 45 minutes with this family of manatees letting us pet them as they seem back and forth. There were two babies, but, we couldn't touch them... every time one got near us an adult would swim in between. In that hour I went from thinking I might die, to, having one of the most beautiful, spiritual experiences of my life!

A few pics of various beach visits from the last year and a half.
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In a prior life, I worked Beach Patrol on LBI in NJ for five or six years…

When Hurricane Bertha came through, we hunkered down in Headquarters until it had just past over us. Because hurricanes spin counter clockwise, you’re left with perfect off-shore wind conditions as soon as you’re south of the eye.

A bunch of us were looking out at 12-15ft, picture perfect waves; massive barrels you never see in Jersey. Our Captain took one look at us (a collection of 18-22 year old surfers drooling at the mouth) and just said ‘Go Ahead’.

Surfed for over an hour in the best waves of my life with a handful of friends before anyone else even showed up. Best time I ever had, or ever will have, at the beach!!
 
Hey party people, the 25,000 lb mooring is now in the water and we've had some rough seas, very glad its off the deck and all of us are in one piece. Will run the hand when I can, if I tried it now they'd be sliding all over the table, but consider entries closed. Thanks for all interest, will update later.
 
Being in the Coast Guard, I was lucky to spend some time at sea, save for the rough seas and sea sickness. There’s something magical standing on deck, hearing the gentle purr of the diesels and watching the bright starry sky sway. This is all before camera phones, so just memories in my mind.

One of the freakiest moments was a swim call in the North Pacific. We transited south from Alaska and stopped for a swim as we were ahead of schedule. Super saline, you float a bit more. But then you realize there’s no touching bottom and no land in sight, just a 180’ still ship and a small boat on shark watch.

The more lovely moments were steaming anywhere in the inside passage from Seattle to Juneau. Just stunning.

I miss being at sea, even if it wasn’t always super pleasurable.
 
Sorry about lighting and quality, still at sea. We have a data cap on our devices, so there is a non-zero chance that I run out before finishing uploading these! Whadda cliffhanger. In order that Matlab picked yall:
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Y'all take a peek at your holdings:
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Dammit! I missed this!

My Great (Great?) Uncle is Douglas C. Webb. (my maternal grandmother's brother)
My mom spent a few summers with him in the late 60's and wound up meeting my dad in Wood's Hole.
He was figuring out what to do after leaving the Coast Guard after being posted on the USOGC Eastwind (WAGB-279) in Antarctica!

If Uncle Doug wasn't in Woods Hole at the WHOI, then mom would not have come down from the chicken farm in rural Ontario...

My favorite memory of him was him taking me around the WHOI for a day, showing me all the cool things. I learned about Horseshoe Crabs that day, and how Uncle Doug helped invent some of the special centrifuges to extract the antigen from their blood...He ran me around so long I fainted! (Kids those days)

But that's not my favourite memory on the ocean... Does it count if we were moored?

My mom used to babysit a large sail boat that moored in North Vancouver for the owners that went to California now and then.
It was moored , right across from the floating Seven Seas restaurant.

In the true GenX feral child raising fashion, as a 5 year old, mom let me climb up to the crow's nest on calm summer days. (2 stories up???)
One day, one of the diners took exception to that and the Fire Department was called to get me down...assuming I was up there without mum's knowledge.
I remember the diner's faces as I climbed back down all on my own, when I wanted to see what all the fuss was about down on deck.

Now that I think of it, I guess that's why her nickname for me was Monkey.
 
@Wifey WOW! I love that connection, we just left WHOI after a short port call. Dont mind the little town, work with them/MIT an awful lot. Fantastic stories, thank you, Im so glad you have found memories of it, and we cant thank our Military friends enough for building our Antarctic bases that I've enjoyed. Cannot imagine how it used to be.

As for the FLOP!

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Wait a minute
Dammit! I missed this!

My Great (Great?) Uncle is Douglas C. Webb. (my maternal grandmother's brother)
My mom spent a few summers with him in the late 60's and wound up meeting my dad in Wood's Hole.
He was figuring out what to do after leaving the Coast Guard after being posted on the USOGC Eastwind (WAGB-279) in Antarctica!

If Uncle Doug wasn't in Woods Hole at the WHOI, then mom would not have come down from the chicken farm in rural Ontario...

My favorite memory of him was him taking me around the WHOI for a day, showing me all the cool things. I learned about Horseshoe Crabs that day, and how Uncle Doug helped invent some of the special centrifuges to extract the antigen from their blood...He ran me around so long I fainted! (Kids those days)

But that's not my favourite memory on the ocean... Does it count if we were moored?

My mom used to babysit a large sail boat that moored in North Vancouver for the owners that went to California now and then.
It was moored , right across from the floating Seven Seas restaurant.

In the true GenX feral child raising fashion, as a 5 year old, mom let me climb up to the crow's nest on calm summer days. (2 stories up???)
One day, one of the diners took exception to that and the Fire Department was called to get me down...assuming I was up there without mum's knowledge.
I remember the diner's faces as I climbed back down all on my own, when I wanted to see what all the fuss was about down on deck.

Now that I think of it, I guess that's why her nickname for me was Monkey.
wait a goshdarn minute I was just at Teledyne-Webb, we're piloting their gliders all over the Atlantic! What a fantastic connection!!
 
Wait a minute

wait a goshdarn minute I was just at Teledyne-Webb, we're piloting their gliders all over the Atlantic! What a fantastic connection!!
:)
He got all of great grandma's brains with all of great grandpa's passion and mechanical abilities. (that's where the REAL fun stories are...)
 
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