Bot meets Whale: making friends in the ocean; or how I learned to stop worrying and mitigate harmful interactions between recreational ROVs and marine mammals.

An example of a microROV system. From Thaler et al. (2019)

Today, there are more robots exploring the ocean than ever before. From autonomous ocean-crossing gliders to massive industrial remotely operated vehicles to new tools for science and exploration that open new windows into the abyss, underwater robots are giving people a change to experience the ocean like never before. The fastest growing sector of this new robotic frontier? Small, recreational, observation class ROVs.

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SeaWorld versus OSHA versus Brett Kavanaugh, sea lions and sucker punches, this dumpster whale is all of us, and more! Monday Morning Salvage: October 1, 2018.

Foghorn (A Call to Action!)

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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It’s #JacquesWeek! Also, lots of other ocean things happened last week. Monday Morning Salvage: July 24, 2017

Flotsam (what we’re obsessed with right now)

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Finding Melville’s Whale: The Mast Head (Chapter 35)

Thanks to everyone who stuck around during our blog vacation. Our adventure into Moby Dick continues with chapter 35 – The Mast Head. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Visit this page for the complete collection to date: Finding Melville’s Whale.

The Mast Head

Upon his perch, one hundred feet above
the rolling pitch, deepest blue, a whaleman
loses himself to the sea, becomes her.

Grasping the cross-bar, he sheds all meaning,
binding his body with the ships timbers,
joining in holy union with the waves

beneath her hull. And from this vantage he
shall sight the monster rising from the deep
and call out to his shipmates, “Whale! Whale-ho!”

Yet lost in revelry, a thoughtful man
may falter in his union with the ship
and find the sea an unforgiving fate.