William's letter, answered by Dan Naber, Research Tech from Univ.of Alaska in Fairbanks

Hello William-
     Thanks for writing.
     I am a research technician from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.  I work for a chemical oceanographer, Dr. Terry Whitledge.  We have instruments on the moorings M2 and M5 that measure the amount of nitrate in the water.  I sail into the Bering Sea every spring and fall on the Oscar Dyson or Miller Freeman to recover and deploy our instruments.
     Your question was whether or not I could send you a rock.  Unfortunately we will not be doing bottom grabs on this cruise.  But I am going to be on another cruise in the Bering Sea right after this one and bottom grabs will be occurring.  I can ask the scientist doing the grabs if i can get a rock to send to your class.   If you want I can also grab a rock while I am in Dutch Harbor and send that one along as well.
   The one from Dutch Harbor could be sent along with the shrunken styrofoam heads  The one from the bottom of the Bering Sea will have to wait until mid-June to be sent because that is when I get back from that cruise.

Gotta go.  We are currently dragging the ocean bottom to try and retrieve a mooring that was damaged by commercial fishermen.  They fish around the moorings because there are lots of fish around the moorings.  Sometimes the nets get tangled in the moorings and drag them from their original location.  We had to search around for this mooring last night.  We found it but when the release command was given the buoys did not bring it to the surface.  The release gave a message saying it was lying on the bottom of the ocean.   We put some big hooks over the back of the ship with a cable and dragged the bottom around the area of the mooring to try and snag it.   No luck.  We may try again later in the cruise. 
   We are headed north to the M4 mooring.

If you or your classmates have any other questions, fire away.

Have a good day,

Dan Naber

P.S. I've sent a few photos.  One of me in my gear, ready to work on the back deck of the ship.  The red coat is a float coat that can keep you afloat if you were to fall overboard.  It is also warm.  Its been cold on this trip, in the low 30s.  A hard hat is always needed when working on the back deck.  Rain pants to stay dry and knee pads to keep your knees from getting banged up when kneeling on the hard steel deck, taking apart or putting together moorings.