Guest post by Annkathrin Sharp, Student Blogging Contest Series 2019
Biting the bullet
“You have a decision to make, and
only you can make it.”
Although we were talking over the
phone, the matter-of-fact, intelligent voice of my course co-director left me
feeling like I had nowhere to hide.
“Do you want to take on a Masters
project which doesn’t have set parameters or a defined research question
because it offers you the chance to do fieldwork at sea? Or will you choose the
desk-based research project contributing to an established study, which will
almost guarantee an excellent thesis with a high chance of getting published? One
is not necessarily better than the other, but you have to make your decision
and then own that decision.”
To many, this will seem like a no-brainer.
A research cruise across the Atlantic Ocean, crewing a sailing research vessel to
carry out multidisciplinary research with marine scientists? Obviously you’d be
mad not to do it.
To many others, the exact opposite
will also be a no-brainer. A project that would help you develop better
statistical analysis skills, help to establish you as a “real scientist” with
almost guaranteed publication and a great first step on the way to an academic
career? Why would you pass that up?
It’s the typical battle between the
head and the heart, the idealistic and the pragmatic. Finding a research
project for your Masters thesis can often be a fraught process. My experience
was no different.
When I left my corporate career to
study a Masters in Conservation Science, I feared I would be an outsider from
the start. Without a scientific background (my undergraduate degree was in
Arabic and Spanish), I was conscious of the need to prove my worth, to show I
had done the reading, that I was capable of contributing to our understanding
of the complex and dynamic processes driving biodiversity loss and ecological
degradation, and the science behind what might help prevent them. Getting a
place on Imperial College London’s MSc in Conservation Science to pursue the
career I had always wanted, to take my skills and adapt them for the service of
people and nature, was the typical dream-come-true scenario. Living up to those
ideals would require hard work.
I knew I wanted my thesis to focus on
marine conservation, I knew I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and learn
more about quantitative analysis techniques, and I knew I was most interested
in anthropogenic threats to marine predators. PCB pollutants in cetaceans? Whale
entanglement? Fishing pressure on sharks? A review of the scientific literature
exploring the link between seismic surveys and mass strandings? Next, I had to
figure out what had and hadn’t already been done, and who might be working on
interesting avenues of study. I contacted various research organisations and
NGOs, hoping that someone had a project in need of a student, or would be
willing to develop one with me. One organisation that responded was Marine
Conservation Research International (MCRI), a small, not-for-profit scientific
organisation which sails the purpose-built research vessel R/V Song of the
Whale all over the world to conduct conservation-focused research. Their Director,
Anna, replied to my email to say that for some years now, her team had been
gathering ancillary data on marine plastic pollution, an area which was gaining
increasing scientific and public attention in 2018. Would I be interested in
doing a project based on that? If so, Song of the Whale would be sailing a
passage from Brazil to the Azores the following month, a voyage back to Europe
from the Southern Ocean, that would also be an opportunity to study cetaceans
in data deficient waters of the Atlantic[SA1] . She asked whether I would
like to join the crew to trawl for microplastics and carry out distance
sampling for floating macroplastics.
As tempted as I was to ask her what
she thought I should choose, I didn’t, because I feared she would recommend the
desk-based project. And it was that split-second realisation that revealed I
already knew what I wanted to do: gather my own data, contribute to every step
of the process, and get a taste of conducting scientific research at sea and
all the challenges that it entails. I’d still be learning how to conduct an analysis.
I’d still write a great thesis. When she warned me that I had no set research
question yet, that an exploratory study mapping the distribution of macro- and
micro-plastics would not be enough, I told myself I would work it out, I would
find a question worth asking and do my best to answer it.
It was a risk, and one I admitted I
might live to regret, but I knew if I didn’t take my shot at getting out there
in person I would regret it more. I would later question my decision at several
junctures, but never enough to wish I’d made a different choice.
Ten days later, I was on a plane to
Brazil with a folder full of plastics research and a stupid grin plastered
across my face.
Song of the Whale and the Atlantic adventure
Stepping on board the 21-metre,
steel-hulled sailing vessel that would be my home for the next five weeks sent
a thrill down my spine. Although it was past midnight, the temperature was well
over 30 degrees as I climbed into my bunk in the cabin I would share with three
other crew. I brimmed with expectation and my nerves melted away. For the first
time, I’d be contributing directly to scientific research, and I’d be doing it
at sea. Better yet, I’d be doing it in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
 |
R/V Song of the Whale, as seen from
the Atlantic when we paused for a swim at the Equator.
©Marine Conservation Research International |
The first few days of the voyage
presented a lot for me to take in. I got to know the rest of the crew: we were
10 in total, a mixture of sailors, scientists, and a couple of intrepid
travellers who joined to contribute to the research effort. I threw myself into
my duties. The rota split our watches into four consecutive hour-long shifts: port
observation, helm, forms, and starboard observation. The first and last hours
were spent on observation (standing on the A-frame, scanning the ocean for
signs of life and floating debris). The middle two were dedicated to the helm (being
in charge of the vessel, monitoring her course, the wind speed and direction, and
so on) and completing forms (logging data on the ocean environment and weather;
updating the effort sheets; logging sightings, and, four times an hour, putting
the headphones to listen to the hydrophone). When not on watch, there was
plenty to keep me busy. I carried out manta trawls for plastic fragments and
processed each sample. I studied papers on marine plastics and tried to
identify gaps that my research might address. The absence of internet and phone
signal, beyond basic satellite email, was refreshing. I wrote in my journals,
filling five exercise books with observations and sketches by the end of the
voyage. I studied the charts at the navigation desk and learned how to read the
weather reports we downloaded through the satellite link up each night. And I
made a lot of tea.
 |
| On the A-frame observation platform looking out for cetaceans and plastic debris. ©Marine Conservation Research International |
 |
| Listening to sperm whales through the hydrophone. ©Marine Conservation Research International |
Niall, Edd, and Jack – the skipper,
first mate, and second mate – taught me everything I needed to know about
sailing, safety at sea, and how to help run and maintain the vessel. Vassili,
the whale biologist, shared his insights into organisations like the
International Whaling Commission. Taís, the Brazilian marine researcher, told
me about her Masters thesis on the use of sailing vessels in whale research and
let me practice my rusty Portuguese. And Claire, a whale biologist working at
the Sea Mammal Research Unit, became my on-board scientific mentor. She didn’t
sign up for the role, but through her patient answers to my endless questions
about experimental design, distance sampling, writing scientific papers and a
thousand other things, I adopted her as my de facto supervisor whether she
liked it or not.
There was a great deal to get used
to. I was constantly barefoot, and with the motion of Song of the Whale as she
carved through the waves, I forgot what it felt like to be still. We sailed
with a strong starboard tack from Brazil to the coast of Africa. This meant
life on board was lived at a steep sideways angle, which made simple daily
tasks more challenging. Showering is an interesting affair when the water sprays
into the wall rather than falling straight to the floor. The on-board
breadmakers were lashed to the shelf to stop them sliding off, so every loaf we
baked was shaped like a triangular wedge as the dough conformed to gravity
inside. The stove hung on hinges, and there is something slightly disconcerting
about a whistling kettle full of boiling water swinging dementedly on top of a
burning gas stove in heavy swell, leaving you feeling like you were either
going to be drenched or set on fire any minute. But it’s actually quite a
sensible solution that keeps the surface of the stove level in any weather and
on any tack.
Though they prevented me from getting
a good night’s sleep, I loved the night watches because I could spend them
looking up at the stars. Out there, with well over a thousand kilometres
separating us from either South America or Africa, with no light pollution and
nothing to distract me, I spent hours staring up into the Milky Way and the
Southern Cross, marvelling at the sheer number of stars in the night sky and
how lucky I was to see them from this vantage point. I saw bioluminescence for
the first time, and was mesmerised by the neon flashes of green and yellow
light that glowed in our wake; the living twinkling below mirroring the
sparkling firmament above.
For five weeks at sea, I lived and
breathed ocean science. I read papers on oceanography, on currents and gyres,
on Ekman transport and Lagrangian motion. I tried to formulate a specific
research question I could answer with the data I was gathering, curious as to
what my results might show. It’s important to acknowledge that there are
bigger, more urgent threats to marine life than plastic pollution – illegal,
unreported and unregulated fishing, climate change, and discarded fishing gear
are all extremely serious problems – but it’s an anthropogenic hazard to ocean
ecosystems in need of study nonetheless. Most of the papers I was reading called
for more and better data to help quantify the problem and calibrate models on a
basin and global scale. Marine plastic modelling experts like Erik van Sebille
pointed out that “the vast majority of the sea surface outside the gyres
remains unsurveyed, introducing potentially large errors in global estimates of
the amount of floating plastic.”[1] The only paper published on
plastics for the Atlantic between the latitudes of 13˚N and 23˚S at the time featured
data gathered in single passage sailed in 2010, which sampled only
microplastics with the use of a neuston net. We were sampling microplastics and
larger, surface-floating plastics, which gave me the opportunity to compare
concentrations of the two at the same time and place. With every floating
plastic sighting from the A-frame, and each sample we hauled out of the ocean
with the manta trawl lent to MCRI by the 5Gyres Institute, I was adding to the
dataset, working to build our understanding of the extent of the ocean plastics
problem. My mind buzzed with possibilities.
 |
| R/V Song of the Whale towing the manta trawl
provided by the 5Gyres Institute. ©Marine Conservation Research International |
 | ||
| Hauling in the manta trawl. ©Marine Conservation Research International |
Following an initial 7 days without
any significant sightings, I encountered my first whales, dolphins, sharks and
turtles, and was treated to a mind-blowing four-week parade of spectacular ocean
life. Nothing prepared me for what it would be like to sail alongside a family
group of sperm whales resting at the surface, clicking out their codas to one
another like a disordered symphony of ticking metronomes. I was moved in ways I
couldn’t have anticipated each time we were visited by acrobatic spinner
dolphins or sleek Atlantic spotted dolphins. I felt a thrill race through me
when I heard the haunting whistles of pilot whales through the hydrophone, and there
was something transcendent about how the curious false killer whales seemed to
make direct eye contact as they escorted us through crystal clear equatorial
waters. I learned to discern between the shapes and angles of certain whale
spouts when they surfaced to breathe in the distance, and marvelled at the
sound when they exhaled and inhaled close to the vessel, stunned by the roaring
rush of air being pushed from their cavernous lungs. As if by some sublime,
poetic providence, as we approached the Azores on our last day at sea, the Pico
volcano towering imperiously through the clouds in the distance, a blue whale
crossed our path. I climbed the mast to the crow’s nest to see it from above. I
will never forget the sheer size and grace of this whale, the intricate pattern
of pale greys on its skin, and the icy blue it turned as soon as it submerged. It
might seem unscientific to wax lyrical about the emotion of that encounter, but
anyone who witnesses such a sight for the first time and isn’t moved has failed
to grasp its significance. Each experience left me breathless with wonder, and
the crew joked that they’d never get me off the boat.
 |
| Common dolphin off the coast of the Azores. ©Marine Conservation Research International |
Needless to say, the end of fieldwork
and the return to real life was a shock, and seemed to require far more
adjustment than leaving my life behind me had done five weeks ago.
Back to Earth with a bump.
I dived head-first into cleaning my
data. It felt good to be working, but the frustration and fear at not being
able to decide on a research question grew with each passing day. I felt like
everyone around me was making headway on their projects, beginning their analyses,
and I was falling behind. My course director had put me in touch with some
experts working on plastic pollution, and after a lot of back-and-forth over
one idea or another, I settled on a plan. I was going to use the data from our
distance sampling of floating plastic debris to pinpoint each item’s
coordinates at the time of its sighting. I would then use online models, which rely
on a global network of marine tracers to predict the trajectory of floating
debris, and run their algorithms backwards to try to identify approximately where
the plastic debris could have originated. I produced what I thought was a solid
proposal which could help shed more light on possible sources of plastic
pollution in the Atlantic Ocean. I felt I was finally on to something, and I was
keen to get going. When I presented my plan to the experts who built these
models, my excitement was swiftly knocked out of me, to be replaced with
disappointment and embarrassment. It was a solid enough idea, and could be very
interesting, but did I have the time to run all these scenarios through the
models? Did I have the complex computational power that this analysis would
require? Had I considered all the factors? This didn’t really seem to be a
feasible study for a Masters thesis due in three months’ time.
I was mortified. I felt way out of my
depth. If being out at sea had made me feel like I was finally doing real
science, like I was putting into practice everything I’d been learning,
this reality check undermined it all, and made me question why I didn’t just take
the safer option in the first place.
I was back to the drawing board, but
I felt totally lost. I no longer wanted to touch my project. My enthusiasm disappeared.
Why did I think I could ever make this work? That incredible voyage and those breathtaking
wildlife encounters, laughing in the sea spray while hauling in the manta trawl
with Niall and Claire, the pride I felt in learning to sail, the discussions
about marine science underneath the stars on night watch, felt like another
life. None of it was a comfort to me now. I had let down my course directors,
and worse, I had let down Anna and the team who had invited me on board under
the impression I was capable of making something useful of the incredible
opportunity I’d been given. The thought of coming clean to them and admitting I
wasn’t up to the task made me feel ill. Days became weeks. My coursemates tried
to tell me that I’d be OK, that it couldn’t be that bad. I had never
considered pulling myself out of the Masters before and throwing away
everything I’d worked for, but it became an increasingly attractive option. But
I didn’t want to give up. In the end there was only one person I could turn to.
Writing the email was painful; admitting I was a failure stung my pride and my
confidence in myself as someone who had hopes of being taken seriously as a
conservationist one day.
Help is given to those who ask for it.
I didn’t know what to expect in
response, but when Claire’s words appeared on my screen I cried with relief.
She praised me for reaching out and admitting I was stuck, and reassured me
that she’d faced similar barriers in her own PhD at times, and that she would
do her best to help me out. We both knew she couldn’t wave a magic wand and do
the work for me; this was my project and I needed to figure it out. But she was
pragmatic and business-like, sending me a to-do list to help get me started,
suggesting I read papers on how to avoid common errors in statistical analysis,
and pointing me towards the first steps I needed to take to get back on track.
I booked myself onto the university’s free student counselling service to talk
about my fear that people were going to realise I didn’t belong on the Masters
with my brilliant coursemates. My closest friends helped me realise
that being so self-critical would get me nowhere, and though I never managed to
completely rid myself of my impostor syndrome, I looked to the capable women
around me – my course director, my colleagues, and Claire – determined to be
inspired, rather than intimidated.
With
Claire’s support and Anna’s assistance, I began putting together a plan. Given
that logistical constraints limit access to dedicated research effort in vast
areas of ocean, it’s vital to understand how we can better exploit opportunities
for data collection at sea. My thesis was going to examine the efficacy of exploiting
a non-dedicated survey cruise to use my two different methods for quantifying
ocean plastics – manta trawls and distance sampling – and compare their
findings on the distribution and concentration of microplastics and large
floating plastic debris. Claire’s help was a godsend. She even let me spend a
few days working at a spare desk in her office at the University of St Andrews
so she could advise me on the software and what to do when I ran into problems.
Returning to campus I knew it was going to be a race against time to complete
my analysis and write everything up, but now that I had something to work
towards I found purpose and clung to it. A sense of belonging returned, and my
coursemates and I pulled each other through. I put everything I had into my
thesis, desperate to prove myself and make something valuable of the incredible
opportunity MCRI had given me, and when the deadline came, I had managed to
produce something I felt proud of.
With
my thesis submitted, I took time to reflect on the mistakes I had made, and how
I could have done better. I realised there were several important lessons I
could take away from my project:
It’s OK to make the ‘less sensible’
decision, but you still need to approach it in a sensible way, with a
methodical plan and a back-up for when things inevitably don’t turn out as you
hoped.
Being aware of your limitations is
essential: don’t bite off more than you can chew.
Don’t try to go it alone: consulting
people with more experience helps to ground your expectations and reduces the
amount of time wasted on ideas that can’t work.
Attitude is crucial: honesty and self-criticism
can help you move forward in a constructive way, but self-doubt gets you
nowhere.
Above
all, it’s vital to remember that opportunities can reward you depending on how
you approach them, and what you’re prepared to put in. Though my masters
project turned out to be far from smooth sailing, with hindsight I would not
have chosen differently – I gained so much from the experience beyond eventually
earning a distinction, some statistical analysis skills and an improved knowledge
of ocean plastic pollution. I have a better grasp of best practice in research
design and execution. I built lasting friendships with scientists I met along
the way. I discovered that asking for help doesn’t make you a failure, and I
found new depths to my resilience, self-awareness and determination to succeed
which will stay with me as I try to forge a career in the field.
I
hope that my account of these experiences might serve to help others who
struggle with academic projects, and to remind them that if they’re questioning
their decisions or they feel they’ve hit a dead end, there is always a
way to take something valuable from the experience and turn it into a positive
outcome.
[1] Van Sebille et al, 2015. A global inventory of small floating
plastic debris
About the author
Annkathrin Sharp is passionate about addressing threats to marine ecosystems,
and currently works as a Conservation Officer on the south-west coast of
the UK. She studied Conservation Science at Imperial College London,
and has additional experience researching cetacean populations in Hong
Kong.
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