The Thompson left Lyttelton on March 2nd for the University of Washington’s student cruise.

The University of Washington has a fantastic undergraduate oceanography program.  One of its highlights is the class “Ocean 444″, a class in which students plan and conduct an entire research cruise.

The goal of this year’s Ocean 444 cruise was to study the Kermadec Arc, a line of underwater volcanoes North of New Zealand.

For this post I’m going to punt on doing on my rendition of the cruise because the students already created a great blog that covers everything:

https://courses.washington.edu/ocean444/2009/blog

It’s got the science of undersea volcanoes, hot-pink plankton, and undercover shots from talk-like-a-pirate day.  Check it out!

You can see my photos from the cruise here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adorsk/sets/72157618716848682/show/