The crew of the research vessel Oceanus consists of the ship’s crew and a team of scientists and engineers. Scroll through to meet everyone from our leg of the Summer of 2013 research cruises and learn about some of the folks who make ocean bottom seismology possible!

Captaining the sister ship Wecoma before coming aboard the Oceanus, our Captain, Jeff Crews was by far the most elusive personality on board. Although he was always friendly when I did see him, he did not wish to have his picture taken. If I learned one thing and one thing only, you follow the Captain’s orders when you’re on his ship. Perhaps you can imagine you can see him through the windows of the Bridge?

Filling in as Chief Mate, Bob Ovemon got his start on fishing vessels, and has worked on research vessels traveling all around the world. His favorite place to sail is Ghana.

Filling in as second mate, Brian traveled from his beloved home in western Montana to join our cruise. He got his start at sea life on fishing boats before working on a NOAA research vessel out of Honolulu dedicated to researching El Nino.

Our Chief Engineer Mike Ribera was born in Newport, OR (home base for our ship) but now lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL with his wife Patty. That is, when he’s not busy keeping the Oceanus at sea.

Chip, born and raised in Hawaii, worked his way up the chain on boats until he found himself in the engine room, where he is so clearly right where he belongs. Ask him a question about the Oceanus’ workings, and prepare to be educated.

Jay, who was born in Montreal and has the accent to prove it, spent 15 years in the Navy stationed in Japan. There he got married and raised two daughters who he brought across the Pacific to Salem, OR where he now lives.

Kickin it as Head Chef for the first time on our cruise, Joy is usually an assistant chef on the Oceanus. Joy did some pretty amazing things in the kitchen, which is no surprise since before she took up life on the sea she owned her own catering business in California. Our steward, John, got his sea legs as a ‘Tin Can Sailor’ in the Navy.

Patrick, one the ship’s regular ABs (that’s for able bodied seaman), lives in Oregon with his wife, and makes a mean strawberry jam.

Born in Oregon, Marc went to maritime academy in Maryland before returning to the Pacific to work on research vessels.

Filling in as an AB, Gene hails from Illinois where he lives between jobs on commercial and research vessels in the Pacific, Gulf, and Caribbean.

Erik was the Marine Technician on the Oceanus for our expedition. He has an Bachelor’s degree in Geology, and served in the US Navy, before taking on an internship as a Marine Technician that led to his current position on the Oceanus.

Bob Dziak, the Chief Scientist on our cruise, heads up the Acoustics department at the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab. He has used acoustic signals to study seismicity and ocean floor volcanism, and more recently to study icequakes and calfing of ice sheets in the Antarctic.

Anna is a Research Assistant and Data Analyst in the Acoustics department at VENTS lab at the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Newport, OR. She was a great bunkmate.

Matt is a Research Assistant and Marine Technician in the VENTS program at the Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Newport, OR. He specializes in marine instrumentation, and telling hair raising stories of near death experiences.

Definitely a good personality to have on any ship, Bill Hanshumaker heads up Marine Education at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. He collected and documented all of the wildlife that came up with the seismometers. He is shown here documenting one of his finds.

Martin is a Mechanical Development Engineer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego where he has worked for the last 8 years. He and Paul Georgief were our expedition’s team from Scripps, where they designed and built the deep water seismometers that we recovered on our cruise.

Paul is an Engineer hailing from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, working as a team with Martin Rapa. He’s shown here connecting his computer to the data logger (red cylinder) from a seismometer that just spent a year on the ocean floor.

Jake works for Science Applications International Corporation out of Long Beach, Mississippi. He has great taste in literature and we connected over our shared love of Kurt Vonnegut.

Stas is a grad students in Geophysics at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, NM where he met his wife Daisy. He, like me, was tagging along for this cruise. It was also his first time at sea.

I am tagging along for the ride, scoping out this starfish that came up with one of our shallower seismometers. (photo by Stas Edel)