Valuable research time on the Point Sur is reduced.

On a bright Thursday morning in November, two dozen crew, students and faculty board the R/V Point Sur at Moss Landing Harbor for a day cruise. The sun is shining, the harbor is still, and seagulls are basking on the roof of the nearby Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, looking like they’ve not yet decided whether it’s worth the trouble to fly today.

Over the next eight hours the Point Sur, a 135-foot research vessel owned by the National Science Foundation, will sail 13 miles into the Monterey Bay, crossing the bay’s celebrated deep-water canyon to gather samples of sea life at different depths. It will do this with no fancy remote-operated vehicles or high-tech gadgets. Most of its gear, save a prized piece of equipment called a Triaxus that can measure plumes and other three-dimensional physical events in the water, is basic stuff—nets, cables, a sturdy crane. It’s a hardworking, blue-collar vessel that’s been described as the pickup truck of the nation’s 24-strong scientific fleet. At dock it’s dwarfed by its dazzling neighbor, MBARI’s mighty Western Flyer. It’s not easy being a civil servant in a private-sector world.

And it’s getting harder. Most years the Point Sur sails 180 days, carrying students and scientists with NSF grants up and down the West Coast on research trips. But at an operating cost of $8,000-$13,000 per day, the Point Sur is only as mobile as the money is free to flow. Next year, the Point Sur’s cruise time will be reduced by a third, to 120 days.

The Pew Report recommended that the US double funding for oceans research. That hasn’t happened.

“Demand for the Point Sur waxes and wanes depending on the science being funded,” says Stuart Lamerdin, assistant marine superintendent at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML). “We didn’t have a lot of requests. It means it’s getting harder and harder for scientists to get their research funded.”

Three years ago the Pew Oceans Report recommended the US government double funding for oceans research. That hasn’t happened. NSF’s marine research budget has risen incrementally to its present level of $288 million.

Meanwhile, says Lamerdin, the Point Sur faces mounting fuel and health insurance costs, along with the burden of paying its crew enough to live in a costly area. That makes it spendier for scientists with already-limited research dollars. Lamerdin won’t come out and say it, but it’s crunch time for the Point Sur.