We’ve been in transit for ten days now! This is epic by any
standard! We’ve been steadily covering about 250nm daily and we had some 3500nm
to get to our first site when we started, east of the north island of New
Zealand. We are currently in the Tasman Sea and we feared it would be rough,
but the weather has been really friendly to us and pushing us from behind,
we’re doing really well and we are not feeling a thing. It was rough for a couple
of days after we turned the southwest corner of Australia but it’s all been
good since then.
You’d be surprised but we manage to fill our time even
without having started operations yet. Everyone has their own work to do
anyway, but we have a lot of meetings, within our respective groups (I’m in the
Sedimentology group), we all had to start writing our reports and at least
decide on the approach we would use for our work. This took a few days. Then we
had to get training on some of the equipment and software. But, apart from all
the serious work, we’ve been having a good time too; Clay is the Electrical
Engineer on JR and he offered us lessons on making stuff! Stuff like getting
sensors to respond and give us light or sound or turn a wheel when you hook
them to a sensor of some sort. We’ve been playing with programming and boards
and circuits and tiny little cables and Arduino is officially my new favourite
word, say it, it rolls off the tongue, Arduino, Arduino, Arduino... I can keep
going…
Besides Clay’s fabulous EE workshop we’ve been keeping fit.
We formed a nice little group of fitness-minded people, which worked really
well because it meant we dragged each other into the exercise. If you don’t
you’ll end up sitting all day and while there are a lot of decks to go up and
down from one place to another it’s not nearly enough. As a result we haven’t
missed a single day of training since we boarded, even when the weather was not
good, we did some form of exercise on a daily basis, whether it’s circuits on
the deck by the lifeboats, yoga in the movie room, or weights in the gym.
Unfortunately our group of six recently had to be dismantled as a few days ago
we had to start going into our shifts (12 to 12, day shift and night shift), so
the six became three and then there were two, me and Judith.
Don’t forget we’re preparing for Christmas too. Suffice to
say that we’re doing it American style (this is an American ship). One morning
after we started sailing, I woke up and walked through the conference room and
a Christmas tree and boxes with decorations and a sign to help decorate were
there. A (fake) fireplace, made of wood, cardboard and a monitor that shows a
flame was also there. Garlands, bobbles, bunting appeared everywhere. More
Christmas trees in every deck, small and big, and plans for the Christmas party
are being made. I won’t reveal a lot yet, I’ll just say there will be singing,
live singing, and carolling and I’m in it (as if I wouldn’t be)! Learning all
the Christmas carols that I’ve heard in the movies!
Now I wish I could photograph the things I see when I walk
on deck at night to share with everyone! My descriptions couldn’t possibly do
them justice but I’ll try nevertheless. During transit we have very few lights
on, so the minute you step outside it’s pitch black, you need a few minutes for
your eyes to adjust to even take a step. But when they adjust can you imagine
the sight?! Used as I am to the sky in the Northern Hemisphere it felt weird to
look up and not recognise the constellations that my dad taught me when I was
little, lying on the sand on our holidays. I turned this way and nothing,
turned the other way and thankfully I saw Orion and then a little off next to
it, the Pleiads. Good, I thought, at least I know those. Josh showed me the
Southern Cross and the Pointers and then I downloaded a star map and I’m
learning the rest. You must be able to see the meteorite shower that is
happening these days, the Geminids. I read it’s a better spectacle if you’re in
the northern hemisphere but we get a pretty good show of it here too. I saw a
star slashing the sky last night. They are meant to reach their peak tomorrow
night and I fully intend to spend the night on deck counting falling stars and
making wishes, maybe one wish again and again. Is it more likely to come true
if you repeat it multiple times? We also saw a moving speck of light and
thought it might be the International Space Station. I later checked online the
ISS position and it had indeed just passed above us! It would be a big mistake
to not turn your eyes down too though, and look at the water as the bow thrusts
through the ocean. Again you must let your eyes adjust to the darkness of the
water and the greyness of the froth, but keep staring and the froth starts glowing
blue, a mesmerising turquoise blue and little flushes pop up here and there;
the more you look the more fluorescent it becomes. Bioluminescence is one of
the most magical sights! Little organisms that glow when agitated,
phytoplankton, specifically dinoflagellates if you want to be scientific (and
we are scientific here, that’s what we’re about). But if you want to be poetic,
artistic, and imaginative what I see is stars above and stars below, the galaxy
in the sky and the blue glow in the water. I really wish you could see it!
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