Not the end of the world, but the middle of nowhere

Are we there yet?

Yesterday (US tonight) was 11-11-11. Full moon... Friday... and we’ve crossed the equator for the second time already! There might be a ceremony involved. I’ve heard rumors circulating. I asked the Chief Engineer what his plans were for the weekend and he said he was going out on the town. Everyone does the same exact thing every day so it was funny to still be excited by the idea of Friday. You can only really tell what day it is by our proximity to Sunday – steak night.

Two nights ago we watched our first really great sunset. The sun finally set into a super orange sky while the huge moon was rising on the other side of the boat, white and even brighter than the sun with clearly visible craters like I’ve never been able to make out before. The next morning we woke up and the situation was the same! We were going north instead of south because we turned around in the middle of the night after checking up on a buoy. So the morning moon/sun set/rose on the same side that it rose/set the night before. This doesn’t normally happen in your home does it? Must have been a crazy night if it did...

We made it to our actual destination yesterday, if you can call it that. So we’ve stopped moving and the ship motion is actually a little more intense. Instead of going head first into the waves, making them feel kind of choppy, we are now just rolling slowly as the waves pass underneath our ship. The wavelength of the wave is much longer and therefore more noticeable. I heard one person got a little queasy last night, but everyone else has been fine. The breeze is also lighter now that we are stationary. Scientific excitement immediately started bubbling on the ship once we stopped because now all the ocean measurements can begin. They constantly lower and raise up probes which collect data about the ocean temperature, density, amount of light that gets absorbed or scattered vs. depth, salinity, and turbulent kinetic energy. Some instruments go down 1000 m into the sea. Lots expensive stuff hanging off all the sides of the boat basically.

Let me explain a little about what the water looks like out here – completely blue and empty. Think nautical navy blue. Apparently, we are so far from land and vegetation that there are very few organisms in the water for fish to eat. I knew the water and air would be very pristine out here, but I didn’t expect to find what they call  “dead water” - not supportive of life. Normally when I imagine pristine nature untouched by man or other outside influences I think of lush vegetation teaming with wildlife. It’s the exact opposite out here. You need the coral reefs and the land to support the ocean ecosystem. However, now that we are stationary we are starting to serve as the new, hip ocean hangout spot. Some material will start to collect on the bottom of the boat and fish will learn our ship can protect them. These must be nerdy fish because they get really excited about our instruments. We saw fish jumping around last night when they put down some of the ocean probes. This is true around our deep ocean moorings too. We drove by a couple of these moorings on the way to our station to make sure fishermen weren’t taking advantage of our instruments. It’s common for people to fish around moorings and buoys because they are known to attract fish. However, we want to be left alone out here because of the P word.

Speaking of which, we had our first pirate scare yesterday around 4 pm! All drills on the boat are announced ahead of time, so they warned us that if an alarm went off unannounced, it would not be a drill. So the bell rang constantly for about 7 seconds (different bells mean different things, for instance the fire alarm is a pulsed alarm). Then an announcement came on from the 2nd mate, Melissa – “This is not a drill, this is a pirate alarm, everyone should head to his or her pirate safety room immediately.” We mustered and did roll call. I could tell this was the real deal when our Resident Marine Technician (our team leader, more on this person below) announced, “Alright, I know you don’t necessarily know what to do right now because normally we have a pirate drill before we have a real pirate encounter. So listen up...” My coworker Owen had to rush out of bed for all of this because he was still sleeping before his night shift started again around 6 pm. Turns out that even though we are out in the middle of nowhere, a small fishing boat with no communications systems had found us. The mates and captain had been watching them approach us for a long time from up on the bridge. We think they were just a curious fishing boat intending no harm, which is the same situation that happened on the last DYNAMO cruise. They kept coming closer to us though until the captain rang an impressively loud whistle at them. This apparently gave them the right idea that they needed to leave because they acted accordingly after this warning signal. We were all sent back to work without having to enact the full-blown pirate hide-and-seek protocol.

This is the way the Res Tech position was described to me: (Resident Marine Technician)

“I am the mediator between the scientists and the ship crew. I’m here to make sure you guys can do your job and that no one gets hurt. I am also the person you should talk to if you need something from the ship crew. If you come to me asking for a small metal rod with a thingy on the end and grooves all around, I’ll tell a crew member that you need a screw.” This reminded me of the time I asked my dad for a screwdriver with the single flat pointy edge. The Res Tech knows how all the science operations work on the ship and will be there to oversee and help conduct them. He was there for the initial loading process at the very beginning of the experiment when they brought all our science toys on board, helping decide where everything would go. Sandbox over here, swing set to the left, slides on the back of the ship, swimming pool on the west lower level... So if you are near the water lowering some instrument overboard by a cord, which could wrap around you and pull you in the water or knock you over, you have to wear a life jacket and be with the Res Tech who can radio for help immediately. The bridge is notified via radio of every single operation we perform, always making sure we are clear to proceed and that no one was hurt. You don’t do anything on this ship without someone watching you.

More Revelle Revelations:

(Our boat is named after Roger Revelle)

There is a smelly person on board. His stench follows him in a 3-foot radius. I am wondering how long it will take for me to suggest they shower! I brought this up to another non-smelly person and we laughed because it’s not like we are out on a storm chasing field project like VORTEX where you might not have the time or access to a shower... but here you can just go down one flight of stairs at any time of the day to clean off. I’ll just try not to breathe through my nose.

The ship was restocked with food, supplies, fuel, etc when we were docked in Thailand. Apparently all the plastic bags in entire country are in Bangkok right now though because of the flooding emergency. So we will probably run out of trash bags on this cruise! We throw all non-plastic (biodegradable) material and waste over board periodically. Don’t worry; it’s not in plastic bags when we send it into the sea. All plastics are separated from the rest of the trash before hand to be incinerated.

There are different codes about what you can throw overboard depending on what part of the world you are sailing in. The laws get REALLY strict when you go north of 60 deg for instance, Valdez, AK anyone? The chief engineer told us that the laws are relatively lax near Antarctica though... an environmental hazard waiting to happen?

Our ship is a busy beehive. The science team works around the clock to either launch weather balloons every three hours, lower probes in and out of the ocean constantly, or operate instruments via the computer - this describes my desk job with the radar: no manual labor, life vest, or hard hat required. Meanwhile, the ship crew is constantly fixing, cleaning, or maintaining our vessel and all its nooks and crannies. Something always needs to be taken apart, taken care of, and then put back together again. The Chief said their entire job is to make sure the scientists can do their job and that we all stay safe. Otherwise there is a lot of paperwork to be done. Plus, IT COSTS $42,000 PER DAY TO OPERATE THIS SHIP. So you don’t want a little overlooked issue on the boat to cause a big delay in the science operations.

I’ll reiterate how interesting the people on this ship are. There's something about a person who spends most of their year in this exciting, somewhat dangerous, very efficient environment. It’s different from everyday TV, Internet, shopping, text messaging, distracting US culture life. The people on board are all very REAL, genuine, and down to earth. Everyone is here for a reason: they are motivated and very good at what they do, so we are all making the most of our time out here together. The science on the ship is really booming too. I’ve learned so much more by talking with other scientists in person and helping them with their instruments than I ever would have by reading a textbook or sitting through a 15-minute presentation at a conference.