Educational Activities

Journal Entry
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8/21/2003

Good morning to everybody keeping up with STEAMER. We are currently at Latitude 23.32350, Longitude–158.51283. We pulled away from the dock in Hawaii late yesterday around 4:30 PM. That would be 9:30 PM Central Standard Time. We had smooth waters until about 12:30 AM, then the winds picked up and began to rock and roll (known as pitching) the ship at about 80 to 100 degrees if you put the center of the ship at 90 degrees. So, we have a pretty good sway going on. Sometimes we dip to about 70 to 110. That’s when we really loose our balance. Some folks are getting nauseated. Even the ship’s crew is feeling the effects of the sway. Seasickness affects people differently. I find that if I concentrate on other things, and keep myself very busy…I forget the ship is moving. I love the sound of the water hitting the ship. The spray sound is very soothing and rhythmic. The music from my laptop is almost in beat to the pitch and spray.

We will continue moving forward (called steaming) for another 20 hours to reach the first research station. At each station will be collecting plankton and water samples for analysis. We actually have 3 major projects going on the ship and each is connected to the other in different pieces. It’s like a large puzzle with each researcher playing out their game until the end and then, they put all the information together to figure how the plankton behave the way they do.

Today is a very relaxing day. Most of the research crew is sleeping off their seasickness or keeping busy by themselves. The education crew is upstairs on the upper deck. We have great air conditioning, lighting and windows. We have found that the research crew enjoys coming up here and chilling. The central computer for checking e-mail is in our space and the crew comes in here often to communicate with other technicians and researchers back on land. E-mail is our most consistent way to communicate with people back home. The VPR team is having some software problems and they are relaying information back to shore about once every hour. The VPR team is hoping to have everything resolved by the time we get to the first station.

Dr. Nikki Hanegan
21 August 2003

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