Aloha to the Kilo Moana

I am writing this post from my dorm room in North Carolina! I cannot believe that I am finally on solid ground! This will be my last post for a while. The next few weeks won’t be that interesting and I will be available to talk on the phone, unlike when I am travelling. I wanted to mention the amazing things that happened in the past few days before I signed off.

Our hammocks under the stairs!

The story left off at sunset on the night before we pulled back into Honolulu. Jennifer and I decided that we wanted to have an adventure that night. The stars were absolutely beautiful and it was pretty warm outside. We decided to spend the night outside in a pair of hammocks. We wandered around looking for a good spot to tie them up. Unfortunately, the darkest and quietest places were in the most dangerous areas. We decided to put them up under a set of stairs, far from the edge so that we would have no way of falling overboard. Before we got into the hammocks, Carlos took us on a stargazing tour. He knew so many constellations! He informed us that later at night we would be able to see the Southern Cross, which can only be seen below 25 degrees North latitude. By the time we went to bed, it was 1:30. It was extremely difficult trying to fall asleep in the hammocks because it was bright, cold, and windy. Eventually we fell asleep, but Carlos woke us up again at 2:30. I was really happy that he did because he showed us even more constellations, including the Southern Cross! It was absolutely beautiful! We tried to sleep again, but it was really difficult and uncomfortable. We probably slept less than two hours, but it was completely worth it!

Sunrise above the harbor

We eventually gave up and got breakfast at 5:30. By then, we could see the lights of Honolulu and it was beautiful, but scary. I didn’t want to go back to land! We grabbed our cameras and took hundreds of pictures as the Kilo Moana pulled into port. I had imagined my first steps on land to be momentous, but we were busy unloading, so I was carrying a box on my first venture on land. The stillness was unnerving and very noticeable. Unloading was lots of work, but with everyone participating, it didn’t take too long. In the afternoon, we went to explore Honolulu and go shopping! All of the girls wanted cute Hawaiian dresses for the farewell dinner that night. After shopping, we had a chance to go the beach and relax. Even though we had been at sea for weeks, we never had a chance to go swimming. It was wonderful to immerse ourselves in the saltwater. Of course, everyone joked about how many Prochlorococcus (the phytoplankton we were studying) we were swimming in. We are such nerds!

Dinner was a wonderful affair. The scientists and the crew were invited, but only two of the crew members came along, Ken and Tony. Tony even brought along some of his friends, Damien (a local Hawaiian) and Robby (a German guy). The entire night, Robby called me Lily because he though I looked identical to the actress who plays Lily in How I Met Your Mother. He even wanted to take a picture with me so that he could go back to Germany and tell all his friends that he had met Lily. The dinner was very different than the dinner we had before the cruise, even though it was at the same venue. We had grown so close over the past month and we were all much more comfortable around each other. It was also nice to see everyone so dressed up. After so many days of wearing T-shirts and looking gross, it was nice to dress up and look nice. The dinner was bittersweet because we knew we would have to say goodbye to everyone soon.

It was pretty late by the time we got back to the boat. I stayed even later because I still had to pack! Add another night of very little sleep to my repertoire! In the morning we had to say "Aloha" to the Kilo Moana. The undergrads had mixed reactions. Some said “good riddance.” It was really hard to say goodbye for me. If they asked me to go on another month long cruise right then, I would have said yes, without hesitating. I loved this adventure and I will never forget it.

Me, Jennifer and Miss Hawaii

The rest of the day was also absolutely incredible! We went hiking with Miss Hawaii. No lie. She is a friend of Sam’s from Missouri, but now lives in Hawaii. Her name was Anna and she took us on an exciting hike. The hike itself was muddy and fun. The best part was just walking amongst the trees and earthy smells. The ocean is wonderful, but it’s just blue. I missed green plants and mud between my toes. 

Super muddy hike!

Maunawilli Falls

The hike ended in a beautiful waterfall with a swimming pond beneath it. There are four ways to enter the pond. 1. You can just walk in from the side. 2. You can jump from a ledge about 10 feet above the water. 3. You can rock climb up the side of the rock face to a ledge and jump in from 30 feet above the water. 4. You can climb up a hill and jump in from 50 feet! Stupidly, I tried to jump in from the 50-foot ledge first. Bad idea. I panicked at the top of ledge and tried to jump for 30 minutes. I couldn’t do it. It was so embarrassing to climb back down the hill. No one else decided to jump from there, so it wasn’t too bad. At least I tried to do it. I knew that I wasn’t going to leave that place until I had jumped. When would I have another chance to go to Hawaii?! Everyone was jumping from the 10-foot drop and it was a blast. I was the only one from our group to venture up the rock face and jump from the second ledge. It was scarier just trying to get to the ledge than it was actually jumping off. 

Sam and Anna, about to jump from the lower ledge

Me, jumping from the second ledge

I jumped off the lower and middle ledges several times and then noticed that Tony, Damien, and Robby had joined us at the Falls. Damien, the Hawaiian, immediately went to the 50-foot drop and jumped in. He is insane! He then proceeded to rock climb up the face of the waterfall. I knew that I had to try! I swam over to the base of the waterfall and started climbing. I had to close my eyes and climb blindly because the water kept filling my eyes. It was scary, but I did it! All the way to the top! It wasn't very big, but it was really exciting!

Climbing up the waterfall

I jumped from the lower ledges a few more times and then decided to go for the 50-foot ledge. I told Damien not to let me back down the hill. The only way down would be to jump. He said that we needed to add war paint (mud) to psych ourselves up for the jump. At the top of the hill, I stood at the edge of the drop and looked down. After a moment’s hesitation, I did it! It was absolutely terrifying, but it was so exhilarating! I was so proud of myself jumping! I wish there had been time to jump again, but alas, it was time to go. 

Damien and I, rocking our war paint

This is a video of me jumping/climbing the waterfall, taken from my helmet camera!

This is a video of me jumping from the second ledge. 

The funniest part is what Robby is saying in the background.

This last video is the video of me falling from the 50-foot drop, taken by Jennifer. 

The hike back was wonderful and Tony shared some of his Hawaiian food with us. I ate Spam for the first time! We ate this tasty roll made of spam, egg, rice and seaweed. I loved it! He also gave us Mochi, a delicious gummy fruity snack! We said our goodbyes to all of our new friends at the bottom of the hike and then headed to the beach. We had a chance to relax for a few hours before catching the bus to the airport.

Jennifer and I right before we left the falls. 

Robby, Damien and Tony when we said goodbye to them

The bus ride to the airport!

The plane took off at 10 p.m. Hawaiian time and we passed through Los Angeles and Atlanta before arriving back in New Bern at 4 p.m. A long travel day, plus very little sleep in the nights leading up to it, made us extremely tired by the time we arrived back at the Marine Lab. It’s good to be back on familiar ground, but I will always miss the Kilo Moana, her crew and the amazing adventures I had this past month.

A whale of a tale... or the tale of a whale!

The last two days have been the most incredible days of this entire cruise. Yesterday was so much fun and today was spectacular!

I’ll start with yesterday. We are no longer sampling at 4 am, which means we can sleep in! When Jennifer and I woke up, we immediately went up to the bridge to explore. The bridge is the control center of the ship and contains the radar system, the wheel, and all sorts of other equipment needed to steer the ship. We needed to go exploring between 8 am and 12 am because our friend, the 3^rd mate, is on watch at that time. The 2^nd mate is a woman and she is harsh and terrifying. We made sure that we were out of the wheelhouse by noon so that we didn’t run into her. Dick, the 3^rd mate, took the boat off autopilot and let us actually steer it! It was awesome, but it was really difficult to keep her on course.

The best part of the day was when we sampled the megafauna… a.k.a… we went fishing!! The ship doesn’t have any fishing poles, so we set up hand lines all along the stern. We were going to make three passes near a buoy, which is where the fish like to congregate. I manned one of the poles as we slowly motored by. As soon as we passed the buoy, all the lines went taut. Everyone frantically pulled the lines in as fast as possible. I pulled my fish right up to the boat, but right as one of the crew members went to pull on deck, it slipped off the line. The same thing happened on the second pass near the buoy. On the third pass, Jennifer and I worked together to pull it in and we were able to successfully flip the flopping fish onto the deck. In total, we caught 10 Bigeye Tuna.

Notice: People with weak stomachs should NOT read this next paragraph. I suggest you skip down to the following one.

 Now that the fish were on the deck, they needed to be “put to sleep.” Someone armed me with a thick stick and told me to hit them until they died. Because of this, I have earned the nickname “killer.”  I seriously wacked at them, but they still twitched so one of the crewmembers, Carlos, sliced their throats. Blood was all over the deck… and all over me. I ruined one of my favorite T-shirts because it was covered in blood spatters! Then, it was time to clean the fish (cut out the meat). Carlos cut out the best section, the belly cut, and sliced it into smaller pieces. Yajuan, one of the Duke grad students, was already armed with a bowl and soy sauce. We all grabbed a piece of raw fish, dunked it in the soy sauce and ate it! I was skeptical at first, but it was delicious!! You can’t get sushi any fresher than that! Many of the scientists wanted to learn how to clean the fish, so Carlos taught us how. I went first and had a blast ripping apart the fish while my teacher yelled at me to be careful. My fish turned out great! Many of the scientists took turns cleaning the fish, but because we are all scientists, most of the “cleaning” turned into dissections once the good meat had been removed. We found inflated swim bladders, green gall bladders, black livers, and of course, the heart. The crew told us that you could eat the heart. Some of the more adventurous/reckless scientists (myself included) decided to try a bite. I took a large piece and popped it into my mouth. At first it didn’t taste like anything, but it had the texture of a gummy bear. As I bit into it though, the taste of blood filled my mouth and I bent over and almost threw-up. I suppressed my gag reflex and was able to swallow it. It was probably the grossest thing I have ever eaten, but I did it!

About to throw up, little pieces of the
heart in my hand.

Our artwork!... tragically lost:(

The next thing we did was much less gross. Normally, we gather samples from >200 meters. The max depth so far has only been around 300 meters. Today, we sent Rosy, the rosette, down to 4000 meters! At that depth, the pressure is so great that it will compress anything that isn’t compact, such as styrofoam. For the past few days, the scientists have been decorating styrofoam cups, heads, and pipette holders. We were going to send them down to 4000 meters and when they resurfaced, everything would be tiny. The pressure would compress all of the Styrofoam into miniaturized versions of the things we originally sent down. Everyone has a few decorated cups of their own and we were all really excited. We put all of our beautiful decorations in a couple of bags and attached them to the rosette. I helped to deploy the rosette and as it sunk below the water, a lone pipette holder bobbed to the surface. Of course, it was mine. I sadly watched it float away. Everyone was so worried that we would lose all of our artwork. The cast was going to take around 4 hours to complete so we had to wait and wonder. At one point, we saw the beautifully painted foam heads pop to the surface and float away. We were still hopeful that everything else would make it. When the cast resurfaced, we were faced with the harsh reality. A lone bag was dutifully hanging on to the rosette, but it had torn open and none of our creations were to be found. I guess I’ll just have to come on another research cruise so that I can finally make a miniature foam cup!

After so many monotonous days, so much excitement wore us out and we were exhausted. Unfortunately, we had a presentation the next day so we had to stay up late to prepare. As soon as my alarm clock went off this morning, I bounced out of bed and ran outside. We were expecting to see shore today. I couldn’t see land right when I woke up, but I was treated to a gorgeous sunrise instead. After breakfast, however, I went to the bow of the ship and was graced with a beautiful site. The green-covered mountains of Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands, sat on the horizon, half hidden by clouds. For a month, I have seen unobstructed horizons. To see land was… unsettling. It made me anxious because it meant that this trip was almost at an end and I would soon have to reenter the real world. 

Our presentations began at 8 this morning, but just as Jackson started to speak, the captain came on the loud speaker and announced that there were whales off the starboard side! Everyone begged Dr. Johnson to let us go see them. He relented and let us have a five minute break. Unfortunately, we couldn’t spot any of them. After the presentations, I realized that I had cell phone service again and I had a chance to call home. As I was in the middle of a conversation with Chrissie, I happened to glance over the water and saw a humpback whale! It was amazing!

The rest of the day was spent packing up all of our equipment. It was long and tiring work, but we all worked together and had fun. We motored close to the coast of Kauai for the entire day and it was absolutely beautiful! We could see cliffs, waterfalls, and beaches from the boat. Throughout the day, we spotted hundreds of whales and rainbows. The rainbows would shine for a while and then go away and pop up somewhere else. We saw rainbows in the water and double rainbows arching through the sky. It was spectacular. The whales were even more amazing. Every so often we would glance at the water and see several whales spouting jets of water into the sky. Some surfaced close to the boat. We were able to see their humps rise up out of the water and their tales slap the surface right before they dove. The best time of day was just before sunset. I kid you not, we saw hundreds of humpback whales, not just surfacing, but also jumping full out of the water, a process known as breaching. These huge animals were so graceful. It was like they were dancing for us! I honestly can’t describe how magical the scene was.

Whale pictures will be added soon!

Danger on the High Seas

It has been almost a week since I last updated this blog. I am so sorry, but it has been a crazy week! We’ve faced storms, pirates and explosions aboard the Kilo Moana.

Jennifer and I in the engine room

My story picks up on last Saturday night. Jennifer and I had made friends with the engineers who take the 8pm to midnight shift, named Ken and Darrell. It was getting to be later at night, but we wanted to have an adventure, so we asked to get a tour of the engine room… actually it’s engine roomS. There are 14 different compartments that access different parts of the engine and other equipment to keep up alive out here. Each compartment is accessed a different way, so we were led all over the ship. Darrell took us on our first tour. We traversed through a maze or tunnels and tiny crawl spaces to get to several of the compartments. The deepest one was called shaft alley. The only thing in the room is a giant spinning shaft that is connected to the propellers on the outside of the ship. We were in the very bottom of the ship. Darrell definitely freaked us out by saying that if the connector between the shaft and the propeller malfunctioned and started to leak, we wouldn’t make it out of the compartment fast enough before it was completely flooded. Jennifer and I exited that room as quickly as possible! Then, Ken took us on a tour of the generator rooms and taught us how they make freshwater on the ship. This whole time I was worried that we might run out of water, but we can make an abundance of freshwater whenever we need to! We were able to get to 8 compartments before we realized how late it was. We decided to complete the rest of the tour on another day. Plus, we were starting to notice that the ship was rocking a lot more than usual.

Our engineering friend, Ken

Shaft Alley.

By the time I woke up in the morning, the cast had been cancelled due to rough weather. We figured we might be able to sample later in the day. We were wrong. We weren’t able to sample for two full days because the weather was terrible! The swells were swamping the bow, which usually sits 35 feet above the surface of the water! All of us sat in the lounge for hours watching the waves attack the boat and leave bubbly smears across the windows. It was amazing to see the awesome power of a pacific storm. Apparently there was a category 2 hurricane somewhere nearby and these waves were probably a remnant of its passing. At first, I was excited about having a few days off because I desperately need to finish some applications for summer programs. I soon discovered that it is nigh on impossible to focus on writing essays when the ship is rocking and rolling. Imagine trying to write a paper and every few moments someone comes up behind you and violently shakes your chair and sends your computer sliding across the desk. Eventually, I gave up and joined the wave-watching party. Some of the other girls and I slept in the lounge for those two days because it was much calmer in there than in our rooms. Plus, I couldn’t help but think that I would fall out of my top bunk every time I tried to sleep in it. Everyone was bored out of their minds because there wasn’t anything to do. No samples mean filtering was impossible. It was even difficult to read without feeling funny. We ended up watching movie after movie. The good thing was that we all bonded while we were stuck in the lounge for hours at a time.

Finally, the seas calmed down enough for us to take samples and the day turned out to be bright and beautiful. After so many days inside, it was glorious to breathe in some fresh air. We hadn’t been allowed up on deck in a couple of days and it was so nice be in the sunshine. Jennifer, Sam and I went to the bow and spent hours in the sunshine and leaning over the edge to get our faces splashed by the salty spray. I felt so alive! I couldn’t bear being inside for any longer and ended up staying outside almost the entire day. We had a lot of fun jump-roping on deck in the early afternoon. At first, my aim was to get some exercise in, but it soon turned into a trip down memory lane as Jennifer, Sam and I took turns turning the rope and jumping in and out of the circle, singing familiar jump rope songs from our childhood. It’s the simple things in life.

Now that the weather was calmer, the lead scientists aimed to continue taking samples for the different experiments. Unfortunately, Murphy’s Law came into effect and we kept getting delayed. First it was the storm. Then, we overshot the temperature range. We needed to collect samples at 18 degrees Celsius but somehow we passed that mark in the middle of the night while we were heading north. We decided to wait and collect those samples on our way back south. However, we were getting samples from 10 degrees Celsius when we started to smell something strange. Turns out, the centrifuge in the Rad Van (a separate little building on the upper deck where all experiments using radiation take places) had exploded! We thought it was dead and someone’s experiment was ruined. The science engineers were able to fix it, but someone connected it back to the power incorrectly. The very next day we smelled the same strange smell. The centrifuge had been overloaded with power and had burnt out, along with much of the other equipment in the Rad Van. The temperature shift experiments were delayed again because the incubators were fried. Today, we finally began those experiments again and everything is back on track.

Remember when we had 80’s day last week? Well, another theme day has passed. Shiver Me Timbers! It was Pirate Day aboard the Kilo Moana! There isn’t much explaining to do about this day, so I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. Arrrrrg!

Pirate fight between the two labs!

Trying to eat breakfast with a hook for a hand

Jennifer and I couldn't find any beads, so we braided nuts and
bolts into our hair!

Walking the plank!

Pirate fight on top of the CTD