What happens at 4 am...

The days are starting to blur together. With no weekends or normal working hours, it’s hard to keep the days straight. To further complicate things, we have completely abandoned our original navigational track. We are surrounded by low-pressure storm systems, including a full-blown Pacific hurricane (typhoon) to the west of us. Basically, the theme of this research cruise is that we collect samples whenever and wherever the weather allows us to. Some mornings are too rough to take our usual 4 am samples, so we take them in the afternoon. Other mornings are calm, but we are on lock down for the rest of the day because the swells picked up. The good news is that the chief scientist isn’t one of those crazy guys who will stop at nothing to get samples. He understands when the conditions are too dangerous and he acts accordingly.

A map of the North Pacific from two days ago.
We were where the small box is... right below a low-pressure system 

On rough days, this sign is taped to
every door that leads outside.

On the rough days, the crew and the male scientists work to deploy the rosette. Once above the deck, it starts swinging and strong arms are needed to control it. However, on the calm days, anyone can help. We usually have two casts a day, one at 4 am and one at noon. It takes a lot of effort to prepare the rosette for deployment and everyone lends a hand.

The scientists preparing the rosette

One of the Duke undergraduates, Tristan, has decided to come up with a hypothetical/moral question for all of us to discuss while we are waiting for the rosette to resurface and while we are filling our collection bottles from the rosette. This morning the question was, “Would you like to have a tail?” This spurred many discussions about the benefits and problems of having a tail. We even talked about the fashion accessories you could add to a tail and new sports that would arise with the evolution of a tail. The most controversial argument was whether you could use your tail when you played soccer. Now you know what happens when scientists congregate at 4 in the morning!

My opinion: I think having a tail would be the coolest thing ever! 

My body has finally gotten used to the movement of the boat and so I am no longer taking my seasickness medication. The only difficulty is at night. During the day I don’t notice the noises, but when I am lying alone in my bunk, I hear every creak and groan of the ship. Don’t worry! The boat is very durable and can deal with any size wave that hits it, but it still makes a lot of noise at night when we are going through rough seas. 

 Waves threaten to swamp the deck, but the Kilo Moana is to strong for that! 

Before retiring to bed, many of the scientists hang out in the lounge. We share the lounge with the crew, so sometimes there is a conflict of interest that makes for funny stories. Last night, the scientists were hanging out in the lounge and most of the girl scientists started a yoga video. Unfortunately, it was an advanced yoga video and most of the positions were way out of our league. We tried them anyway and usually ended up sprawled across the floor or with our arms and legs crazily twisted. Once, a crewmember walked in. He told us he heard giggling from outside the room and he figured we were just watching a funny movie. His face was priceless when he walked in on a room of hysterical girls in the shape of pretzels.