Programs Blog

Monday, March 17th 2025

Position:  43° 24.008 ‘ s / 173 ° 15.184 ’ E

Ship Heading: 245° / Log: 1914 NM

Ship Speed:  5 knots

Wind Speed: 14 knots

Good evening, this is Eamonn again; all has been well since we left Wellington. The seas have been fairly rough but we have kept the coastline in our sight and tucked into calmer waters a few times. Today I “woke” up early again for dawn watch but in all honesty I never really went to sleep. The boat was pretty rocky last night and apparently Madi and Eric didn’t even need a wake up for dawn watch since they were already hanging out in the dog house due to the poor sleeping conditions.

My day started by stumbling into the lab and learning that no neuston tow happened last night due to the sea state being too rough. I don’t want to say I was happy but I was definitely relieved I didn’t have to search through a tray full of salps after getting no sleep. This meant most of our lab time in the morning could be filled with perfecting the daily science report we give in class. The big topic today was the difference between meroplankton and holoplankton. The difference was that meroplankton are organisms that are only considered planktonic for the larval stages of life. To be holoplanktonic meant those organisms will be planktonic for the entirety of their life. We also decided to spend time assigning different zooplankton to different crew members with the idea of having them figure out if they were meroplankton or holoplankton, so as you can see pretty fun stuff.

I also found myself creating a short myth about the man “Alacreterius”. This man lived his life with no alacrity and in turn was swallowed up by the tides and turned into a zooplankton by Poseidon. There were some more comical elements to the story but I am writing this blog at 1:09 am so I’ll just continue with the day. We also made the weather report for class and our fun bit at the end involved describing silly nautical terms. One example was “sky larking”, this translates to frolicking mischief. I have no clue what that means but I kind of like the idea that it could be up for interpretation. 

Watch from there was calm and ended with striking the top’sl. Everyone was so exhausted from the lack of sleep so breakfast was pretty slow and everyone on C watch was quick to wash their dish and go to sleep.

I was out until right before lunch which was around 12:20. I can’t remember what it was (it’s been a long day let me be) but I do know it was something Irish. I went back to sleep until class at 2:30. Giving the reports was even more fun than writing them. The “main event” or main topic of class was our weekly drills. This consisted of man over board, fire, and abandon ship. For the abandon ship drill we put on immersion suits. We put them on in Woods Hole but not since then. Basically they are these thick clunky suits that allow us to float and stay warm if there were to be an abandon ship scenario. They look hilarious.

The next few hours before dinner were quite hilarious. Watches and their mates have watch meetings as a check in. Chief mate Eric decided we should do our watch meeting on the bow sprit head rig (the net above the water at the very front of the boat). I love going out on the bow sprit so I made sure to get there first. I should mention, we wear our safety harnesses and stay clipped in for the entire time that we are in the head rig. We played some rose bud thorn during our meeting where we all kind of brought up the fact that the end of the program is not that far away. It is okay though, and we decided to stay present by enjoying the large swells that were almost acting like a roller coaster. This turned into a game of reaching our hands through the net to try and dip our fingers in the water. This worked for some, Karma got her hand wet and I think Eric and Kinga managed to dip a few fingers in too at the bottoms of the boats roll. I had not got my hand wet since I was at the forward part of the bow sprit and that forward part is technically higher above the water so I had lost all hope. The ocean decided it was tired of this game we were playing as well. A large roll hit our boat and our bow went extra high in the air. For a moment I thought that I would be able to finally touch the water, which I did, with the lower half of my body. This still didn’t top the rest of C watch; Eric, Kinga, Sydnee, Karma, and Maria were all drenched. Madi and I stayed a little drier. The swell had just dropped our bow into the water and everyone was soaked. Although dripping wet I think it was so worth it, definitely the best watch meeting so far.

Shepard’s pie was on the menu for dinner which was very delicious as it always is. Since C watch had dawn watch we now had evening watch which I was looking forward to. We have been in or near a marine protected area for most of the time since we have left Wellington so not a lot of science has been allowed to happen. This has left room for a bit of banter which I am all for. My favorite joke from this watch was us that Maria had eaten all the wind. This could be believable as we lost all of our wind rather quickly and mind you we started the watch at 7:00 pm absolutely flying at 10 knots. Although what goes in must come out! The wind seemed to pick up a little bit at the end of our watch but not in time before turn over. I am staying up a little late to write this but it’s okay we arrive in Lyttelton tomorrow! Goodnight and happy St Patrick’s Day.

–Eamonn Rougvie, C Watch, Lawrence University

Shout outs!

-Shout out Ireland

-Hi gram if you are reading this I miss you and hope all is well right now in Iowa.