News

Tuesday, 21 July 2026
Noon Position:: 41 deg 57.1’N x 070 deg 36.6’W
Ship Heading:  anchored
Ship Speed: anchored
Log: 181.6 nm
Weather : Rain and thunder showers through the night, heavy winds and seas.
Anchored near Plymouth, MA

Hiii! It is Ada, Mia and Alan from C watch! Today we are coming to you from the end of the dreaded dawn watch! Today is arguably the worst watch day because you have dawn watch and then evening right after. Evening watch in case you were wondering is from 1900 to 0100 so that’s fun! Today we passed through the…wait for it… the Cape Cod Canal!! You probably saw pictures because every person we passed took one. We went under so many bridges and we were definitely the main attraction. 

Backtracking a bit, we left the wind turbines behind last night, but we didn’t see that because we were enjoying our first full nights sleep! It was amazing btw! We woke up at 0600 for a 0620 breakfast before holding morning watch! Ada, Alan and Kyle were in lab and we had something called a superstation! This is when we deploy all of our lab gear including the CTD, which measures the conductivity in the water as well as depth and temperature with an added bonus of a chlorophyll-a sensor too. Knowing the amount of chlorophyll-a helps us calculate how much phytoplankton is in the water! We also deployed the Secchi Disc, which is how we measure how deep sunlight can penetrate the water. Today… or yesterday I guess Ada won the Secchi bets with my guess of 7.5! We also deployed the Shipek grab which grabs a sample of the sea floor. We also deployed the Niskin Bottles to collect samples of water at different depths. We only collected data during the morning watch so that A watch could process it that afternoon. 

On Monday we had afternoon watch and Ada and Alan processed the previously collected data. Mia was on deck with Rose, Emma F, and Damian. They were on rotation and Mia was at the helm during our first tack of the trip. On the Cramer, we gybe instead of tacking because a tack requires a lot of momentum that we don’t always have. (Don’t worry Mia’s Parents, I, Ada took lots of pictures!) During our evening watch a few days ago, Mia was on lab duty and they deployed the Neuston net at 2300. Since it was dark we saw bioluminescence! We even collected organisms producing it so…. our net was GLOWING! We have seen so many creatures. We have lost track of the amount of pods of DOLPHINS we have seen. We have seen them at sunset, sunrise, and just during the day! Rose got some pretty impressive photos on her camera! We also learned from Beckett about the way the wind farms “harvest” the wind using turbines! 

We have a funny story about one of our favorite treats, Nutella, that we will tell you when we are back on shore. It is a little too long for this blog.

We love you guys and are having so much fun and learning a lot!

Sailing Away,

Ada, Mia, Alan, and the rest of C watch!

PS.
Hi Althea and Mom and Dad! Tell Gigi and Papa I say hi! I love you all! – Ada
Hi Mom and Dad! Tell LuLu I said Hi, love you! – Mia 
Hi Leah! I love you! – Emma S.