Programs Blog

Author: Madeline Z.

Ship’s Log

Thursday, October 5, 2023

Noon Position (Lat and Long): 42deg 00.08N x 68deg 13.827W

Ship Heading (degrees): 300 deg Ship Speed (knots): 1.3 kts Log (nm): 151.4 NM

Weather /Wind / Sail Plan (from 1300 Watch Change): Wind( SWxS BF2), 10 degrees C, Foggy

Description of location: Soling in the Gulf of Maine, presently over Franklin Basin, headed toward Gloucester to wait out Tropical Storm Philippe.

Yesterday (October 4th) was probably one of the best days we have had so far, we were anchored just outside of Nantucket and had our routine anchor watches. Cole, Hillary and I had our two hour anchor watch starting at 5am till 7am. During that time we logged hourly anchor and weather reports and got to watch an awesome sunset right over the Nantucket shore lines. After our watch was up we walked into the saloon welcomed with an amazing breakfast by our stews Rachel and Seb. After breakfast I got to catch up on sleep and prepare myself for my watch that night from 19:00-1:00. I spent most of the day sitting up on the headrig with Whis, Emma and Soph(who are also on A watch). All of us ended up taking a nap and waking up hours later to swells rocking the ship up and down. While the other groups were on watch they overall spotted 3 whales, a Great White shark, 2 Mola Mola and lots of other sea organisms. The best part of the night was around dinner time when the sun was setting, colors of orange and blues filled the sky and nothing but ocean waves surrounded us for miles. We sat up above the lab ate dinner and watched stars fill into the sky while the sun entered into the horizon.

Then A watch had their first 6 hour watch from 19:00-1:00. Some people were on deck while Cass and I were in lab, we got to filter chlorophyll-a and use our neuston net to catch bioluminescent little fish and any organism that was laying on the surface. Sophie was on look out around 22:00 when she called all of us over because there was a pod of dolphins swimming around and in front of our bow, the bioluminescence made them look like they were glowing in the water as they jumped in and out. It was definitely one of the best things to ever witness on night watch.

Fast forward to today (October 5) we have gained a lot of nautical miles under our vessel, I was woken up to the sound of the fog alarm. It’s every two minutes and very very annoying blowing one long horn then two short quickly after. That went on for most of the day until the evening when we had mostly clear skies and a wind Beaufort of 2ish.  Shortly after we learned that we had to change courses and instead of making our way up to Nova Scotia we have to make a short stop in Gloucester Massachusetts, because of a tropical storm passing through our route. By going to Mass. we will be able to anchor there for the night and avoid the winds and heavy seas. My night quietly ended with finishing up afternoon watch on forward lookout and enjoying the sunset. Or at least I thought until just after dinner when Jackson called everyone up on deck to watch Elon Musk’s newly launched satellites traverse the sky.  There were more than 20 following one after another moving across the sky until they faded away. They looked like little shooting stars connected to each other or as Tess would say it looked like Santa’s reindeer flying through the sky. Stars filled the entire sky and it was clear enough to see outlines of the Milky Way. 10/10 experience.