News
It has been 36 hours since I last fed the fish
Anna Capitano, B Watch, College of the Atlantic
Ship’s Log
Present Location
17° 55.06’ N x 064° 12.3’ W
Ship’s Heading, Speed and sail plan
160 degrees, 5 knots
Weather
Force 4, Winds from the East, Cumulus and Stratus clouds and scattered showers
It has been 36 hours since I last fed the fishes! Yay!! I would like to thank MJ, our amazing medical officer, new seasickness meds, and the calmer Caribbean seas. (If the northeast trades were on Yelp I would personally give them a bad review to anyone prone to motion sickness). The past four days have been so amazing and jam-packed and because of our watch and sleep schedules it feels like we’ve been here for so much longer!
C Watch presenting their dawn watch science report in the style of the hit television series, ‘America’s Next Top Model’ (ya had to be there!).
Today began right before B watch went to bed after 1900-0100 watch. Molly, Greta and I were on deck rotating through lookout, helm, and weather recording and in the words of Kaylie on dawn watch it was “a dark and stormy night.” We closely watched far off lightning storms and squalls over St. John and St. Thomas and safely navigated past the British Virgin Islands by midday. After a delicious lunch of salmon, pasta, and salad, B watch mustered on the quarter deck for 1300-1900 watch. Molly and I were in the lab today and worked on processing data from a morning Neuston tow and two surface station deployments. On deck, B watch also got to put canvas up and turn off our diesel dinosaur friend! Some of us went out on the bowsprit to let loose the jib and set it and the mains’l (sidenote: the main stays’l was already up). Yay canvas!!! Yay sailing!!
During ship’s meeting we had lovely presentations from the dawn watch science and navigation team and Chief Scientist, Jeff Schell, gave us a beautiful presentation on Sargassum in the Caribbean and the Sargasso Sea. After class, Molly and I went back to the lab and identified and measured the Sargassum from the morning Neuston Tow. We also did a 100-count of the zooplankton from the Neuston tow and while the biomass was not the most impressive we did get to see a lot of copepods up close and personal with our wonderful microscope. At 1900, we broke for dinner and enjoyed buffalo wings and cauliflower and CARROTS! Clean up was trickier, however, due to the motion of the ocean and I currently have food all over my leg and cannot wait to sign off and take my second shower of the trip. So ends this day.
Bye!!!!
– Anna Capitano, B Watch, College of the Atlantic
P.S. Happy belated Valentine’s Day to my Nana! Love you, Nana! (Also hi, everyone else! I love you guys too!!)