Programs Blog

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Ship’s Log

February 22, 2024

Position: 39° 03.612’S and 179°28.376’W

Heading: 190° true

Speed: 1 Knot

Distance: 624nm

Weather: The Bobby Seamans is cruising along on 6-7 foot waves, with winds
at a beaufort force of 2 coming in from the southeast. The sun is shining
down upon us through about a 3/ cloud cover of cumulus and altocumulus clouds
with a temperature of 22°C

Eat, sleep, and stand watch. This is what our schedule looks like and even
more so, feels like. Even though we are on a 6 hours on, 12 hours off
schedule, it feels that my body is always working, always in motion from the
sway of the boat. Muscles working just to stand. At times I let my body
thrash around and accumulate the so-called “boat bites” from bracing myself
on any surface I can find. I have been eating like a rabid raccoon that has
been trapped in a basement for a week. Anything I can find gets piled into
my mouth socket with the urgency of an MOB (man overboard) drill. My
favorite midnight snack, or as we like to call it, mid-rats, has been
brownies. Thankfully we have wonderful stewards who make the most delicious
meals that taste even better due to a phenomenon I like to call “boat
hungry.”

To offset this astronomical input of calories, I’m challenging myself with
the nautical mile challenge where I do crunches, squats, and push-ups for
each mile traveled which amounts to ~100 of each, every day. I have been
having trouble with push-ups. However, slowly but surely, I’ve been
mastering my perfect push-up technique (ppt).

This morning, B watch (the watch I’m in), stood dawn watch. This is watch
between 0100 to 0700 am. I was a deck hand today, which means flipping
between lookout, helmsman, boat checker, and map charting and plotting.
While I’m on lookout, I become Celine Dion. I started off with 80’s hits
like George Michel and Wham! Then I moved into the 60’s with “Moon River”
and “Edelweiss” and then into the 50’s with some Louis Armstrong songs like
“What a Wonderful World” and “La vie en Rose.” Lookout is a time for
meditation, and also belting any song that you remember the lyrics to at the
top of your lungs.

During watch we also do science. The other day, I was on science and we
deployed a neuston net, and did a 100-count of the biomass that we captured.
We also deployed the carousel or the CTD which collect water samples at
various depths. I had the role of wire driver, which controls the lowering
of the CTD into the water and then shouting sporadically every 50-feet the
carousel is lowered. I also took the pH of surface seawater using the
spectrophotometer. Some other notable science stuff has been our sea-bird
and marine mammal observations. There have been ~6 sightings of dolphins
differing in species. Among these, we saw spinners and striped dolphins.
During my last dawn watch, we saw dolphin riding along the bow of our ship
lit up by bioluminescence. It’s like sledding for them! It has to have been
one of the coolest things I’ve seen so far.

A message to everyone at home:

Mamus i Tatuli,

Kocham was I teskne za wami. Czytam Jerzycjade i mysle o was. Zadzwonie jak
naj szybciej jak bede mogla. Trzymajcie sie cieplutko I badzcie grzeczni.
Wszystko tutaj jest super, i jestem zdrowiutka I szczesliwa. Nie martwcie
sie za mna! Kocham was!! Buziaki i usciski,

Wasza Juleczka

Talciu! I miss you and I hope you and Jonathon are doing well. I know you’re
tough so you’re doing ok without me, but stay safe and in the words of
Christine from POTO: “Think of me, think of me fondly, when we’ve said
gooooodbye! remember me, once in a while now promise me you’ll try!”

Jen-Jen! Love you and miss you. I’ll try to find as many postcards for you
as I can. Hopefully, I’ll get some at each port stop. I hope you and Chris
are doing okay and I miss you soooooo much!!

To all my Marist red foxes: I love you and miss you!. Hope the semester is
going good so far. And to all my friends at home, love you all the same!
Zosia and Togli, love you!!

Jamine! I miss you like crazy and I think about you when I’m at lookout. I
am rereading all of your letters and appreciating your beautiful National
Park postcard colorings. Can’t wait to see you again. I’m still writing;
will send these out when I get to port.

Kia ora,

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