Programs Blog

Author: Maya Gorse, A Watch, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Ship’s Log

Saturday, 27 July 2024

Noon Position (Lat and Long): 17°28.110’S 178°50.244’E

Ship Heading (degrees): 080°

Log (nm): 287.7

Weather / Wind:  SSE force 6 winds / SSE 6ft waves / Mostly sunny, Cumulus clouds

Sail Plan: Main Stasle

Description of location: at sea

Oh to be woken up by a fellow ship mate. I have slept so well knowing I would not have to go to war with my alarm clock in the morning, just one of many beautiful day to day things I am quiet happily starting to become accustomed to. Another of which: the consistent rock of the boat but at unpredictable (atleast for me) strengths. Now that my stomach is no longer jumping at the opportunity to have me hunched over the side of the boat (or the engine room trashcan), the constant movement has become a comfort and exciting addition.

A-watch (Slay-Watch) was on morning watch today, which meant I got to spend lots of time with the stewards cleaning up after breakfast and waiting as patiently as I knew how for the banana bread I could smell baking. Amidst my freshly baked scone break I heard what we had been waiting for: “Whale!”.  We zoomed up those stairs, bursting out of the charthouse, eyes searching hectically for it. I missed the original one but moments after getting on deck we received word from surrounding boats that they had seen half a dozen whales. Just as they said, we were able to see several whale blows in the distance and continued to for about 15 minutes. These were much less disappointing than the seemingly invisible dolphins that were called out during breakfast which disappeared the second we happened to arrive on deck *cough cough* they were defiantly there *cough cough.

I also got to spend part of my watch in the drylab learning the alkalinity and pH sea water tests we will be using for part of our data starting tomorrow when we do our first official reef survey at Suvasuva. The highlight of my watch would have to be a tie between starting to learn the art of bracing oneself against the table to steady the pipette against the ship rocking, learning to plot our location (graphing yay), and our productive time spent writing haikus on old sail fabric. This one, read and made by the prolific Jake perfectly depicts the whales we encountered:

Ahoy thar’ she blows

In southern seas giants may lurk

Preying down below

Followed by the incredible Rylie’s retelling of our previous treacherous night watch:

And with dusk we fall

High seas tossed our Meclizine

Leeward fall the crew

These and more were presented at class time in incredible accents (especially Carter’s) with lots of dramatic flair, contrasting with the following final discussion of the methods for the reef survey tomorrow.

I ended my daylight hours chatting on the head rig watching the sun set. Post dinner, we went through pictures on the camera from our test reef survey and found a couple hidden gems of us snorkeling to top it off.

We are coming to anchor sooner than expected so unfortunately no wild dawn-watch stories to recount today, but overall a solid day. The view of the stars at night, especially when the moon isn’t up yet will never get old. Everything is so incredibly picturesque and I am learning so much every day, it doesn’t feel real. From stalking the website for so many years to now finally being here is unbelievable.

Missing you lots, Zayd, Marissa, the fam, and everyone else 🙂

P.S. Grandad, Boats are pretty cool

Maya Gorse, A Watch, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute