Isle of Disappointment

Hello friends, Aaron here! Today was yet another action packed day aboard filled with joys, sleepless nights, science, and milestones crossed. Our day (for the C watchers) began at midnight thirty for our dawn watch where we took over command of the boat and began processing the evening watches science deployments.

We in the lab were thrown into salp city international (name courtesy of our trusted B watch scientists, J and Lila) where we sorted through a sample full of salps, jellies, and loads of copepods. At sun rise our lookout noticed we had attracted a school of tunas that were racing and surfing in the wake off our bow all morning. After a relaxed breakfast we went down for some rest.

Our little tuna friend

Awaking from our nap we were taking samples and deploying the CTD around the atoll of Pukapuka (also known as Isle of Disappointment). Hopefully the data will help us on our project on the island mass effect. After we finished our science we headed north towards the Marquesas and put our fishing lines back out and after watching all the tuna at the bow we hooked a small one but decided to release it and let it swim another day.

Class consisted of Chad’s trivia game: Nine Shades of Beefy Bobby C where we learned we have 1031 eggs remaining on board among other fascinating, and completely random facts. We also got a presentation from our lovely scientists, also known as “J Crew”, about different methods of spectrophotometry.

Kelly and Jess teaching away during class

The remainder of our afternoon before our evening watch was spent with C watch reading and creating incredible pirate themed madlibs on top of the lab. We watched as the sun set on one side of us and the rising moon and glittering stars on the other side of us. After dinner we C watchers went back on watch for the evening. With light winds we spent the evening motor sailing north enjoying the moon and the company of our wonderful program assistant Jen who stood watch with us. Just after midnight the log for our trip passed 1000 miles and we celebrated the moment with a quiet dance party to end our watch and our long day.

Aaron Blust (C Watch)