A Farewell to the Sea: Reflections on Our Last Day Aboard

Riley, Jonah, & Lance  

Today is our last full day on the ship. Riley had anchor watch early this morning. It was nice and laidback because we’ve learned so much of the routines. It was a quiet morning in the Gloucester harbor.  

After breakfast, students shared their oceanography projects. We learned about the trends in our zooplankton, phytoplankton, and sediment grab data. Each group had made a poster and talked for 10 minutes, with everyone sharing something. Then we had time for questions for each group. Kelsey was so impressed by all the research we’d done. There were illustrations, graphs, and well-formed hypotheses.  

B watch had the deck as we got underway from Gloucester to Boston. The anchorage was full of lobster pots and a little regatta, so we had to navigate an obstacle course with our big ship. It was a chill ride and we set a couple sails. The coastline was beautiful, and we could enjoy the landscape and houses. We had to pack our bags and clean our bunks, affectionately called bunk love by the program. Assistant Scientist Nick was impressed by Lance’s cleaning. He also let us choose our own music and DJ our cleaning session. His magnanimousness led Jonah to deem that the science department promotes democracy and the deck department promotes hierarchy.  

We had some down time to hang out and spend time with each other. Before dinner, we had an informal marine mammal class with Kelsey. She talked about her research experiences in marine mammal research. She’d studied bottlenose and spinner dolphins before switching to oceanography. 

We had a delicious pork and roast vegetable dinner. We chatted on the quarterdeck with Kelsey and Ryan about what we wanted to study and what we wanted to do for careers. Now the sun is setting over the Boston skyline. It’s a beautiful evening. We’re gathered on the quarterdeck chatting and preparing for Swizzle. We’re not sure exactly what to expect, but the sign-up sheet shows some poems, storytelling, musical performances, and some watch performances.   

Riley, Jonah, Lance  

The zooplankton group sharing their research

Catherine steering the ship into Boston harbor