It’s always the small things

Noelle Harrington, A Watch, Colgate University

Hey Madeline, happy belated birthday!!!! A whole 17 years! I hope those college visits went well and track is a blast this year. I miss you lots, along with the rest of the fam.

Time is a strange thing out here on the big blue—I find that the days are simultaneously so slow but weeks are passing by? After our time in Rangiroa, the days have been blending rapidly. Maybe it has something to do with the watch schedule which sometimes entails doing gel electrophoresis at 0400…or scooping up a puffer fish, a few Portuguese man-of-war’s, and purple bubble rafting snails in a neuston tow at some other absurd hour. Sigh, so many things I never thought I’d be doing at 1 am.

In such a huge adventure, I find the most joy in small moments. It seems that people here agree, and everyone has a beloved journal to catalogue their time aboard. Nora has a little yellow write-in-rain journal with a page folded over in the back to store her lucky penny. Katherine tapes letters and plants into her journal and exclusively writes in colorful pens. Grace has drawings sprinkled throughout her journal, and Tobi is always gifted their journals so each one is completely different. I have a little black journal with duct tape holding the cover together. I am a black pen enthusiast. Anyway, all the little conversations about writing are quite wholesome and I realize that communal journaling is a lovely thing. Sort of like communal reading, or communal coffee-drinking. These things are good alone, but sometimes even better with a pal.

Here are some things I’ve noted so far:  Venus is the first thing visible at dusk, Scorpio rises as Orion is setting, Sagittarius’s brightest stars stand out and form a secondary constellation that has been dubbed the teapot, the Southern Cross is at the bottom of the Milky Way, and lookout on the bow is a great place to stare at the sky.

Ian, we have not caught any fish yet, but flying fish have been a common sight out here.

Sending love. See you all soon.

Noelle Harrington, A Watch, Colgate University