Rocking and Rolling

Rachel Clausen, Salisbury University

Hello everyone on land! This is Rachel J. Today started off pretty rocky as I was shaken awake at 0100 by some big swells. They sent everything flying: me, my stuff, and even fish (two flying fish jumped up on board during dawn watch). I eventually was able to get back to sleep, only to be awoken a few hours later at 0600 for morning watch.

Our watch passed by pretty quickly. At 0800 we had morning class where we discussed some readings that we had read a few days ago. Then, we heaved to for science deployments! Once we tried to get going again, the wind had died down a fair amount so it was pretty slow going. After an amazing lunch of mac and cheese and tomato soup, we started afternoon class.

We started to go over our climate leader profiles, where we each chose a climate leader and made a quick 5-minute presentation about them. Our presentation was shortly interrupted by a really low fly-over by a New Zealand military plane. They radio-ed in to see what we were doing and left pretty quickly after we told them school. After class I took a nap because I have dawn watch at 0100 tomorrow morning and am trying to get as much sleep as possible before hand.

Well, that’s all for now. I’d like to give a special shout-out to Mathilde who has been a fellow leeward-lady with me this entire trip! The company is much appreciated. Also I want to say hi to my Mom, Dad, Bubbe, K.C., and, of course, my dog! Miss you all

Rachel