Sailing for adventure on the big blue wet thing

Beth Adams, Assistant Engineer

To borrow from the great cinematic and literary classic, Muppet Treasure Island, sunrise saw us surrounded by blue, bright skies, sapphire water, and land sunk beyond the horizon at some point in the night, leaving just the beautiful tropical big blue wet thing.  Everyone is happy to be underway.  The winds are light and inconveniently oriented, so we have gone back and forth needing the assistance of the D’sol to help us along, either to maintain the proper speed for our science tows (we’re already doing science!)

This is where I should say greetings from your friendly neighborhood engineers, who enjoy maneuvering as an opportunity to get more involved in the operations on deck and see the science deployments.  Sailing on any vessel comes with unanticipated auxiliary duties as the ship is a wholly self-sufficient community.  As it happens on the Seamans, the engineers are in charge of fishing! (woot, woot!) Neither of us on team engineer happens to know that much about fishing, but we are approaching this duty with enthusiasm.  And hey, they call it fishing, not catching so far, but it is early days.

Shout-out to the former shipmate unknown who labeled much of the piping “love & gratitude.”  While I don’t know the story of this, it is a great reminder when working on the less fun systems, or when the D’sol makes the engine room 115, to catch sight of the “love & gratitude” piping/system and reflect on the support of all the people (aboard ship and onshore) whose loving, dedicated, indefatigable, efforts make this adventure possible for us.  Thank you, and big hugs!!

Beth Adams, Assistant Engineer