From my window seat I watch the tops of clouds pass. Underneath them: the infinite ocean. I feel my stomach lift as we begin our descent. We land in Bermuda at sunset.
Landing in Bermuda.
Bermuda is not a single landmass, but an archipelago of nearly two hundred islands. They rest together upon a massive platform in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, parallel to North Carolina. North of the islands, the platform is shallow: perfect for reefs. To the south, the platform drops off immediately to hundreds of meters: perfect for oceanographic research.
It is dark when I arrive at the dock, but the crew is still up and about. I am immediately welcomed aboard, given a tour and settled in. My stateroom is adorable. It is outfit with a bunk bed, closet, and sink. A sign on the porthole reads: Do not open. Tempting.
The Explorer is spacious, well kept, and among research vessels, she is elegant. Of course, she has her fair share of quirks: stairs that are a few inches too large and a companionway with a downhill slope. She’s got character, and a crew to match.
Explorer dockside.
The next cruise is scheduled to depart in five days’ time, and there is a lot to prepare. In the morning, I meet Nick, my mentor, up in the tech lab. We hit the ground running. The tech lab is the brain of the ship; it houses a stack of computers that pull data in from a variety of sensors and then send information back out to be processed and viewed throughout the vessel. All of this communication is achieved through an incredible network of cables that weave in and out, through walls and ceilings, and converge in the hub of the tech lab. Over the course of the past few years, cables have been added, rerouted, but rarely removed.
Behind the rack of computers and switchboards, I find Nick hidden in a waterfall of cables, weeding out all of the unnecessary ones and laying them into a nest about his feet. He says he is giving the lab a haircut. I do my best to keep up as he darts around and spouts off a litany of acronyms and technical jargon. By the end of the day, the rack is condensed and organized, and I have a much greater sense of how the data collection process operates.
Over the next couple of days, I start to gain my bearings. I know every crew member by name, I can find my way around the ship, and whenever I get the chance, I take time to explore the island. Things around me are starting to take shape.
All of a sudden, Sunday is here; a week has passed! Dock lines are cast and we are off. Our movement churns up sand and clouds the turquoise water. We push on through the channel, out to open ocean! Conditions are perfect today. The ocean is calm and clear and Explorer moves steadily onwards. Even though it has only been a few weeks since I last sailed, it feels good to be at sea again. My first shift begins and will continue well into the night. The sun sets and the last glimpse of the island shrinks into darkness.