R/V Marcus G. Langseth
23-May-13, Somewhere Between the Azores and Vigo, Spain
The Beginning and the Transit Cruise
I boarded the ship two days ago, but for the first day we didn’t do much since we were still in port. I just unpacked, tidied me cabin, explored the ship, and relaxed. The ship is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, and a lot more confusing. There are so many different ways to get from A to be B that it just makes it plain old confusing. I found all of the labs, the wet lab, main lab, dry lab, bird lab (not actual birds) lab, and the gun lab (not actual guns). Chris, the intern whose place I was taking, showed me around, but I knew I wasn’t going to remember any of the ways he showed me.
The next day, yesterday, at about 8:00 in the morning Azorean time (EST+4) we left Porta Delgada and headed out towards Vigo, Spain where we are going to pick up the research team and the switch out some of the crew members that have been on the boat for a while. There wasn’t much happening yesterday since we can’t put anything into the water whilst around major shipping routes and so we sat in the lab and made sure the electronic systems were up and running smoothly. Clayton, one of the members of the crew, showed me around the boat a bit and showed me how to work the CO2 measuring system so that I could work it later during the actual research cruise.
We did have a fire drill and an evacuation drill so that we would know what to do in case of an emergency. Basically, for a fire drill, we just run upstairs to the mustering point behind the bridge and sit there. For an evacuation drill, we do the same thing except we put on life vests. Then, once the life vests are on, we wait until we absolutely have to and then release the life boats into the water, throw a ladder down the side and climb off. Basically, I hope I don’t have to do any of these things for real!
In contrast to yesterday, today there was work to be done. We had to look at the four streamers and make sure everything was working. The streamers are long lines that have sensors on them and they measure the data from the air guns which fire towards the bottom of the ocean. When I say long lines, I mean long lines; 6km long! They can’t be made that long so they are made in smaller pieces and connected together and we had to make sure that the connectors were working fine. It is generally easy to do this, but there some problems and so some of the crew and myself had to go and take a look at the last few connectors. It wasn’t particularly taxing work, but it was time consuming. We had to unspool the lines, disconnect the connectors check the power each time we disconnected one and work the whole way down the line. Luckily, only streamer 1 and streamer 4 had problems.
My life on the boat so far has been pretty good. The food is awesome! The chefs prepare excellent food and none of it has let me down. I have had roasted rosemary chicken, turkey with stuffing (and the turkey wasn’t pre-cooked they basted it and cooked it all day), fajitas, pancakes, mashed potatoes, and soup at nearly every meal. What more could I ask for? The guys on the boat are nice too, and a lot of them have taken to showing me how to do things so that when the research portion starts, I can start to do things on my own. I am having fun and learning a lot too.
~ This is Tyler Poppenwimer, signing off ~