Journals 2004/2005

Aimee Gauthier
Brockton High School, Brockton, Massachusetts

"Late summer ecosystems monitoring survey" NOAA Ship Albatross August 16-23, 2004

Journal Index: August 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23

August 21, 2004 - Day 6
Watch: 6am - 12pm

The weather is gorgeous again. It is probably 80 degrees and sunny, BUT the waves and the rocking of the ship is a bit more than I was use too from days past. I did not feel well this morning, but the feelings past and I was as good as new around 10 am. I sat out on deck and the waves came right up over the sides of the ship. They were so forceful they could knock someone right over!

In the scientific study, where I sit to type my journal, there is another computer. This computer has a tracking program called Nobeltec. The screen shows a picture of our course. You can plug in a sample of coordinate, or even download all the latitude and longitude coordinates, like Erich did, and it can tell you the ETA, the depth, the speed and the direction of the ship. Boy, what modern technology can get you. The computer program does the same thing that John does with his pencil, chart and navigational dividers.

August 21, 2004 - Day 6
Watch: 6pm - 12am

Now that it is day 6 of the cruise I really feel that I am getting the hang of things out here. The only thing that I am really having trouble with is walking. Tonight at dinner I almost landed on John H.'s lap. The ship shifted and I went in the opposite direction that I wanted to go in. You really do not have any control over it.
People fly in and out of rooms because the ship rocks and you get either sent into the next room or you can bounce into a wall. You even see the captain and the XO doing it too. All in all, it is quite comical. It makes me smile.

Tonight we did our first station which was not until 7:30ish. We are off the coast of Rhode Island approximately 110 miles SE from Point Judith. I believe that this is the farthest we have been from land all trip. We towed the big and small bongos at the last station, but because of the waves we lost a shoe lace tie at the end of one the baby bongos. This was okay because we still had one of the baby bongos to gather a sample. It was not necessary to re do the station. Now we steam for 3 hours as we are head west towards the coast. We will stop to do a several more stations before we dock Monday morning at 12 pm.

Tonight there was a thunder and lightning storm. It was cool to watch, but then I had to spray down the nets in the rain. I cannot complain because this was the only bad weather that we experienced all cruise and for me it was only one station and it actually enjoyed it. I had to dress the part, I looked like the Gordon's Fisherman with a life jacket on. Although we always wear our life jackets, it was a necessity because the seas were 8-10 feet high and I did not want to go over board while I was spraying.