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Journals 2009/2010David Wehunt
August 21, 2009 Latitude: N 37° 27' 338" Today was a slow day after yesterday's very busy day. My watch only had 2 stations all day. I think I need to clarify something. We work 24/7 every day. I am on watch with Jerry and Tamara. Jerry is the chief scientist on the ship. We work from 6 am to 6 pm. At 6 pm John and Alison take over and they work any stations that we stop at from 6 pm to 6 am. At 6:15 this morning we arrived at the southernmost station on our voyage off the coast of North Carolina at Cape Hatteras. Of great importance to everyone on board is the fact that our cell phones worked. We were close enough to shore to get a signal and stayed close enough so that the phones worked most of the day. The most exciting thing that happened on our steam north was passing a Navy destroyer conducting a live fire exercise with its 5-inch gun. It was impressive. Other than the thunderstorms paralleling our path northward the day passed quietly. We did wish the rain would come off shore and cool us off as the heat has been almost brutal in its intensity.Finally, with Hurricane Bill fast approaching, I will talk about safety drills we did at 12:30 pm on Tuesday, the first full day at sea. We did fire and abandon ship drill. The third drill is man overboard but the on ship station for everyone is the same as fire so I guess it was combined with the other drills. Anyway, on signal, I moved to the stern of the vessel, my station for all three emergencies, with a long sleeve shirt, long pants, a hat, blanket, life vest, and gumby suit. After the fire drill we proceeded directly to the abandon ship drill where we lined up by life boat position and put on our gumby suits. The gumby suit is actually called an immersion suit and is designed to reduce the chance of dying by hypothermia if forced to go into the water.
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