8 June, 2000

Fond Farewells

June 8, Thursday

Today we're heading towards Nuuk, Greenland, our final port call of this trip. Susan and I are sad to be leaving the Healy and her crew. The past two weeks have been a wonderful adventure for us! We've been to one of the most beautiful and pristine places on earth, learned so much about science and the Arctic, and had the chance to work together on this project. But the most wonderful part of our adventure has been the people we've met. The scientists and the crew of the Healy have been so nice to us. They have been incredibly generous with their time - teaching us, answering our questions, and sharing their work and their lives with us. We'll miss them.

This will be our last journal entry. Tomorrow we'll arrive in Nuuk, where we'll catch our flights home. Two other teachers, Jay Schauer from Oregon and Todd Hindman from Alaska, will take our place on the Healy for the next two weeks. You can follow Jay and Todd's adventures through their journals on the TEA website.

As our final farewell, we want to share some photos of our favorite moments on the Healy. We hope you like them.

Thanks for following our adventures. It was great to have you on board!

Janice

To see Susan's photo gallery, click on her page.

Susan's Entry Today.

DAILY DATA LOG (6/08/00)

Air Temperature: 0 degrees C / 31 degrees F

Gusty, snow flurries

Latitude 61N

Longitude 56W

Sunrise 4:30

Sunset 11:23

Discovering Baby Knoll and learning how the SEABEAM works was really exciting! The maps were beautiful, too.

Even though it was hard work, I liked writing the journals. I hope you enjoyed reading them!

The ice looked like a jigsaw puzzle stretching out to the horizon.

One of my favorite things was working with my teammate, Susan Klinkhammer.

Here the Healy is passing an iceberg. Can you see its shadow? (photo by Jim Flynn)

We learned how to measure wind speed and direction from LtJG Tom DeNucci who demonstrated the use of the anemometer.

Flying in the helicopter was a thrill!

Ensign Mark Jamison taught us how to "shoot the sun." He is using a sextant to find the ship's position.

It was fun helping Peter Lane set up the MOCNESS. The critters we caught were really fascinating.

I loved the long days! Arctic sunrises and sunsets were beautiful.

Leaping bear

Curious bears

We didn't see any polar bears, but I thought you'd enjoy these photographs taken by Jim Flynn. These bears visited the Healy just a few weeks before Susan and I came aboard.

The Healy is a fantastic ship, and the people on the crew are some of the nicest people I've ever met!