next cruise dates

So my next cruise is from September 1st to October 10th in the Amazon. We will be staying in Barbados before and after the cruise....have a great summer!

back on land....if that's what u call this..

So we got into Dutch Harbor, but this really shouldn't count as land. I can't send texts unless I pay a rando server guy ten dollars and there are two restraunts....one at each of the hotels. I was gonna stay and hike, but it would be a lot more fun to do that if there was someone to hike with. I'm going to see if I can catch an early flight into Anchorage, because they at least have a town that I can go into and maybe buy some more souveniers...just what I need! If I can't catch an earlier flight, then I'll just make some friends in the airport bar....my liver needs to get back into shape for New York anyway...

Coming to a Close

Well, two weeks and two peices of equipment later, the cruise is coming to a close. We are still sampling, and somewhere between the 20 gallons of water I need to filter I also need to pack up all my stuff and figure out how to get it to New York. Since when do people consider me adult-enough to handle all of this??? I like it better when I'm not trusted with this responsibility and others just do it for me...does this mean I get a pay raise?? :)
So I was looking forward to getting into Dutch Harbor and maybe seeing some of the Deadliest Catch boats, but apparently this isn't their season. I was told there is nothing to do in this town except drink and buy porn...they never mention that on the Discovery Channel. If anyone wants anything from Alaska, this is your last chance for at least a year!!!

Holy Rolling Boat Batman....

Working on a ship is one thing. But I just looked out the window and the waves were so hight that I couldn't see the sky. As I'm sitting in a wheel-less chair typing this, I am sliding toward and away from the computer....this is crazy! I'm running late today because the person filtering on the same schedule as me woke up late. I just caught up, and now his boss isn't ready for me to do a station right now, so once again, I'm late! Not the happiest, thrown around, camper on this boat. Water's falling everywhere, my whole filter rig fell over....working when the boat is flying like this is just not the most accurate science - but I guess that's what you would expect in the Bering Sea. Add this to the list of experiences I won't miss....

70 meter line of death

My schedule - Wake up at 6:30 eat breakfast and then filter for four hours....eat lunch, and then filter for four hours...eat dinner, and then filter for four hours. In between all of this I'm trying to fix the FRRF that does profiles of the water - ridiculous!
We had a day off today because the boat was doing a search grid for a lost buoy, so I got to catch up on my sleep today! We have a CTD at 8:30 tonight, which means I won't be getting the water until 9:00, if you do the Math that means I will only get 4 hours of sleep tonight....gotta love the boat's timing. I'm really hoping the FRRF is all better, because I really don't think I have much energy left to fix it once again


* FRRF = Fast Repition Rate Fluorometer; basically a bench top machine stretched out into a canister that takes live samples as it goes down the water profile...

And it begins...tomorrow

Hi! I wasn't going to post this until the conclusion came about, but I love Alaskan people (is that the correct grammer?)! I left my Ipod at the hotel I was staying at and got my mom to call them...lo and behold my Ipod is being mailed back to my home. Any other state (not including Maine) it would be in a pawn shop right now - yaayy Alaska!

Ok, back to the boat. I'm going to get a full nights rest because when I wake up tomorrow until probably next Thursday, I will be working 18 hour days of nonstop water filtering and microscopy. And as scientific equipment usually goes on research cruises, I started with four instruments and am now down to two. The profiler is acting up, and I'm about to retire it if I can't get it to work in the morning. So now that I think about it, after those two instruments failed, I'll be doing the same amount of work even if my boss was here...so much for being able to handle a cruise on my own - blah

But I did get the new pictures on my blog...enjoy!

PICTURES

My blog won't let me put them on yet, but if you click on the slide show, you'll be able to see my pictures from Alaska...there are more, but I need to go take apart an instrument bc it's not working - so much for getting my nap in after an all nighter :/