Our second post was written by our at sea communications and outreach team of Lara Dickens and Mario Aguilera.
They write:
MARIO AND LARA’S HAPPY BLOG
The blogs from the ship have been a little serious lately. Yes, large amounts of plastic in the ocean is depressing. But we want to convey that science is also rewarding and wacky. Everyone has been working long hours, and then staying up even later. Some stay up just to see some sunshine, others to see the incredible stars and night critters.
We have celebrated two birthdays while on board (thanks, Josh Jones and Andrew Titmus for giving us a good reason to dive into decadent birthday cake). We have talked about birthdays back home and other big events we’ve missed, and it seems that those gatherings gave us a bit more oomph when singing Josh and Andrew’s happy birthday songs.
With that in mind, here are a few unscientific things we thought we’d share to lighten the mood:
We are running really low on soda, but most of us SWEAR we never drink it at home anyway. We will see how it plays out when it’s actually gone… Those that follow football hope to hear the games via satellite radio this weekend… Just a few minutes ago a large ray swam by during the midnight manta tow and then a group of squid came to the surface to feed during the next tow… The night crew ROCKS!.. Writing a haiku isn’t that easy when the soda is running low… The lab tables are about three feet tall and we all have corresponding bruises from hitting them during big swells… Speaking of swells, we can make a lot of “swell” jokes and they never get old… People might have forgotten extra socks, but they didn’t forget their tunes… We passed another even bigger dead squid yesterday. We didn’t even bring it on board… A salp bloom can produce a gallon-size sample of gelatinous goop (and panic in the lab), compared to the standard eight-ounce sample of the stuff… Almost everyone steps outside to see the sunset every night. It SPARKLES!
Debates rage about the word “nurdle”… Betting on football games is probably still illegal a thousand miles from shore, so of course no one on board has any money on the Chargers vs. Seahawks, really… People really miss their children, their dogs, and significant others, not necessarily in that order… You can never own too many Scripps Institution of Oceanography t-shirts… Cover every inch (or so you think) of yourself with sunscreen but somehow, some way, you will get fried in at least one patch of your lower shoulder or kneecap or upper ear… Doing laundry this far from home in the middle of the ocean doesn’t seem so bad (but it can lead to awful “using the dryer in the gyre” rhymes)…
While at sea the SEAPLEX team celebrated two birthdays. Andrew Titmus celebrated his birthday in the middle of the gyre.
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego research vessel New Horizon continues its exploration of the North Pacific Gyre.
on August 11, 2009.
Posted in New Horizon, People
