Random Thoughts

Since we are in a pretty constant routine for the next week and a half or so, there aren't too many new and exciting things to report that are going on. This post is just some random thoughts, rants, comments, and experiences that may or may not be interesting, in no particular order...

1. The shower design. Whatever idiot "designed" the shower "enclosures" needs to be smacked. It's basically a curtain around one corner of the bathroom, with an ~1" depression, that is somehow supposed to contain water sloshing around while the boat moves. It doesn't. There is an ~ 3" high metal wall running along the top edge of the depression, but this is not secured into the floor or sealed in any way, and there is a gap between the bottom of the metal and the floor. It's not like it was once sealed and now the seal is gone, it clearly was never sealed at all, I don't even know why they bothered putting it there. The first few showers I took (especially during the cyclone) resulted in the entire bathroom floor being covered with a layer of water. I have managed to contain the water by placing my beach towel around the edge of the metal piece, which does successfully soak up the water leaking under the metal. I haven't tested this method yet during a storm, but I imagine it will result in my towel getting completely soaked.
Another horrible piece of "design" is the lack of a ventilation fan. There is a very small vent in the ceiling (I think that's what it is), but it doesn't suck the steam out with any efficiency and is clearly not powered by a fan. This isn't a huge problem in and of itself, but when the rooms on either side are equipped with very sensitive smoke alarms, it means that I have to throw the door open, hop through it and shut it very quickly to avoid letting steam in the room and causing a ship-wide panic. I've gotten somewhat used to this, but it always makes me at least a little nervous when getting out of the shower.

2. On a lighter note. I've discovered that watching the ocean breathe in the morning (before it gets hot and humid) while listening to Bonobo (a band that Ryan introduced me to, thanks buddy) is quite a magical experience. It is the perfect theme music for floating in the ocean.

3. I've noticed that when the ship is rolling (side to side, rather than front to back) a substantial amount, going up stairs can actually almost feel like going down stairs, and vice versa. It's not that the ship is tilting so much that the stairs going up are actually pointing down (that would mean that we're sinking), but I guess it just has to do with mental perception, i.e. your brain is expecting it to be more difficult to go up the stairs and it's actually significantly easier, so it feels like you're going downstairs. See, I told you these were "random" thoughts, don't say I didn't warn you.

4. The only sea life we've seen since leaving Tonga is a school of tuna, and a possible jellyfish (could have been a plastic bag or something). The tuna were pretty cool to watch, there was about 20-30 of them jumping up and feeding on I guess some smaller fish we couldn't see, and they stayed by the boat for almost a half h0ur. They had backs that looked somewhere between purple and maroon, I'm not sure which specific kind they were. The only other animal life is seabirds (gulls, and maybe albatross?), of which at least a few are around almost constantly, even given our distance from land. I imagine the lack of other sea life has to do with our equipment. We not only have the air guns towed behind the boat, but we also have a multibeam echosounder (I think I said it shot light beams in my first entry, which is wrong and doesn't even make sense, because light can't penetrate 2000+ meters of water), and another type of echosounder constantly going, which apparently don't bother whales and larger animals (too high frequency), but can bother smaller creatures.

5. Breakfast. This one is fresh on my mind because I ate during the middle of this entry. Breakfast is my first big meal of the day because I always miss dinner and usually don't have much of an appetite right after I get up at 11 pm. It's definitely the most predictable meal. We always have eggs, bacon, hash browns, and some kind of sausage, accompanied on different days by either cream of wheat, pancakes, waffles, or french toast. I'm still at the point where this is a good thing, I love american-style breakfast, but I imagine it will get tiresome after another week or two. Thankfully, we also always have fresh fruit with breakfast, usually watermelon and pineapple, and sometimes a weird canteloupe-like tongan melon that's too sweet, kiwi, or grapefruit. There are usually apples and oranges available at all times in a bowl, but I have yet to find an apple that wasn't mealy, bruised, and gross, so I pretty much gave up on those. Also, there is yogurt and various kinds of juice (probably loaded with preservatives) that are always available. All of the yogurt that I've eaten has an expiration date in December, yet it seems to be perfectly fine, I don't know if they froze it or what, but as long as it tastes good, I'm not complaining.

6. This is a pretty gruesome story, you are forewarned. Before I left, a number of people asked whether we could get off the boat and swim, and I remember saying that I heard of people being attacked by sharks, but I couldn't really remember where I heard that or whether it was even that accurate. Well, one of the OBS guys from Scripps Institute of Oceanography (in San Diego) told me the story that I think I was referring to. Apparently, there was a Scripps-run cruise a number of years ago, somewhere in the Pacific (I forget where) and it was one of their traditions to have a "swim call" every so often, where they stopped the boat and a bunch of people would jump in to cool off. One of the crew had the terrible idea of throwing out the kitchen trash (food scraps, paper waste, etc) while people were in the water. So, as you might expect, the smell of food attracted sharks. Without warning, a shark grabbed one of the women's legs and pulled her under. The others quickly got out and tried to grab her and pull her on the boat. They ended up pulling her in and she survived, but the shark took her entire leg off. Needless to say, there are no more swim calls. I've heard that this incident was filmed and it was submitted to one of those extreme reality shows, so some of you may have seen it on TV or the internet. I also heard from the chief scientist that he used to shine a spotlight behind the boat at night on a previous cruise and the water would be teeming with sharks. Apparently they have learned to recognize boats as food sources (it is routine to throw food and biodegradable waste overboard). So it looks like I won't doing any swimming until Fiji.

That's all for now, more randomness to come whenever I get inspired (probably in a new post, since this one is ridiculously long already)...