Saturday, July 14, 2012

And we're off!

Thursday morning the universe cried out in triumph as we received official clearance from Brazil.  As such, we finished setting up all our equipment in the ship's labs, and proceeded to secure everything for getting underway.  

While our days in port were busy on the ship, the nights were much more relaxed as we ventured out into Bridgetown, often ending up at a beach bar called 'The Boatyard'.  It's a nice little place, and the best part is that it has some inflated things to climb on moored out in the water.  A trampoline/raft, and an 'iceberg'.  After a long day working in the tropical sun and heat, it's great to go there and relax and take a swim out to the raft and relax for a time. 

Yesterday we left port at 8am, and started steaming south.  Most of the day was taken up by safety orientation where we learn what to do in an emergency, where to go, and how to put on a 'survival suit'.  Survival suits are also commonly called 'gumby suits' since they're rather ridiculous looking… 

We also finished setting up our lab space, and getting our instrument, the multi-corer ready for deployment at station 1.  We arrived at station 1 (11.5ºN, 56.7ºW) and my group was the first up to put something in the water… Hopefully to kick off the cruise with 8 perfect cores! 

It's in the water now… heading down to 4380 m.  I'm kind of glad we only have 2 deep casts, since waking up at midnight and working till 7am is somewhat tiresome. 

To see where the ship is, you can visit the WHOI website here: 



A cruise ship that was in port when we arrived... it was HUGE compared to the R/V Atlantis... 

Our ship.

Leaving port! 
 Almost out of the port...
 Bye bye Bridgetown.


Scientists in gumby suits. LOL.
Ta for now!

2 comments:

  1. So the universe cried in triumph, did it?

    http://memepix.com/pE9mc

    ReplyDelete
  2. triumph, whatever, the universe did something and we got clearance. It could have just been making jazz hands the whole time...

    ReplyDelete