Florida State University : Research in Review

Day 2 – Sunday, 09/14/08

At this hour—6:50 p.m. Pacific—the Point Sur is making steady headway at about 8 knots toward our first stop. We’re about 97 miles west of Eureka, California, and we’ve still got a good 540 nautical miles to go. If all goes well, at this rate we should be on site around 8 or so on Tuesday morning, the 15th. During the early hours, we slipped off the continental shelf, and beneath our hull is about 1,900 fathoms of water. That’s a bit over two miles deep!

Seas have gradually picked up since morning, and now our bow is facing steady 4- to 6-foot swells. It’s about 54 degrees, with a mild, 5-knot wind from almost due north, and it remains solidly overcast as it has been since we cast off yesterday morning. Our science crew held an equipment training session on the chilly fantail this afternoon.

Today has been spent going over equipment and instruments, checking and rechecking to see what works—and what doesn’t. At this state, all systems are a “go”—always a good thing. As the more experienced members of the science crew well know, many a research mission aboard ship has gone south when vital equipment suddenly refuses to work when asked to. Oceanographers have plenty of stories about how flawlessly an essential gadget performed “on the hill” (ashore) but failed miserably within sight of the beach. At a cost of about $12,000 per day to secure the R/V Point Sur for this mission, Thistle’s team hasn’t left anything to chance.

It’s the rare offshore adventure—of any kind—where the dreaded mal de mar doesn’t strike a ship’s crew, and this cruise is no exception. Seasickness is as much a part of maritime operations as salty air. Some of our students aboard are stoically dealing in their own ways with this all-too-familiar curse of the seagoing life. Perhaps Tuesday’s promise of all-hands-on-deck-type work will be just what the doctor ordered.

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