Alvin 2000: Dispatch 6Monday, April 17 - Making time to have some funAt sea, we have no weekends, everyday is a work day just like the last. We typically work very long hours too. The crew works in "watches" or shifts with 4 hours on and 8 hours off. They each stand two watches a day. The Alvin group puts in long hours, starting around 6:30am to get ready for the submarine launch and working until at least 6pm to finish the recovery and do any required maintenance on the sub. The scientist work all different schedules depending on the experiments they are doing. In the water chemistry lab, we work a semi-night schedule. We get up around 10:30 am, have some breakfast and usually dig right in on the work from the night before. We usually take an hour for a break in the afternoon (unless some piece of instrumentation has gone completely hay-wire!) and then straight through from ~4pm until 2 am. The next day it happens all over again! We do take out some spare time here and there to have some fun. A big source of entertainment out here is ping-pong! There is a ping-pong table in the main lab and right now there is a tournament going on. Its an elimination tournament that will come down to the two best players. So far, only the first bracket has played. I already lost and am out! Kevin is doing better and won his first game and will go on to play another round. The captain is one of the best and often wins these at sea tournaments but there is good competition this time from both the science and the crew. |
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| Ping-pong tournament | Relaxing in the pool aboard Alvin |
| Get a closer look: Click on photos to enlarge | |
Water, water, everywhere and no where to swim? We can't jump over the side, despite the water being so blue and inviting! But we do have a salt water pool where we can take a quick swim to cool off! It's only about eight feet across, but it's a great way to relax. Towards the end of the cruise, we will have a BBQ out on the fantail of the ship. Carl, the steward, will cook up a great feast for us and we'll have an evening to relax. But until then, it's dives as usual. Tomorrow's dive will be to recover a lost piece of scientific equipment put on the sea floor
during a previous cruise. It was supposed to return to the surface automatically but it
didn't and now we must go cut it loose.
Other dispatches: Dispatch from April 12th Dispatch from April 13th Dispatch from April 14th Dispatch from April 15th Dispatch from April 17th Dispatch from April 23rd Dispatch from April 24th Dispatch from April 25th
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