Yesterday was just another breathtaking day…
I began my day at 7:45 AM, when Eric came in the room and told me I'd
have a chance to go out on a Zodiac today. Needless to say, I was quite
excited, but that didn't stop me from catching 15 more minutes of sleep.
Anyway, after getting up, showering, eating breakfast and putting many
layers of clothes on and signing a waiver, I was ready to go. Our Zodiac
was lifted off of the deck, placed in the water and our group (Me, Selina,
Andy (the birthday boy himself!), Maria and Driver Kelley) began to descend
to the tiny boat. I was last to approach the ladder and right before I
began to climb downward, our outboard motor decided not to start. After
trying every combination of gas tanks, primer pumps, throttle positions,
etc. Kelley couldn't get it started. We had to call over another boat to
have Jeremy have a whack at it. No luck.
Then MT Dan Powers came to the rescue, starting the engine (after we had
been trying for a good 10 minutes) in a few pulls. We honored him by naming
our boat "Powerhouse" for the day.
We left the Palmer and went hunting for a good place for Maria to get great
shots of whales. It didn't take long, as the whales were just as eager to
see us as we were to see them. A pair of whales swam around us for awhile
while Maria got some great underwater pictures and I got plenty of video.
After one pair finished checking us out, we found another pair and took
more pictures and video of them. It was quite a fortunate day for
whale-sighting and whale-tagging, as the taggers got two tags on.
The whales the tag boat were following decided to split up, so the boat
called us in to track one of them. So, with daylight disappearing quickly
(it was around 2:30-3:00), we grabbed an antenna and tried to find the
other tagged whale.
We weren't very fortunate, however, as our antenna was misbehaving. After
15 minutes of fussing with it, Andy determined the wine just had a bad
connection and fixed it, somewhat. But even with the fixed antenna, we had
trouble following the whale, as it was taking short dives, disrupting our
tracking efforts.
After a little bit of tracking, it began to snow. Just lightly at first,
but soon very large flakes were falling. The wind was only around 4 knots,
so it was quite peaceful. However, the larger flakes dropped visibility
greatly, so the Palmer had to call us in. As we headed back, the beacon
from the Palmer grew fainter and fainter as the snow got thicker and
thicker. We had a GPS, so we knew where it was, but it was still very
strange to be so close to the only thing lit up and not be able to see it
clearly.
After getting safely onboard the Palmer and eating a dinner of buffalo
chicken pizza, it was time for the mostly-nightly science meeting. Upon
everyone arriving, our Chief Scientist Doug told us we all had to sign a
safety form or waiver of some sort. I thought for a second and remembered
we had planned a soccer match for Andy in the Helo Hangar. Not letting the
surprise slip, we all headed there and gathered for planning of the games.
We figured that it would be best to have teams of three, games to one
point, winners stay. Some music was put on, we stood around the impromptu
field and watched as two teams would try to kick is between two ping-pong
paddles placed on the ground.
Competition was fierce! The field had a distance of only about 30 feet, but
trying to advance a ball past three other people proved quite difficult. We
played for about an hour and were all a little sweaty. My team had a streak
of four games, so we were especially tired.
But that didn't stop me and sever others from playing a couple games of
basketball afterwards. A little half-court 3-on-3 with substitutions really
burned the last of our energy. Tired and sweaty, we decided two games was
enough and headed either to our rooms to shower, or back to the lab to
complete their shift (me).
Like I said, it was just another breathtaking day (in more ways that one)!
No comments:
Post a Comment