December 4th, 2002

Well the crossing is just about over. We get in about 7am and now about midnight I can already see the lights of Christchurch on the horizon. Today we had just a bit of weather to finish off the trip. Nothing major, just 8 foot seas off the port beam that rocked the ship around some. The most interesting thing though is the incredible bioluminescence we got into last night. Really amazing stuff, the entire bow of the ship was glowing bright blue, and every wave was crested in neon blue as well. I tried forever to get a picture of it but fast moving waves off a moving ship at night are pretty much impossible I guess. In addition to the small microorganisms that made the entire wave glow, there were other small glowing critters in different shades of green, and lots of big jellyfish too. They would flash for a few seconds as they tumbled along the side of the ship. Very cool. The picture I'm including is pretty poor and blurry, but it's un-retouched, and the blue color is pretty accurate.

bioluminescence

All for now,
Andy

December 1st, 2002

Well we have only 3 more days to go until we reach New Zealand. The crossing of the Pacific has been extremely calm. No storms at all and only a few rain showers. No problem with high seas either. It got sorta hot crossing the equator but it's cooled off a little now and the temperature is perfect; about 75 and sunny with cool breezes all the time. Sarah and I have just about finished all our work and can start to relax a little now. We sleep late, go to lunch, do some work for a while, go to dinner, and then hang out with the gang and bullshit and watch movies. Very casual.

So far on this crossing we haven't seen much of anything off the boat. No islands at all, and the only signs of life have been a very few birds, flying fish, one branch of seaweed floating by, and yesterday the bridge announced they could see whales spouting on the horizon but they were too far away to see without binoculars. I did see one small chunk of wood floating by a few days ago; a ten inch piece of 2x12, very exciting, but other than that, no signs of man at all. No boats, no lights, no contrails in the sky, nothing at all. Everyone is very psyched to be getting to port soon. All sorts of party plans, and the guys that have been to Christchurch before (two years ago when the Palmer was last here) are reminiscing about there favorite bars and restaurants and nightspots and good places to hike up and see the view. Everyone has shoreleave fever.

November 24th, 2002:

So we're a day south of the Equator now. So far it's been calm seas and clear skies the whole way. It was very weird there for a while because we hadn't seen any birds at all, but just the other day, we started seeing a few flying around the ship. There are two kinds out here; a small fast dark bird with very angular wings that's some kind of turn or petrel, and a larger bird they say are called "Boobies". As you would expect, they always travel in pairs.

There are also scores of flying fish around. Usually you just see one at a time skipping over the waves, but occasionally an entire school will break from the surface and go zipping away from the boat. If they have the wind right they can just glide, but otherwise they flick their tails in the water to keep their speed up and leave little motor boat tracks in their wake.

We still haven't seen any other ships or any land at all, but they assure me that in less than two weeks we're going to spot New Zealand. We've had two BBQ's up on the helo deck which are kinda fun. They have a big grill and everyone fills up a plate with good Cajun food and sits around the deck catching some rays. The weather get's hotter every day, and it's still kinda strange to see people wandering around the ship in shorts and T-shirts rather than full Carharts and ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear.

The ships air conditioning is actually doing better than I expected, but someone forgot to put a refrigeration system on the cold water tanks and you can only get cold water from the galley. The "cold" tap water from showers and sinks is just short of being to hot to stand, and the "hot" water is about right for making tea with.

I finally finished my main project which was to draw up the seawater plumbing system. It had me climbing all over the ship tracing out pipes, and going way down below decks in the engine room. Now there is a hot place. Next to the diesel engines it's about 129 degrees farenheit. I'd climb down the ladder to the pump room, and sketch all the pipes frantically while dripping sweat all over my drawing, and then run back upstairs to the air conditioned computer room and draw it up. It took me a couple weeks but it's done.

Otherwise, life on board ship is very casual. The Filipinos have massive and extremely serious Mah Jongg games every evening, and there's always a good crowd watching movies in the lounge every night. It's warm enough to read or take catnaps on deck, and the galley always has a few hundred cookies and cakes out. They have deployed a few instruments, but most of the work on the back decks has been scraping off rust and adding fresh paint. All in all a very relaxing cruise.

slackers

November 16th, 2002:

Well we've been sailing for a week at about 11 knots and we still have a long ways to go. I'm tellin' ya this is a big ocean. We've at Latitude 17 27.681 N and Longitude 132 18.626 W on a heading of 225 degrees which means that we're traveling in a perfect diagonal line from San Diego straight towards Christchurch, New Zealand. We've got 1479 miles to go (about 137 hours) till we reach the equator, and a long ways to go after that. Since the first day out off the coast of California there has been nothing at all to see except a few flying fish. Seriously. No other ships, no islands, no whales, no seals, no birds of any kind, nothing. It's been clear skies, thin clouds, and endless blue sea every day. Actually the flying fish are pretty cool. They pop up out of the water just ahead of the ships bow wake, and skim across the waves for maybe 50 yards before falling back in.