13 November - WHAT TO DO WHEN THERE IS NOTHING TO DO

Today reminds me of a lyric from one of my favorite songs as a kid:  “I am slowly going crazy…1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, switch.”


Here we are again, waiting for the winds to die down and the swell to relax so we can deploy our instruments.  We’ve been standing down, waiting on the weather, for the last 24 hours or so.  You might be wondering what we all do on the boat, while we are waiting to do our science.  So, I went around the boat today and interviewed everyone from the Marine Technicians and Science Party to the Mates and Stewards on board and put together this compilation of what people do on the LM Gould when there is no work to be done:  What to do when there is nothing to do.

Its really hard to capture the magnitude of the swells with our cameras but just to give you an idea, these pictures were taken in succession from the bridge of the ship.  The horizon SHOULD be straight.  As you can see, there is a lot of rockin’ and rollin’ going on out here.

The lounge is a favorite spot of science party members and crew members alike to hang out during down time.  There are 3 large comfy leather couches and 5 matching lazy boy chairs to sprawl out on.  There is a large flat-screen TV with a variety of movies and TV shows on DVD to watch.  Today we had a bit of a TV-marathon and watched several episodes of 30 Rock and Modern Family back to back!  There is also a Wii on the boat, complete with Guitar Hero and Joe brought his PlayStation with Rock Band, so these are both good for hours of mindless entertainment. And for those who like a quieter form of amusement, there is a pretty expansive library of books as well as a good stash of board games, cards and puzzles to keep people busy.

  First Mate Scotty gets a turn at Guitar Hero.

My personal favorite thing to do to pass the time is eat (but everyone that knows me knows that…I’m Italian for goodness sake!)  I am now working the night-shift so I miss lunch, but luckily there is a full spread put out from 11:30 pm-12:30 am  (“mid-rats” or midnight rations) for those that work the night shift, so I never REALLY miss a meal! One of the many selections tonight was French toast with this amazing homemade applesauce…it was awesome!  Also, I’ve discovered a new fruit on this cruise – the tangelo.  It is a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit and if you have never had one, you must change this immediately! They are delicious!

The tangelo – a cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit.  Delightfully tangy and mildly bitter… Absolutely delicious!  Please run out immediately to your local grocery store and try one…you will thank me!

Here are some of the other activities that made people’s lists:  curling up with a good book, catching up on some sleep, going outside to watch the waves, dancing to some good music, eating chocolate chip cookies, studying for the GREs (not going to lie… I don’t envy you, Kelley), catching up on their ‘to-do’ list, doing laundry, gaining some perspective on life (very philosophical Alan), and, my favorite: First Mate Scott likes to eat a whole sleeve of cookies and then “weep because [he’s] fat.”

There are, of course, plenty of people doing work in their down time as well.  Peter Wiebe can always be found sitting in front of his computer programming and Paola and I are usually entering data, printing out spreadsheets and labels and organizing things for the next station.  I heard there was a riveting conversation after dinner tonight about the derivation of quadratic equations…sorry I missed that one!

One person who appears to be using her time wisely is our chief scientist, Ann Bucklin. Not only is she keeping busy with the day-to-day duties of being chief scientist and making sure that we are using our time out here as efficiently as possible, her group is writing a blog for high school science teachers, with the purpose of getting high school students interested in science and excited about we do.  Ann tells me that she enjoys having the time to write stories about our adventures out here and convey why it is that she loves what she does. It helps to remind her, as well, why we are out here doing this… because we love it.  It is nice to put things back into perspective.

So, fear not, all your land-lovers out there.  The weather may be bad but we are making the most of it in our own ways.  And when the winds finally die down and the sun finally shines again, we will go back to doing what we love…SCIENCE!

Signing off for now…

Melissa P.  (aka Big Melissa and/or Patty O’Malley)