I spent most of the afternoon working on a Perl script to convert our sonar mosaic to be readable on the SGI workstations (and printable on the big plotter, which is even more important). In the process, I'm learning Perl, which is a good thing.
After several delays, we left the dock at 17:00 amid the spontaneous ritual of handshakes, friendly abuse, and catcalls among everyone gathered around the gangplank. It was a real thrill to see the gangplank pulled up and the hawsers cast off, as we slowly moved away from the dock.
We took maybe an hour to steam out the length of the harbor, with lots of nice views of other ships and docks and such. There are gorgeous steep cliffs around the harbor mouth, with waving palm trees and all. As we leave the harbor, the water turns from warm turquoise to intense, deep indigo blue, and the real waves begin! We were warned about encountering heavy weather as soon as we got out of the harbor. It's quite something to see this 300 ft vessel, which has been stable as a city block for the last week, being tossed around like a toy.
Ah, yes, speaking of which ... I stayed up on deck until twilight, watching Guam sink into the mists astern, and went below when I started to really feel queasy. I got down to my berth, and concentrated on keeping my dinner down for maybe an hour or so. Then I gave up and vomited enthusiastically into the head (toilet). Felt a little better. At least I didn't get anything on the floor.
Took some Dramamine and went right to bed.
I volunteered to try on the exposure suit (a head-to-foot dry suit with flotation, for extended time in the water) which Will calls the "Gumby suit." It fit okay, if a little stretched by my height, and it's possible to operate the zippers, safety lights, and so on while wearing the fat clumsy gloves. Also, the work distracted me from feeling sick for a little bit. Several of the newbies in the room were looking quite green, and lay down right on the lab floor.
Seasickness is a strange sensation: a mixture of nausea, headache, low grade fever and lethargy, all at once. It's as if the body knows there's something wrong, but isn't quite sure what, so it's trying all of its repertoire of "sick" feelings out to see which ones might help.
In fairness, we are in heavy weather conditions (no one allowed on deck without a survival vest and a buddy), so it's not surprising we're all feeling this bad. To make things worse, the people in the next room, with whom we share the head, kept the damn door locked most of the day, so I had to roam around the ship looking for someplace to pee, with the boat bouncing around. Not fun at all. At least I haven't had to drive the porcelain Buick again.
Anyway, it's not too bad as long as I'm lying in my bunk, but as soon as I get up and move around, yikes. So I read and slept most of the day, never made it to the galley. In the afternoon, Jim (one of the cooks) came by with a box of Saltines, for which I was very grateful, and Andy (the WHOI team leader) got me my Perl book so I could study. On the bright side, sleeping is easy, despite the rolling motion. I doze off while listening to the booming and groaning of the ship as she plows through the waves.
I've tried Dramamine, which seems to help somewhat, and meclizine, which doesn's really seem to do much, and the acupressure wrist bands, which also don't seem to do much. Really, it seems like there's nothing for it except to just get used to the motion.
By dinnertime, I have the basic core of my script working, and I'm feeling well enough to enjoy the yellowtail teriyaki and green beans. Very nice. Also banana bread on the side.
I went up to the forecastle deck at sunset, to watch the deepening twilight, and the stars come out. Very brilliant and beautiful. I saw several meteors, and a couple of satellites. A thin crescent moon, like a fingernail clipping, lay on its back above the sunset.
Finished the bulk of my Perl script in the morning, and also helped get printers and stuff set up. In the afternoon, started training on the sonar data logger (the real time acquisition system) which is more critical than the post processing, because you only get one shot at making it work right. It's rather confusing, and I'm trying to understand as much as possible but not stress out over it too much. We shall see.
Also in the afternoon, I went to a mission briefing by the British assessors' team, and saw some video footage taken during the last survey (I think July 96). Lots of good information. The assessors seem to have their act together, and have a number of hypotheses about the cause of the sinking, which will help guide our survey.
You may notice that I'm not telling you anything about the appearance of the wreck itself. We have been asked by the assessors not to discuss any of the data we discover. The reason for this is that there may be legal actions as a result of what we find, and the data we gather is liable to be called as evidence. Respecting their wishes, this journal will be about everything except the data itself.
A beautiful sunset tonight, mackerel clouds with a deep red globe of a sun sinking through them. Nice weather all around, and quite calm seas, too.
Movie tonight: "Braveheart" which was fun to see again, and made me want to visit Scotland again. After the movie, I heard at least one person whistling "Scotland the Brave" as we were breaking up. I also managed to get my hair brushed out, for the first time since arriving!
I spent most of the day learning more about real time sidescan sonar operations. It turns out that I'll be standing watch at the sonar station, during the sonar survey, so I need to know how it works. Also spent some of the afternoon arguing with printers, trying to print labels for the data tapes. They are all rather finicky!
All in all a tiring day, and I'm not feeling too well. Since the ship is going in circles most of the day, it spends some time "in the trough" (parallel to the waves, where the rolling motion is most severe) and I'm a bit queasy on that account. Also just very tired, I wonder if I'm getting the cold that's going around.
At any rate, my first watch is 0000 (midnight) to 0400, so I went to bed right after supper. At about this time, they put the sonar sled in the water to begin operations. So I went to sleep (or tried to) listening to new sounds: the eerie tenor howl of the winch (for the tow cable), and sometimes the thrumming bellow of the bow thruster (used for dynamic positioning of the ship). My cabin is just aft of the bow thruster, and it is LOUD!
The winch is also impressive. Over nine kilometers of cable, wound on a spool much taller than I am, weighing 32,000 pounds, costing $350k (if I remember right) and winding against a pull of up to 15,000 pounds. Also there are fiber optics and such inside the cable, for telemetry, and it has to maintain connection during the winding operations. The winch is also very loud!
It gets quite crowded in the control van! Will (Sellers) is pilot during my watch, so we get a chance to hang out and chat. During my watch, we started the first "bombing run" approach to the wreck site, and found our first targets. It was really exciting, after three hours of looking at nothing but flat soft sediment, to see hard, sharp edged, clearly artificial structures suddenly rising out of the background.
1200 - 1600 On my second watch, we're crossing over an area with a lot of clutter and stuff. Each pass (about a kilometer of sea bottom) takes about an hour, but it takes two hours to turn around for the next pass, because of the length of cable that's out. So there are periods of lots of interesting stuff, followed by periods of not much happening.
I've realized that part of why I'm still feeling ill is no-flo (constipation). Another weird feeling that I'm not used to! I spoke to the doctor about it, and on his advice, am eating mostly bran and salad, and drinking caffeine. He says if that doesn't fix me up, he has laxatives also, which is an option I'd rather not pursue.
Did taiji on the foredeck, trying to take advantage of the calm sea (only a mild ground swell, about as calm as it's likely to get), then dinner and back to bed.
Sleep deprivation is getting to be a problem. The watch schedule (four hours on, eight hours off) is not what I'm used to. In addition, the ship's dynamic positioning (DP) is working, which means that the bow thruster is in constant use, and my berth is just aft of the bow thruster. Every twenty seconds or so, I hear the seagull-cry squeal of the thruster turning, followed by the bellow and thrumm of the blast of water it puts out, banging and sloshing against the hull. If it happens to be firing towards my area, it's like trying to sleep in a subway station, with trains coming through all the time.
So I try to get extra sleep whenever possible. I got a break at noon, when I reported for my watch to find out that the sonar sweeps are done, and they're starting to haul the fish to the surface. How nice! That means I can go back to bed.
I have flu symptoms now: a splitting headache, sore throat, some muscle aches (especially in my neck and shoulders). Some one came on board with it, and it's making the rounds. We call it the "WHOI fluey" but that doesn't make it feel any better. I spent the rest of the day in bed, hoping to shake it as soon as possible.
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