Daily Journal

June 11, 2010

By David M. Lawrence

The past two days have been busy ones – flying into Bermuda, going through customs, finding a way to the ship, meeting new shipmates, and making last-minute purchases of things overlooked in the last idiot check before leaving home. I arrived Wednesday, most of the crew arrived Thursday, but we all went to work one way or another once we boarded the ship at its berth at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton.

Thursday was the official deadline for volunteers to arrive. All did, though one, Wendy Kordesch, found that her luggage had been sidetracked along the way. (It had not arrived by the time we departed Hamilton today for the open Atlantic.) We met each other, found ourselves divided into watches, and learned what our – and our watches – specialized tasks would be. Before and after dinner yesterday we went through a number of information stations to begin learning what we need to know to operate the ship and its scientific program.

For example, I am on B-Watch. Our specialized job is to handle the ship and its sails during emergencies. (The other two watches do their share of ship handling, but they have other duties during emergencies, such as launching life boats or manning emergency equipment. For those of us on B-Watch, memorizing the sails and the lines needed to set, adjust, and strike them is vitally important.

This morning we had more information stations as well as safety drills. One of the most important skills for all of us is the ability to don exposure suits in the case that we have to abandon ship. We don't plan to abandon ship, nor do we want to abandon ship, but things happen on the open sea and that knowledge may save our lives.

We made the ship ready for departure at 1330 hours (1:30 p.m.). Our pilot was punctual. His job was to guide our way to a refueling station and through Bermuda's coral reef safely. We had to wait for a cruise ship to leave ahead of us, but we got away quite close to the planned time, made our way to the dockyard, took on fuel, and in a relatively brief time, began heading east through the reef and out into the Atlantic.

Once through the reefs, we began to raise sail. The pilots left in a smartly executed meeting of the boats, and we headed away from the sunset into the heart of the North Atlantic Ocean.