Daily Journal

June 21, 2010

By David M. Lawrence

B Watch had midwatch again last night. Most of us crawled in our bunks around 0330 hours and I, for one, promptly joined the ranks of the unconscious. This morning I managed to set my alarm before my personal lights went out, but I woke up an hour earlier than I planned for.

That was OK. My bunk is just off the main saloon area – one of two opposite the galley door. Ten other bunks (each stacked two high) and two cabins make the port and starboard walls of the saloon. As I write this, I see I make it sound like some run-down barracks, but it really is quite nice there.

This morning, as I sat starting myself with coffee and my computer with electricity, I looked over and saw Megan Cronin somewhere off in dreamland in her bunk. She had the curtain open for some ventilation, and somehow slept through the activity in the saloon. Megan was wearing the expedition's official t-shirt. The sight reminded me of the importance of the effort – this expedition – that I, too, am part of.

Prior to midwatch last night, chief engineer Dave Reynolds had a lesson in clear communication. Now Dave normally communicates quite clearly – he's like a non-stop laugh track, but the zingers are accompanied by a deep intelligence and exquisite knowledge of machines and people. Except for last night.

Sometime after 2100 hours, Dave noticed water pouring into the engine room. He came up to the quarterdeck and told the captain, Chris McGuire, and the first mate, Tom "Sully" Sullivan that water is filling the engine room bilge. This is the kind of news that would normally make for a bad night for the company of a ship – kind of like we're about to lose power and will shortly be sinking. Dave quickly perceived that he left out an important detail.

The water pouring into the engine room was soapy. It was from the aft shower, not directly from the sea.

The person responsible for the soapy water was me. I was taking advantage of a brief break between filing yesterday's reports and taking midwatch to wash up. I try to conserve fresh water, so save it for the final rinse, but the aft shower also has a salt water outlet. Given that we are sitting on a vast reserve of salt water – the Atlantic Ocean – I wasn't worried about conserving it.

I noticed the shower draining slowly, but didn't realize anything was wrong until I was drying off and Dave knocked on the door asking if I was finished. That exchange itself had the potential for a bizarre conversation, but somehow we avoided misunderstandings, unlike what briefly happened on deck.

For the record, I did not break the aft shower. A sump pump had failed, as they are wont to do. The overflow went into the engine room bilge, as is appropriate in such situations. We were in no danger of sinking, unless I started taking a shower as long as I hope to take once we return to Bermuda in a few weeks.

Sometime yesterday the SSV Corwith Cramer began passing over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This patch of ocean is very special to me. The history of the mapping of the ridge figured prominently in my first published magazine article in Mercator's World in 1999 and my first book, Upheaval from the Abyss, in 2002. My dear late friend, Marie Tharp, spotted the rift valley in the center of the ridge that helped inspire the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1950s and 1960s. I think Marie would get a kick of me being out here. I hope that wherever she is, she knows I am thinking of her today.

At 0500 hours the SSV Corwith Cramer made its turn to the south. We will make our way to about 28°N latitude, then try to take advantage of the tropical easterlies to blow us back towards Bermuda as we zigzag between 30°N and 26°N. On the way out, the Bermuda High – a semipermanent high pressure cell in the western North Atlantic, had been working against us, sending us either unfavorable winds or no winds at all for portions of our outbound journey. If it does what it normally does, the Bermuda High with its clockwise circulation will be of great help in getting us where we need to go while minimizing fuel consumption.

At 1000 hours today, the A Watch did a wing-on-wing tow, which is two simultaneous neuston tows – one on the port side and one on the starboard side. Eighteen minutes into the tow, the port net scooped up a five-gallon plastic bucket encrusted with algae and other marine life. It also had a small school of triggerfish – typically found on coral reefs – of which two also found their way into the net. Triggerfish do not belong in the open ocean hundreds of miles away from the nearest coast. It is likely they started following the bucket as it drifted away from its source. In doing so they established a novel mini-ecosystem of their own with the bucket, and the algae growing on it, as its centerpiece.

After taking a break over the weekend, class time resumed with a bang. We had a featured speaker, John Miller, who spoke about the National Response System for oil spills. John, a retired NOAA Corps officer and now a civilian natural resources specialist for the U.S. Navy, inspired a lively discussion after his talk was done.

After class, I joined two of my fellow B Watchers, Matt Ecklund and Jenan Kharbush, in shooting afternoon sun lines for a navigational fix. It was the first time I have ever used a sextant, and we have yet to find out how I did.

Finally, today is my final day as a member of B Watch. I'll joining A Watch tonight and will join C Watch later on to give me a chance to spend time with every watch on the ship. I'm not the only one affected. Videographer Scott Elliott is coming out of the watch rotation to focus on filmmaking, and the watch officers (mates and scientists) will likewise rotate, though in a different direction that I am rotating.

I'm not going far – at least not until the end of the cruise – but I will miss working closely with Matt, Jenan, Colleen Allard, Marina Cassio, Marilou Maglione, Dave Murphy, Ted Snedden, and Sarah Wegmueller. I feel I'm leaving the unit I went through basic training with. I'm also leaving them shorthanded and feel guilty about that, but the rotation is a good idea from a journalistic standpoint.

I make the move with some sadness. We'll still have plenty of time to see each other onboard ship, but it's still like moving away from home and knowing you will never be able to spend as much time with your family as you once did. And Colleen, Marina, Jenan, Marilou, Dave, Ted, and Sarah, you have all become something of a family for me.

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For a link to a recent Science magazine article about marine debris in the oceans (June 18 issue, "The Dirt on Ocean Garbage Patches"), please visit the Previous SEA Research page.