Save the date!  On Sunday, Nov. 4, at 2 p.m., SEA Associate Professor of Oceanography Jeff Schell will deliver a free public lecture, “Chasing Coral Reef Resilience Across the Central Pacific.”

More information to follow.

Our second day underway to Fiji from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai has been an exciting one weather wise. Long gone are the days of motor sailing under the stays’ls on smooth, glass-like waters. Last night on evening watch, 1900-0100, the wind was blowing force 5 and force 6 with gusts at 7.

Good afternoon from all of us aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer! Today is an exciting day. Although we have been anchored for our first few nights of the cruise, we anticipate to be underway in a few hours.  This means that everyone on the ship, such as the professional crew, students, and scientists will be working diligently to keep us afloat and safe until we finally set anchor at Grenada in the Caribbean after 2000 miles of sailing upon the open ocean.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I started the morning with a lovely wakeup by Irena at 5:20a.m. I was able to be assistant steward for breakfast.

We are underway aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer. Students boarded the afternoon of Saturday 12th October to began their time aboard as the crew of SEA Semester Cruise C282 from Woods Hole to St. Georges in Grenada.

Now that we are clear of the excitement of a cruise ship booting us from the dock, we’re back to our routine. After re-docking in Nuku’alofa, we kept up our regularly scheduled programming and met with the Tongan Department of the Environment. But first, we started our day by going aloft for the first time.

O.K. we just departed the dock by the palace in under 20 minutes to make way for an emergency aboard an incoming cruise ship that needed our parking space. Captain says we done good. No makings for an Allstate mayhem commercial here, no sir.

The students of C-282, Ocean Exploration, board the SSV Corwith Cramer in Woods Hole on Oct. 13th for a long, blue-water passage to Grenada. The journey includes a port stop in Carriacou and ends Nov. 20th.

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This morning we left the volcanic island of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) at 0530, setting our course for Nuku’alofa, Tonga. Unfortunately the winds were too weak to sail so we had to use the engine to close the 35nm gap between HTHH and Nuku’alofa. However we still had the fore’staysl and the main’staysl raised on the port tack to help us along.