Wow! The crew really went all out today to create a haunted ship experience for us. Complete with leftover ground sausage, beets, and ketchup over the victim and villain in the galley, screams, spooky lights, someone floating in a harness suspended from the ceiling (wow Ava!), and a lot of other hidden surprises.

Halloween festivities included:
- Decorated ship with home-made donuts to start the day!  Thanks Galley

Hi there! While the fore deck has become a waterpark ride, I am here to talk to you about something very important but not at all glamorous: being clean!

Over the course of the past few days, it has become increasingly common to overhear people exclaiming how quickly our time on board is passing. Today marks our 20th day – we have officially passed the halfway point of our journey!

Thanks to a generous grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, researchers are taking practical steps to help curb ocean plastics pollution by sharing scientific research where it will do the most good!

This is my second consecutive year doing the trip south and oh how different those two trips have been. This year, like last year, started a little later than planned and this year, like last year, we stopped in at the Sakonnet River, but this year, unlike last year, I am sailing for the first time as third assistant scientist!

Hello from the middle of the ocean! Clearly we’ve been here for some time, but every time I walk on deck to realize we’re surrounded 360 degrees by only ocean, it hits different. You would think that I’d have my sea legs by now, but it still feels like every ladder I climb is fighting me and winning.

Day 18:  Another beautiful day here aboard the Cramer in the sub-tropical convergence zone of the Atlantic Ocean.  Today, students spent time learning the ropes of whipping, seizing and eye splicing for our Nautical Science class this afternoon.

Day 17: this is one of my favorite points during the trip. Behind us are the days in the beginning of the voyage where the students, wide-eyed and perhaps a bit overwhelmed by their immersion in a new and totally alien environment, careen from helm to lookout to lab as they try to learn the language of the ship, how to steer a course and plot a position, and how to count copepods through a microscope while timing the roll of the ship.

Today I was the birthday junior junior watch officer, as the plebs (or students) say. Officially, the title is junior watch officer, shadowing phase, but since it was my birthday and we like to get creative on the Robert C. Seamans, I was crowned the birthday junior junior watch officer (B-J-JWO).