After sailing south to near the U.S. - Mexico border, where a patrol helicopter monitoring unauthorized crossings gave us a fly by, we turned around to head back up North into the California Current before we ultimately head out West and towards the center of the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre.

I saw undeniable proof of aliens and mermaids last night.

We have been underway for 2 days now! Today was my first watch because I was assistant steward (assistant cook) yesterday.

Today started at 0620 when B watch (dawn watch) woke us (Megan D and Emma Bowman –  C watch)  for breakfast and our watch starting at 0700. Morning watch was pretty slow on deck, but it was fairly busy for Emma in lab.

As a SEA alum and former sailing intern/assistant steward aboard Cramer, I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend the past three weeks sailing with the students and crew of C-290 in a new capacity. With a background in music and environmental studies, I have always been fascinated by sound and most recently by underwater soundscapes and marine mammal communication.

It is so hard to contextualize and transcribe this experience. How do I describe the ephemera of events transpired? The excitement of witnessing a whale breeching at sunset? The feeling of leaning over the bow to watch dolphins at 1:00 AM? These are the thoughts racing my mind as I type this entry while we begin to pull into our anchorage in the small town of Kororareka Russell, our first stop since our departure from Auckland roughly four days ago.

Hey everyone! My name is Jessie and I’m a student on the Cramer! Yay! I’m writing to you from this beautiful spot anchored off of Isla de Culebra. The Caribbean sun is warm, the ocean is glistening, and the clouds are the puffy cumulus kind that makes me think of sugary cotton candy.

SEA Semester in the NEWS
“When We See Whales” - Transcribing Captain Lawrence’s Logbook
By Mia Sigler, S-283
Sea History Magazine, Winter 2019-20

Mia Sigler, a senior at Mount Holyoke and alumna of SEA Semester class S-283, the Global Ocean, has written a detailed account of the research she and her classmates did on the logbook of Falmouth whaleman Capt. Lewis Lawrence.  Mia helped transcribe the logbook, studied an original chart from Lawrence’s 1849 voyage, and she and her class followed portions of Capt. Lawrence’s path in the South Pacific in the fall of 2018.

SEA Semester in the NEWS
SCIENCE
“Looking beyond its literary merits, a historian traces the natural history of Moby-Dick”
By Christopher Kemp

Review of AHAB’S ROLLING SEA, a new book by Dr. Richard King, SEA Visiting Associate Professor of Maritime History and Literature.

Emerging from the doghouse, I was greeted by a cool morning breeze that brushed from the port side of the deck. Having just completed the 0600 boat check, I found that the sunrise had begun while I was below deck. Moving to the rail, I fell into conversation with my 0500-0630 dock watch buddy Zuri, when I noticed a spot of white foam in the distance.