We arrived at Orona yesterday afternoon after an unforgettable time on Kanton.  Today started around 6am with a beautiful sunrise and tasty chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes.  After some quick chores, our watch group packed up the small boat and made our way over to the beach.

We left Kanton yesterday, an absolutely amazing place I’ll never forget. A watch (my watch) was then completely wrecked with dawn watch (0100-0700). Fully exhausted from adventures in Kanton and working to get underway again; it was rough.

Hi Mom! Today is the day we set sail for Orona. My early morning was spent recovering from a long night of performances, dancing, storytelling and a feast I won’t soon forget.  After few hours standing watch my fellow watch mates and I hopped into our Defender (small boat) and headed to a new coral sight recently named “coral plains”, and for good reason.

Kanton was the paradise you always read about as a kid, and leaving this beautiful atoll is like a snap back into reality, one that is going to be relatively hard to make. The plethora of wildlife alone was absolutely breathtaking.

One of the things I have learned so far in this trip is that things can change in an instant. Skies go from clear to cloudy, wind fills in from almost nothing to practically gale-force, and a sunny day can turn into thunderstorms, all in a matter of minutes. So for us students on the SSV Robert C. Seamans, one of the most valuable lessons has been adapting to these changes.

And if you told me that I would’ve survived the first leg of this trip, I wouldn’t have believed you for even one second.

It has been a long two weeks on the Robert C. Seamans, laced with dark nights and happy memories with plenty of time for moments of reflection and silence in between.

We have had quite a few very exciting days here on SSV Robert C. Seamans, and there seems to be no slowing down. July 14th we crossed the equator and celebrated my 20th birthday. July 15th we turned right around, and we spent our day learning how to go aloft and completing our lab practical. T

My day started before the actual first hour of July 12th arrived, I was awake from the morning of the 11th and worked processing net deployments until 03:00 on the 12th (which also happens to be my little brothers birthday!) I spend that time sorting through buckets of zooplankton that the students had pulled up from the three types of net deployments the ship scientists run, a Shallow Tucker Trawl, Deep Trucker Trawl, and a Neuston Tow

Chief Scientist Blaire invited me to post the blog today, so I did. I’m writing to you as I slowly emerge from self-imposed bunk stasis; I have been double-sick since last Friday just before we left port in Pago Pago. The combination of a cold and sea sickness had really done a number on the physicality of my being, the nature of my presence and the morale of my mind.

The Robert C. Seamans experienced moderately high winds and seas during the first couple days of our trip, but weather over the last few days has calmed significantly, with wind from the east north easterly direction dropping to a Beaufort force 2 yesterday and sea swell in the range of 3-6 ft.