If the head count at dinner provides any indication of whether the upper hand belongs to science or the sea, the sea was easily ahead in the first round. After slightly delaying our departure from Woods Hole to allow a tropical storm to pass, we have now been steaming in its wake and feeling its energy as we power through the remaining swell.

With nearly everyone chatting with the great white telephone at some point yesterday, it seems that there were only a lucky few who were truly able to enjoy the excitement accompanying our departure from port.

Despite the continued swell from the storm ahead of us, we are back on our feet today and nearly everyone made an appearance at both lunch and dinner. And a good thing that people did show up because the cooks have not disappointed! With the cooks accommodating all types of eaters, vegans can remain vegan, vegetarians vegetarian, and I have a feeling that there will be a large contingent of us modifying our belt loops as food becomes as close to sport as we will get out here. Personally, I’m looking forward to Pete hooking into an “Old Man and the Sea” size tuna. Yum. Anytime now Pete.

Speaking of Pete, after he identified a warm core ring just off of our linear course from Woods Hole to Station 1, we modified our route to visit this ring and spent the better part of today steaming through this interesting parcel of Gulf Stream water. At last count the dynamic physical oceanography duo consisting of Pete and Allie had done over 100 casts of their unique CTD through this warm core ring. Science dude. It’s happening.

The seas have substantially calmed down tonight and the gentle late night rolling of the Atlantis has me under its soothing spell. I’ve never been on a dragon before, but the constant motion of the ship conjures half-conscious images and feelings of flying on the back on a large dragon. There’s a good chance I’ve been thinking about that last episode of Game of Thrones a little too much, but heck, if I dream about flying on the back of a dragon tonight I’ll be pretty stoked.

All the best,

Brian VerWey

Tags: NAAMES-III 2017