Full Steam Ahead

May 27th @ 10:20pm - While the ship makes a steady 20 knots towards our first objective - Barkley Canyon, I can certainly feel the change in the swell of the ocean that signifies we're leaving the relative safety of the Juan de Fuca Straight and entering the open Pacific.


It's been a busy evening, in which at one point I found myself dressed in a full survival/exposure suit and feeling rather like a giant orange Gumby. Everyone has been gathering in their respective teams (communications, data loggers, instrumentation, etc.) to make sure we're all ready to hit the seafloor running when we arrive at Barkley in about seven hours (05:30 tomorrow morning).



A highlight for me today was finding 'Wally' (the Internet-connected remotely operated bottom crawler) sitting quietly and inertly in a corner of the main science lab. What really geeks me out is shaking hands... or more accurately... shaking 'treads' with something that will be spending the next six months exploring the bottom of the ocean.

Blog post by Scott Doehler,
Marine Educator