16 May 2004

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 87

Sunday, May 16, 2004 - 4pm Alaska time

Overcast with light wind and drizzle

The USCGC Healy is HUGE! Being inside the ship reminds me of Harry
Potter's first weeks at Hogwarts. Thank goodness the staircases don't
disappear or move on their own. I am having enough of a location
challenge without having staircases and doors changing positions. I
know I will master the pathways before I leave, but for now it's fun
finding myself lost many times a day in the same corridor.

The corridors we use are interior and between sections there is a
watertight door. The door has a porthole so you can see if anyone is
coming from the opposite direction. Also the door has a long locking
lever. When the locking lever is in the down position, it is locked.
To open the door you raise the lever until the lever is perpendicular to
the floor. Next, you push against the handle, walk through and then
close and lock the door behind you. You have to be very careful and
stay in control of the door at all times. The doors are heavy and you
could lose a finger if it got caught between the door and framing.

There are five watertight doors and two staircases between my sleeping
quarters and the labs.

The stairs are very steep and narrow. Always keep one least one hand on the railing.

In the afternoon I began pre-labeling sample bottles for Benthic
organisms (the critters that live on and in the seafloor), Zooplankton
(the critters that live in the water column and cannot swim against a
current) and POM (which stands for particulate organic matter - it is
the beginning of the food web also known as the primary producers). The
labels are made out of tape and are wrapped around small plastic
sampling bottles. The labels have the cruise name HLY-04-02 (which
stands for Healy, year 2004, second cruise of the year), the sample type
(POM, BEN or ZOO) and station (the station number to be added when the
bottle is used).

Sampling bottles for POM.

To see photographs taken by Steve Roberts of UCAR/JOSS, click here.