25 March 2012 One Day on the NBP

Speed 0.3 kts
Course 114°
Location Drygalski Trough (-64.74004333, -60.58896667)
Depth 687 m

Lots of people have been asking about life on the Nathaniel B. Palmer so I'm going to try to give you a glimpse into our world here on the boat.

My Room

This is my bedroom that I share with my roommate Katie. She claimed the top bunk and left me the bottom one. You can see that the rooms are not that big and there is just barely enough room to walk through. We do have a phone, but the phone only calls other rooms on the ship. Also the TV has about 25 different channels, but the channels are from cameras on the boat and information about our location. This is actually helpful because I can turn the TV on from my bed in the middle of the night and based on the video feeds, I can decide whether I need to wake up to help out with different operations or if I can sleep for a few more hours.

The bathroom is located to the right as you walk in. Our bathroom is equally tiny with just enough room for a sink, a toilet and a shower.

I wake up around 10 or 11 in the morning, which seems kind of late, but I work a noon until midnight shift. We work in 12-hour shifts and there's another group that comes on at midnight and works until noon. Sometimes I go for a run on a treadmill in the gym, but today, I headed straight downstairs to the galley.

Lunch in the Galley

The galley is the best place on the ship because that's where all the amazing food is served and let me tell you, it's delicious! I might just come back weighing ten more pounds than when I left. It's all because of our super friendly cook Lincoln, who is originally from Chicago but now lives in Richmond. (Yay for fellow Bay Area folks!)

Lunch (my first meal of the day) is served from 11:30am to 12:30pm. There's a beautiful salad bar and a plethora of hot food options. Also, the bread is always delicious. Always.

Lunch in the galley is a fun place to be because it's full of people eating and talking about what's going on. It's the one time of day where you get to see just about everyone.

Time for Science

After lunch, it's time to get to work. Usually, once a day I end up sitting watch for two hours. This entails watching all the monitors and logging what happens during that time period. It's a pretty relaxing time and there are almost always people around to keep me company. By listening and recording all the activities, I've gotten a good sense of how many things are happening at once and how all of those pieces fit together.

Often times I get recruited to help out in the various labs. For example, today I got to take samples from a Kasten core. If you remember my first post about Kasten cores, they are square-shape metal tubes that are pushed down into the marine sediment. When the core is brought up to the surface, the geologists take samples of the sediments to understand the history of the area. In the picture below, I'm pushing a cut-off syringe into the core to take a sample.

This actually takes quite a long time because everything has to be meticulously labeled. After a few hours of sampling, it's probably about time to return to the galley.

Dinner

Dinner is served from 5:30pm-6:30pm. So delicious!

More Science

After dinner, it's time for more science. The Microbiology team was short-handed so I helped to do titrations of pore water, which is water that is found in marine sediments. It requires an elaborate process to carefully remove it from the cores after they are pulled up. Once the water is collected, the microbiology team tries to determine the alkalinity of the water. Although alkalinity accounts for many chemicals, it mostly shows how much carbonate is the water.

More Food

The last chance for food in my day is called Mid Rats, which stands for Midnight Rations. It's served from 11:30pm-12:30am and is a late night snack for all of us on the Day Shift. The Night Shift is coming on at the same time and they're ready for breakfast. Mid Rats is always an interesting combination of breakfast-type foods and more snack-like foods.

After Mid Rats, it's time to hang out for a little while with friends, watch a movie, read a book, or check my email from home. Usually, I'm exhausted from the day's work and I'm ready for bed! I'm almost always asleep by 2:00am.