Today is our transit day to Jamaica and last night our clocks went back to put us on Jamaica time (which, bizarrely, is East of Cayman but on the same time zone as Chicago).
But I won’t complain because – ah, bliss! – I was able to go to bed last night without setting my alarm and still wake up in time for breakfast. Perfect!
Today we will be sailing all day and, rather like an ROV dive, regulating where we use our energy to maximize full speed to port. Not easy since we are head to wind and waves in this direction (i.e., yes – I am back on my roller coaster ride in the cabin again: today’s typing will be brief!). It will also be a chance to recharge our own batteries for those of us staying for Leg 2. For the Nereus team, actually, it will be non-stop getting the vehicle transmogrified from autonomous (AUV) mode to pilot-driven (ROV) mode.
But for the science party, those who do not get time off for good behavior (me, Sean, Chip, Jill & Max) there are just some cruise report writing assignments to contend with that I have asked to have completed by the end of today (so we don’t forget) while for the members of the escape committee (Cody, Ko-ichi, Eoghan {pronounced E-H, all the other letters are silent}, and Meg it is time for baggage trials to commence. Tomorrow, they get to leave the ship and we recruit new talent to the science team: Julie #1, Julie-deux, Cindy and Jeff, all of whom fly into Jamaica today.
So now, apart from cruise report writing and presenting highlights of Leg 1 to the ship’s crew at 3pm I am going to take some time out and chill. If you would like to join me, here are some of the coolest images that I have selected from the hugely impressive collection of our third engineer, Görtz Förster.
Please don’t listen to Enya while looking at these. Personally, I will be listening to the blessed bass lines of Kim Deal, recently departed from the Pixies. “Hey Paul, Hey Paul, Hey Paul, let’s have a ball” as Helen and Martin used to sing from the back of the blue VW beetle Kristin Orians used to lend us to drive to the beach. Here’s listening to you, Mrs. John Murphy.
