June 19, 2009

6-19-09

For the first month or so President Obama could receive nothing but praise from the majority of the national media (excluding the far right wingers). It was all "constitutional scholar this", and "stunning intellect" that. I have to admit that I got caught up in the romance as much as the next "yes we can-er" on the block. That is probably not surprising that an environmental science student would be relieved not to have "drill baby drill" in the white house for another four years. Then as the reality of this administration's challenges started to set in, people started asking questions about how we were going to go about solving so many monumental problems. "The honeymoon is over!" they all said, from FOX, to CNN, and even the Obamanites at MSNBC (although they did put a positive spin on it).

After almost five days of rocking back and forth, I am starting to think that my honeymoon with this cruise is wrapping up as well. The difficulty of shifting to the late night schedule when there is so much daylight has thrown my internal clock into the Aleutian North Slope Current. I thought that the second night at sea I had made the transition by going to sleep at 3 PM and waking up around 11 (pretty ideal sleeping schedule for our peak work hours). Since then it has been periodic four hour sleep sessions followed by lying awake for the next four. Then at about 4 AM I hit the wall and have as much trouble staying awake as Stephen Hawking on a date with Paris Hilton. To make things even trickier, the weather has started to get a little less pleasant. Clouds have rolled in, the wind has picked up (blowing the bongo nets sideways), and we had some rain during the last krill tow. The ship's rocking has intensified making me feel a little like the first time I got off Space Mountain at Disneyland. At least I didn't start crying this time.

At the risk of sounding totally juvenile I should put things a bit more into perspective. The truth is I am enjoying the ups and downs of this expedition even more than a high drama action thriller starring Matt Damon. It would have been naïve of me to think that a research cruise was going to be all sunsets and whale sightings. Like a marriage, or presidency for that matter, any worthwhile commitment is going to have its bumps in the road. It makes the successes that much more rewarding. Despite my nausea we had a very successful krill tow. No jellyfish, good visibility when we poured the contents of the cod ends into the cooler (not too much algae), plenty of krill, and to top it off, a nice haul of our bioluminescent copepod friends. When I shook the cod end it flashed like a blue Christmas tree (unfortunately I couldn?t get a picture because of the rain, but here is a link to a nice photo: http://blog.livebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/chris_linder_bioluminescence.jpg).

Later on when I woke up after a slightly better period of sleep I was anxious to see how the weather was faring. The boat was rocking less, which was a good sign. When I went out on deck I could see clouds again. They were not quite as thick as before so I was glad that overall the conditions had improved. When I went around the cabin to the other side of the deck it was different story. A large patch of blue sky had opened up. I was a bit surprised, but I guess you can?t predict much at sea. The honeymoon might be over, but the voyage is well under way.

-Eli