We had a large wave that gave the boat a 11° roll and everything went flying! My chair flew into Kelsey’s! But everyone was okay – we couldn’t stop laughing! Thankfully many of us already have our “sea legs”, otherwise we would be pretty sick. We are largely unable to do operations when the weather is bad so many of us have been working on other research, playing games, watching movies, and eating a lot!
The food is incredible on the ship and we are offered 4 hot meals a day (even though many of us only have 3) since some of us work in shifts and can’t make another meal time. The Nuyina is a 24-hour operation so you’ll see some people sleeping during the day and working at night and vice-versa. I am grateful that my job – metrology – requires me to mostly be up during daylight hours and our other instruments can run through the night without our help. That means my days are still on a fairly “normal” schedule.
I try to keep myself on a regular schedule to help make the ship feel more like home. My days usually start around 6:30 a.m. when Kelsey and I get up to launch the weather balloon at 7 a.m. After the launch, we all head to breakfast in the mess. After breakfast, I try to get some emails done and some Duolingo in (got to keep my streak) before I change my filters. Around 9 a.m., one of our team members helps me collect the old filters from the filter towers and swap them with new ones. We then go to the lab on deck 4 and pack the filters for storage at -80° C so we can transport them back to CSU at the end. Following the filters, I usually help our other atmospheric team members in the air chemistry lab on deck 6 or do some work on my laptop.
