Staff & Crew as Stewards

MFT: Calzones & fluffy cookies
LFP: mid-watch with lots of squalls and rain :(

Hallo, so yesterday, sadly the 24 hours of precipitation has turned out to be true (more than 24 hours at this point!). We have been having lots and lots of squalls interspersed with a steady drizzle. We had morning watch which was very long. The swell had picked up to about 6-8 ft waves (we haven’t had those in a couple of weeks!), but Jan was still determined to do one last science deployment. So we readied the hydrocast carousel and the Neuston net for a plankton tow. But mostly morning watch consisted of sailing handling, striking and resetting various sails. Since there was lots of swell and rain, it was not the funnest weather for hauling on lines. But we persevered and managed to get everything done. Sadly for the neuston tow, we are supposed to go 2 knots — we started out going 1.8 knots and then increased to 4.5 knots when we set the jib — no easy way to compromise! 

On the other hand, the staff and crew were making food for the day so there was some nice compensation. For instance, for morning snack we had these fluffy spice cookies and frappuccinos! I had a Vietnamese frappuccino (aka slushy coffee with condensed milk). Then after our long watch we got yummy calzones! Gods, yummy italian food is so nice after a long day working hard. Like the day before, I convinced Margaret to make some risotto which went over soooo well! Sadly there was not time to make arancini from the risotto (too bad). 


Otherwise, it was a pretty normal day for us — just not great weather. We ended with mid-watch which was incredibly squally. My field rain jacket (aka not that nice because it gets real nasty really fast) now lasts about 2 minutes of waterproof before it becomes soaked through. Knowing that, I dressed for watch with a long sleeve rash guard, tshirt, and rain coat on top plus rain pants for my legs. The rain pants stayed pretty waterproof (woohoo REI) but it was still cold standing out along the rail as lookout for 2 hours! We went into a crazy line of squalls that turned everything pitch black. We had to clip in while walking along the leeward side of the deck and they had put up safety net rigging along the leeward side too. All in all, we were very careful about moving! Hopefully the bad weather passes because tomorrow is crazy cleaning day!

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