I'm on a boat!

The sun just set here and we are taking off for the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As we left the port of Iquique, we tossed coins into the ocean to ask Neptune for his blessing! The moon rose above the mountains and that was a nice treat as we left land. 33 more days without it... Today, I helped strap down boxes and instruments before we set sail. I never knew how much set-up was involved with a cruise! There is so much to be done to not only set up for experiments, but also for making sure things don't go flying. Today, I just felt like I needed one more trip to town before we left.

I went with Kendra and a crew member Katie. We left at 4:00, and ate empanadas for dinner (mmmm)!! And walked around the cute little central plaza. Our boat will not return to Iquique, so it was a good chance to walk around a bit and see the old buildings and central square. However, Laila's bf is flying in here so we may come back down here to meet up with him before traveling. I'm not really sure about that situation yet.... I'm almost on track with what I need to do on the cruise; basically I'm measuring chlorophyll concentrations in seawater. Fairly simple stuff; I did the same thing with carotenoids this summer (similar pigment receptors in microbes) - so it's kinda cool I get to do something similar here. I'm also helping out with deck operations and whatever other project needs some assistance. I'll be learning a lot! :)

The boat is REALLY rocking, so I'm pretty glad I took a bonine before we left. Probably should have taken something stronger. It's getting pretty late, so I might hit the hay and try sleeping as we move. From what I've heard, it gets pretty noisy where we are sleeping, so earplugs might be a necessity.

Hope you all are doing well!

P.S. Shout out to my sister who scored 19 points the other night, tying her personal best, and bringing her recent 3 game average to 16.7 ppg!!! Keep it up, Nad Nad! And good luck tonight vs. ThunderRidge!!

Lots of lifting

We finally boarded the ship around 5PM yesterday. Our rooms are actually larger than I expected and I definitely have enough room to store all of the extra supplies I brought. I had a very sour stomach which turned into nausea later, so I took some Dramamine and passed out. I feel a lot better today and sometimes don't even notice the rocking of the boat.

Some of the issues with missing chemicals and supplies have been sorted out, but there are still a few things missing that may prevent
a few of our fellow scientists from joining us. :(

I spent the day today helping lug around liquid nitrogen tanks. We toted the empty tanks to the shore around 10AM, returned on the noon boat, went back to land at 4PM, and then ran into some trouble. Apparently there was a miscommunication about whether to pay in dollars or pesos. Well, in Chile all the banks close around 2PM, so we had to rush around trying to find a money exchange. We finally found one in a mall (rather nice mall, actually), then ran back to pick up and pay for the tanks, all in time to return to the dock for the 6PM boat. And those things were HEAVY. I also found out about my email today. My email address is sci5@atlantis.whoi.edu . The internet is painfully slow here, so gmail won't really load. The limit for incoming and outgoing emails is 10K (there is a filter that won't let anything larger pass through). We leave for sea on Friday morning (as it stands now). A day late, but it's better to have most of the missing stuff on the boat when we take off. Hope you all are well.

Waiting game

Everyone is in the lobby waiting for the next move. Some people just got back from the local university where that successfully obtained chemicals that didn't make it here. We are supposedly boarding the boat today and just "cooling our heels" as we wait to unload equipment. Dealing with field work internationally poses many challenges due to cultural differences (timescales) and language barriers. Hopefully we'll get somewhere soon and move our luggage from the lobby. But who knows when we will actually make it out to sea.

En Iquique, but maybe for longer than we planned

We arrived here this morning at about 5 AM. It's hard to imagine that this is still he same day! The flight from la to Lima was nice in that I had lots of space and the A340 was nice and new. I was impressed with the service provided by LAN airlines and would def. recommend. The flight from Lima to here was fine though a teenager kept literally climbing over me to sit next to her boyfriend. And some government person came on and sprayed insecticide when we landed. Odd.

After a crazy and longish taxi ride here, we slept two hours then got up to check if the chief scientist had arrived yet. Long story short... Most of us were no help so I went and had breakfast with postdocs Masha and Jill. The juice here is so delicious and fresh and sweet. I had both pineapple and pear juice (I wasn't called that but it looked and tasted like it). I also had some huevos rancheros, salami, ham, and cheese that looked like mozzarella but Jill said it was queso fresco. I used to get that at wegmans all the time. Note: this is being written on an itouch so I apologize for grammatical errors.

After sleeping for four more hours we got up and showered and finally got a group to go out for food in the city. We found a local place that served us some amazing pisco sours, ceviche, and empanadas (def. the best I've ever had).

We wandered around he market where I bought a towel that wasn't full of scantily-clad women ("yo quiero la toalla con los arboles, por favor").

We returned to the hotel to watch the sunset and get our free pisco sours from he hotel. I got super tired and just came up to write this.

Tomorrow we move onto the ship. Should be interesting. We might be delayed leaving because DHL screwed up a shipment that is still in la. And the water is a bit crazy and there is an issue with getting the crate onto the ship and dealing with customs. All things to figure out tomorrow. Gotta love field work!!

Sent from my iPod

Go!

We leave tomorrow at 12:30PM. I've repacked my bags for a 3rd time since I found out I could ship a duffel back following the cruise. It makes things so much easier! I've checked over my lists a few times and went shopping for the last items yesterday, so hopefully everything is set.

Here's to a great two months! Adios! :)

Getting set...

<--- This is the boat (image from WHOI). That will be my home for 40 days. My dad said it's going to be like being on Survivor. Haha, I'm sure the food is going to be a lot better!

I'm busy packing stuff not only for the boat, but for the two weeks afterwards. I have *no* idea how I'm going to fit in into 2 reasonably-sized bags. There are so many little things to think of and that is why I have a super-mondo list. I just hate going on a huge vacation without some sort of organization.

I'm going to be missing out on a lot while I'm gone. I'll miss so much including:

1) My family, Jon, friends (including all of you reading this!)

2) My sister's 18th birthday (also her golden birthday)

3) 1/2 of my sister's bball season (even playoffs) :(

4) 1/2 of March Madness (I will HAVE to find an internet cafe to check up on 'Cuse and fill in my bracket - that is not an option, it is a must).

5) All of the Olympics (aww man... I LOVE the Olympics).

6) The good 1/2 of the 'Cuse bball season... and I'm missing out on going to a game when we're AWESOME!

7) My 25th birthday (I'll celebrate it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, though... pretty cool)

8) Potentially more skiing...

BUT... regardless of all of this, I will gain an incredible experience, new friends, and new skills!

Getting ready...

Hi everyone!

I thought this might be the easiest way to communicate while I'm in SOUTH AMERICA! I'm so excited for the research and the travels within Chile and Peru afterwards.

The problem is this: we are charged for every kb of information that is sent via email while on the ship. (Actually, I found out this isn't true, but we can't send/receive anything larger than 10K). I'm thinking that posting to a blog might be a solution (though I don't know the accessibility of the internet either). There is a computer room on the ship where I think I can upload photos and such, so I'll try to keep this up to date on my down time.

I leave January 24th from Los Angeles. We're flying into Lima, Peru and then will go onto Iquique, Chile. I'll be out to sea from Jan. 28th - March 3rd. I've never been on a boat for more than about 4 hours, so this should be an interesting experience. We're traveling afterwards in Chile and Peru until March 19th; we'll be stateside on the 20th.

So excited!