Life at Sea

September 27, 2014

Our small ship is in a state of endless motion with pitch, roll, yaw, and heave. We continuously experience a feeling of fluctuating gravity at sea, as one minute we are several pounds heavier and the next we are several pounds less. We’re tossed about endlessly like riders at the fair. It’s a feeling that can turn the stomach of the saltiest of sailors, but more often disturbs the newbies the most. At sea there is also no such thing as silence. Out here the engines are always running, hydraulic pumps are always droning, and ships operations occur around the clock. From my bunk I can feel us lurch forward and lean into a turn to starboard, or port, and then they reverse the pitch of the propeller as if applying an emergency brake to slow the ships forward motion. This reverse pitch causes a shudder in the hull that shakes us like a cheap hotel vibrating bed and it chatters every moveable thing. From my bunk I can also hear the acoustic pings emanating from the hull-mounted transducers. Speaking to me in code, they tell me if OBS operations are going well.  Based on the ping styles I can also discern the acoustic techniques used by WHOI and Scripps, so that I know which instrument type is being talked to. All of this information creates a movie in my mind that plays out until I fall asleep. Life on a ship is a constant immersion in all that is going on and for 30-days there will be no escape.

-Ernie Aaron