First few days at sea

We sailed Wednesday morning at 9 am.
The day before the Coast Guard came and we had to do some drills.
The day we sailed, we had to do obligatory drills: fire, man overboard and abandon ship.
That very first night after leaving Woods Hole, we had a fire alarm and had to get up at 3 am. You could see that missed sleep on everyone’s faces the next morning.
The sea so far has been kind, a whole lot of rolling side to side, not too much pitching, yet. Before coming I obtained scopolamine 3-day patches to help with the motion sickness. This medicine is kind of weird, it makes me feel lightheaded, but no motion sickness. I can’t complain!
The whole crew is really friendly and they have made us feel very welcomed and at home. The stewards (galley staff) make wonderful food and I fear that we might all put on some pounds. Luckily there are lots of stairs to climb.
After leaving Woods Hole we sailed to the Long Island Sound with hopes that the wind might blow the air from NYC, but the wind changed. We still sampled around the sound for a couple of days.
The PMEL Dream Team: Derek, Catherine, Lindsey and Drew (aka the kids)


There was one scientist that needed to get off before we sail across to Europe, a boat came to pick him up from New Haven, CT. Originally there had been talk of pulling into Boston Harbor, but since he got off early we were free to head East.

This morning we woke up to a little rolling, but it’s starting to get worse.
The ocean looks big and beautiful and so so blue. The sun is shining and the wind is blowing hard behind us.