[Cruise Journal: December 15-16]
Two busy days in which: we go shopping for last minute supplies and snacks, move into our quarters and spend our first night aboard the Sikuliaq in port, acquire some important control data (on-shore gravimetrics), meet our AUV, cast off from Pier 34, travel a very short distance to the fueling station, wait a very long time to take on a very large amount of diesel fuel, and ultimately depart from Honolulu Harbor.
The first order of business for the cleverest among us on Monday was to get out into the Hawaiian surf. That left the few of us remaining on shopping duty: procuring the last minute forgotten essentials, air travel-unfriendly items and comfort snacks required to complete our preparations for boarding the ship and leaving the safety net of retail behind us. Laden with copious (we mean, sufficient) quantities of floss, shampoo, sunscreen, coffee beans, nuts and dried fruit, pretzels, cookies, Monster and Mountain Dew, and probably several other things (ah; forgot the whiteboard — unfortunate), we navigated the surprisingly opaque taxi system back to the hotel where we stashed our conspicuously generous pile of groceries until a generously extended checkout time.
We managed a leisurely lunch, becoming familiar with the intricacies of competitive surfing courtesy of the open-air restaurant’s a giant array of wall screens which showed exclusively competitive surfing, and with just a bit more taxi-wrangling arrived at our destination: Honolulu Harbor’s Pier 34, current berth of the R/V Sikuliaq.
![The Main Lab looks just like any other lab, especially right now while the floor is parallel to the horizon](http://web.whoi.edu/jurassicmagnetism/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/12/orientation.jpg)
The Main Lab looks just like any other lab, especially right now while the floor is parallel to the horizon
A brief overview of the areas of the ship between the gangway and our rooms was followed by a period of unpacking, exploring the main deck, and getting used to looking at the world over a railing. We were given leave to make our own use of the time until tomorrow 0800 (join us as we adapt to using 24-hour time in all things) at which point all hands must be on board in advance of casting off at 0900.
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The science team spent the morning before 0900 variously enjoying breakfast (in the mess daily 0720-0830), taking one last early morning run, sleeping in, and preparing data and tools for the cruise. We have been advised that, even more than one might be ready to expect, our vessel for this excursion likes to roll –a lot. This means that one has to be careful. To paraphrase the third mate, who is in charge of safety, if you have anything you don’t like, leave it on a tabletop; if there’s anything you wouldn’t mind getting tossed around, don’t secure it. Rolling is imminent, and that means books, pens, coffee cups, and everything else are going to need to be watched carefully or stowed. Some things, like the several computers we will be using to process and analyze the data collected on the cruise, are not so easy to put in a drawer. Fortunately, the ship’s workshop is more than adequate to supply the drills, nuts, and bolts needed to affix these top-heavy and tip-prone displays to the table.
While our computers might have been ready to cruise at 0900, the ship itself was not. Pier 34 is only a short jaunt away from the harbor’s fueling station, so the first leg of our journey was quite quickly over. Fueling this ship is a time-consuming process, but fortunately there is always science to be done. Before departing for the open ocean, we needed to collect a reference point gravitometric reading. This instrument and its readings are going to be useful throughout the cruise, so we’ll tell you a lot more about it soon.
Taking gravity readings does not take as long as fueling the Sikuliaq, so we also had time to get a little bit more information about Sentry, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle that will be collecting the most prized magnetism data on our agenda. (Sentry is so important that it deserves a post all to itself. Stay tuned.)
Finally, the fuel line was disconnected and the ship took on the pilot who would guide us out of the harbor. (Ordinarily the ship is helmed by its own bridge crew, but in a busy and vital harbor, a local expert up to date with the latest charts and steeped in experience and practice in this particular location is used to pilot the ship out to sea.) Once we reached the sea buoys and his job was done, the pilot disembarked onto a waiting boat and we were on our way.
Next time, our regular schedule of data collection and watch standing begins as we set out for the first dive site for Sentry.