Keck Expedition 2004
July 31, 2004 Day 2
July
31 update (by Debra Stakes)
July
30 and 31 have been transit days for Leg 2 as we slowly made our way to the
Endeavour Segment. On the first day we were able to maintain the normal 10 kt
speed with mostly calm seas. Today
the seas are white-capped and the 30 kt winds have slowed us down considerably.
It seems that we are walking uphill half of the time just moving around deck. So what do you do during the 48 hours of anxiously waiting for the first
dive? At first there was the rush of instrument preparation, but much of that
was completed by late last night. We also have gone through our safety drills
where everyone had the opportunity to put on the survival suit for practice.
(see photo of Andrew Barclay donning his suit). 
Co-chief
scientist Paul McGill had to don his magnifying headset to do some minute fixes
to a datalogger board . The heavy
seas today required many people to recuperate and adjust to the ship’s
movement. For the others there are tutorials in data management, ArcNAV, and the
VICKI annotation system. There is also watching movies and fishing….
Doug Toomey wrote up a nice primer on Earthquakes if anyone would like some background information.
Earlier
today AB Jim Bombacci contributed to our shipboard cuisine with his catch of
albacore that is being prepared for our dinner. We expect to arrive at the
seismometer site called KEMO at 47.9 degrees north by 5 am.
We will be ready, but will the weather let us do our job?