NOAA Teacher at Sea
Susan Carty
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
March 14 – April 20, 2001
Mission: Asian-Pacific Regional Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-ASIA)
Geographical Area: Western Pacific
Date: March 20, 2001
This morning was another exciting morning up on the bridge, watching the swells and the albatross. We finally identified these birds as an adult and a young Black-footed Albatross. The swells appear to be smaller when viewing from the bridge. Lower down a few decks the swells appear to be a bit more intimidating. We are rocking and rolling today. It is interesting to see how we adapt to these motions. They don’t seem to be bothering anyone any more.
Today we cross the International Date Line and at midnight we turn our clocks back to 23:00 hrs. Then after an hour it will become Thursday instead of Wednesday. How bizarre! Does that mean we will be “older” or “younger” or just confused?
Yesterday afternoon we turned the ship around and sailed backwards at 5 kt/hr. Why, you ask? Because the wind was blowing the smoke stake fumes toward the aerosol testing equipment which would not be a good thing. So, we traveled at a leisurely pace for a number of hours and then decided “enough of that”. We turned around again and picked up speed (13 kt/hr) so that the ship would reach the correct position this morning to be directly under the Terra satellite for exchange of information.
Needless to say, the turning around and increasing of speed was like a very loud alarm clock in the middle of the night!
This evening will be the beginning of “science night” meetings. The teams of researchers will take turns explaining how and why they are conducting their experiments. This will be very helpful for me! Then I will be able to pass that information on to you.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: How many more time zones will we pass through by the time we reach Japan?
Bye for now, I am headed back to the bridge! That is the place to be..
Susan
