The Strait of Magellan

I got up this morning and ate breakfast with everyone else on the ship.  It will be interesting to be back on a regular food schedule.  Breakfast runs from 7:30-8:30, lunch from 11:30-12:30, and then dinner from 5:30-6:30.   I think it’s the same as the schedule from the R/V Cape Hatteras I was on in March in the Gulf.  After eating, I went back into the lab to set up some more, and discovered that my leucine had finally arrived.  So now I can certainly relax about it.

We had one more safety demonstration after lunch, where we watched a video and learned how to put on a life jacket and a float suit.  The float suit is basically an insulated wetsuit that’s designed to help you survive if you end up in the water for a long period.  The crew said this was especially important in Antarctica, since the water is so cold that you could not survive long in the ocean without some sort of insulation.  At the end of the orientation, we headed up to the upper deck to see the life rafts and lifeboats.

 

The lifeboats were interesting to see.  They can hold 44 people, but that would certainly be a tight squeeze.  They have their own motor and are completely waterproof, so even in a storm will keep those inside protected until help can come.

By this time we had started moving along the Strait of Magellan from Punta Arenas to the south Atlantic Ocean.  I spent the afternoon strapping down equipment for the rough passage ahead.  We also attempted to test out the fluorometer and spectrophotometer to see how they worked compared to the ones I’ve used at home.  It took some time to figure out how to use them, but I think I have the hang of it (for the most part).  The fluorometer operation seems pretty straightforward, but my reaction worked poorly – I think it is because the incubation went on too long or the ammonia had too high of a concentration.  I couldn’t figure out the spectrophotometer really, but I have faith I’ll get it to do whatever I want.

After dinner, I went over the chemicals I had with the MST’s, and finished securing everything.  I had started to get quite tired at this point, so I just decided to go to sleep at 8:30.  I had intended to just take a nap, but of course, that didn’t work out.