Saturday, May 22, 2010

I got married three weeks ago from today



































Another beautiful day. The weather today was GREAT. It does not feel like I left home a week ago, more like 3 or 4 days. I was dropped off by a small boat to observe the tides. Nothing too exciting, but as I said the weather made it just fine. Since we were very close to the ship, I was able to come back on and have “hot” lunch rather than sandwiches and stuff. In the afternoon, we went back to the same tide gauge and I helped out with elevation studies is the easiest way to say it. This was better than the morning. In the morning one other guy and I were literally dropped off on a barely exposed rock just offshore from the tide gauge. When we started there was water between the two of us, but we knew the tide was dropping so we were fine. However, we were sort of stranded there until the small boat picked us up for lunch. (See picture with small exposed rock)
We had to take levels of the water every six minutes. Sounds boring but it went by rather quickly. As the tide dropped small tidal pools were exposed and I was able to explore. There was tons of sea life. It reminded me of Point Loma near San Diego. While we were there, of course there were bald eagles and even a few seals.
In the afternoon we actually went onto the beach. First time on land since Ketchikan, which we are still very close to. I was in my geologist mode, breaking and smacking the rocks to see what they looked like on the inside. I saw some cool stuff, possibly some small flakes of gold, garnet crystals, and maybe some silver flakes. The captain (CO) also came along with us which was pretty cool. After taking our elevation measurements I helped take out one of the tide gauges since we are almost done mapping in this area.
Dinner was good. Baked potato bar, some interesting tofu dish (most people ate prime rib, very rare, uncle Jerry style), salad, and coconut lemon cake for dessert. I am getting spoiled from all this good food.
I just now came in from watching another beautiful sunset (that makes 3 from the same anchor spot in Customhouse Cove).
For tomorrow, I will be going out on another launch, doing slightly different things. Each day I have been assigned different tasks, which is great for me. We are finishing some more multi beam sonar, and retrieving two GPS stations from two small islands, which means a little more time onshore. Also, the captain said we will be taking the “inside passage” home, which I have been hoping for.
That’s all for now, more tomorrow.
D

3 comments:

  1. Hi David,
    This sounds so exciting. The students at NRHS are following your blog and we all look forward to hearing about it when you return.
    Joyce

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  2. So exhilirating to see your posts from afar

    keep it up this trip sounds fantastic

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  3. "Hi - hola" from your favorite Geology class
    Alexia, Eric, Jorge, Kassandra,Martha, Raji, Robbie, Shayavia (and Mr. Rodgers)

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