Blurred Vision and other side effects

Dear Readers,  I think I forgot to mention that I finally felt seasick when we hit big wave on Thursday (or was it Friday?  Days have no meaning here, just the hours of the clock).  So I put on a seasickness patch, but those 4 hours it took for the medicine to start working were AWFUL.  I missed most of the tour of the bridge (where the Captain is) because I had to just go outside and watch the waves to calm my stomach.  Now with the medicine, I'm not seasick at all (plus the waves are calmer), but I just realized my vision is blurred!  Yep, that's one of the temporary side effects.  So I can see things far away with my glasses, but to see up close I have to take my glases off.  When this 2nd patch wears off (in 3 days), I might try again to go without it.

Now to the pictures:

These are sediment samples we took so we could learn to wash them and look for microfossils (foraminifera, to be exact).  Below you can see Hurd bending over to wash his--the sinks are not a good height for tall people  Right now our washed samples are in a cooling oven (low temp!), and then we'll check out what we have under the microscope.

These next 3 photos are from the tour/seasick day, but we were at the back of the boat and I could see the water, so I didn't have to walk away like I did when we were listening to the Captain.

There are 3 cranes on this boat, and it looks like this back one (blue and white)  is there to help assemble the drill string.  Below is Mike taking my group to the last spot on the tour, and showing us different drill bits.  What is amazing is the they can fabricate or repair most of the drilling equipment on the ship.

Finally, here's me in front of the moon pool, although the moon pool on this boat is actually 1 or 2 floors down from here.  Maybe I should say I'm in front of the main drilling area.  I look pretty happy for someone who is trying not to puke, right?