By Kenzi Lamb

Land ho!  Our time onboard is coming to an end.  As we look forward to exploring the Galapagos Islands, we will miss our time onboard the Langseth—and not just because of the endless supply of ice cream in the galley.  Believe it or not, there are things onboard that are cooler than the ice cream freezer and sweeter than the ice cream itself.  And those are the times we’ve spent together.

Last week, we were strangers.  Now our School of Rock 2025 cohort feels like family.  We’ve been through a lot together: initial nerves about getting on the boat, sharing a tight space on a rocking ship, gaining our sea legs, learning new skills and sharing old ones, collecting data and making discoveries at the Tica hydrothermal vent, and a lot (and I mean a lot) of laughs!  Turns out, being cooped up on a boat can make you a little crazy (especially if you’re from Vegas).  We spend our days working and learning, our free time watching wildlife, and our nights playing games and getting to know each other.  One of us had a very bad experience with hot chips.

When I boarded the Langseth, I was surprised to find a bunch of bananas.  It was bananas!  The crew must not have known that you’re not supposed to have bananas on boats.  It’s just plain bad luck.  But it looks like we’re going to make it anyway.  Land is in sight.  This must be due to the fact that, over the past 2 days, around 100 boobies have joined us on our travels.  They are are on flying fish patrol, scooping up flying fish and swallowing them whole before recycling them and depositing them on the deck (which should really be called the poop deck at this point), the picnic tables, on our plates at dinner, on our clothes, in our hair, mixed in with our sunscreen—you name it!  Apparently it’s good luck to be pooped on by a bird, and at this point I think all of us have enough good luck to last us the rest of our lives.  It definitely cancelled out the whole banana thing.

We have been blessed with the most amazing crew you could imagine.  The staff in the galley have served us the most delicious meals and an abundance of desserts.  The science crew worked with us and gave us the confidence to successfully deploy the CTD and OBSs.  The captain walked us through all of the safety trainings and answered all of our questions.  The mechanics gave us a tour of the engine room.  The second mate told us the most inspiring story about how she got to where she is now.  We even learned to weld and use a plasma cutter!

And our instructors have been phenomenal.  It has been so much fun learning all about geology, biology, oceanography, paleontology, and even robotics!

All in all, it has been a great trip!