There is water everywhere, but you don’t really notice how close it is. The JR is so big that even the lowest deck seems high above the sea surface.The JR has seven decks, numbered 1 to 7 from the top down. My cabin is on Deck 5 – Fo’c’sle, which also contains the chemistry, microbiology, paleontology, and X-ray laboratories. I mentioned in a previous posted that the ship is positioned over a drill site with 12 computer-controlled thrusters as well as the main propulsion system. How exactly do we keep our position while drilling?

“Near the center of the ship is the “moon pool,” which is a 7 m (23 ft) wide hole, through which the drill string is lowered. Each pipe joint is about 28.5 m (93.5 ft) and weighs about 874 kg (1925 lb). The drill crew uses the draw works to thread each joint to the drill string. The process of lowering the drill bit, which is affixed to the end of the drill string, takes about 12 hours in 5,500 m (18,045 ft) of water (Lowering the Drill String animation<). To core through the seafloor, the entire drill string is rotated. The thrusters mounted underneath and facing perpendicular to the long axis of the ship keep the massive vessel from rotating.” joidesresolution.org

On my list “Eye In The Sky” – Alan Parsons Project