The beginning days of a 30-day expedition are quite an adventure. 123 people. 57 are the science and laboratory staff. 66 in ship’s crew. Some people have been sailing for 30 years.

Others are novices. We are an international crew. The science team comes from 10 countries on 4 continents. One helpful tool are the photos of EVERYONE that our imaging specialist John made. Over the past few days I don’t know how many times I’ve said my name and told a bit of my story. I’m feeling pretty good about knowing many people. Everyone has a story. It is great to hear them.

The newbies to the JR are still getting lost on the many stairwells. To get to my cabin, I must use the forward stairwell to the upper tween deck. But I must choose the right forward stairwell because there is one that goes up and one that goes down, back to back, sorta like escalators. I can’t take the aft stairwell all the way down to this deck to get to my cabin. The upper tween deck does not have passages from the cabins to the gym or the staging area. All three are on the upper tween deck. There are 3 different sets of stairways to get to these three areas.

Yesterday was training for the science team on core flow.

Just got pulled away to look for turtles. Two of them were swimming by. It is so flat calm that we could see them just slightly lifting their heads to breathe. We also noticed the lots of little fish, about 3-4 inch long, skinny and shinny, swimming near the surface. Yesterday I saw two birds hanging out on a large log. Getting outside is a must for me! Just over heard a scientist walk by saying “Turtle? Yeah, turtle. Did you get to see it?”