January 15th, 2010

The weather has cleared, and we’re back to making good time.  We’re now traveling at about 11 miles per hour, which is actually as fast as the JOIDES Resolution can go!  It’s why it takes us 9 days to reach Antarctica from New Zealand.  I took this photo today, this is a beautiful summer day on the Southern Ocean.

I took a few pictures of the waves, which were almost 40 feet tall!  If you have a two-story house, imagine a wave that’s almost twice as tall as your home!  To give you an idea I took a few pictures from the core deck, which is 40 feet above the sea.

For most of the past 2 days we have been standing still.  The storm we were in was bad enough that the captian didn’t want to risk damage to the ship, or to those of us scientists on board who can not handle rough seas. Lambchop is one of these scientists, she spent the last 2 days in bed because she was too sick to get out, poor Lambchop!  I took a photo of the ship’s location screen so you can see which way we were going.

The waves have been coming out of the west, and so, to make it easier on us, the captain turned us into the waves.  He did this because the boat moves the least if we are heading straight into, or straight away from the waves.  This is because the boat is so long, 470 feet long actually, and the waves are much shorter then 470, so the boat moves less.

Lambchop was hoping to give you another part of her tour of cores, but she has been under the weather.  If you have ever been riding on an amusement park ride, or a rollercoaster, and felt ill, that is the same thing that happens on a boat.  Only, on a boat, you can not get off after 30 seconds or so.

She wanted to let everyone know she is alright, so I took a picture of her resting in bed.  With luck, she will be feeling better before the next blog update.