Where are we now?
Off the western coast of Costa Rica, in the Pacific Ocean. Our coordinates are N 8°36 min, W 84°4 min. Beautiful day! Air temperature is 28 °C (82 °F) and the water temperature is 27 °C. Humidity…guessing somewhere around 90%.

 

 

 

 

 

Scientists at Work
Made it! Unless things go wrong from here, this incredible drilling crew has actually penetrated past 400 mbsf (meters below sea floor), trying new strategies to meet every challenge so far.  Apparently, the scientists knew it would be a difficult drilling operation at this site and budgeted many days to try for a successful core.  Today was a partial success as they washed out the fill that was found at about 300 mbsf (meters below sea floor), and they are hopeful that we will have a core tonight or tomorrow morning.  “Core on Deck!” are the words that everyone is waiting to hear! Gemma Maxwell, the curator onboard, gave me a piece of “junk” from clearing the borehole to show students.  She told me it is “junk” because they were not able to tell exactly where it came from.  She thinks it is a siltstone, which is a fine-grained sedimentary rock…may have fossils!

Life on Board
Our wonderful kitchen crew prepared a barbeque on the deck today.  It was a beautiful day and everyone enjoyed the great grub!

The last batch of cups is onboard and cleaned!  This batch contained cups from San Diego and also from Sitka, Alaska!

A couple of Herons flew out from the mainland to check us out!  These may be either Tricolored or Little Blue Herons.  They attempted to land near the drill rig tower, but thought the better of it and flew off, back towards the mainland.

From the subduction zone, west of Costa Rica…