News for the Southern Hemisphere

Hey Steve, glad to hear from you! Your powers of observation are keen. We had been dragging ass along the continental shelf of Africa, trying to fill in some gaps in data, but now we are moving a little faster. We only stop every 30 nautical miles to do CTD casts. That is the equipment you are seeing being lowered over. These large Rosettes with computer triggered bottles collect water samples from as far down as the bottom (which right now stands at roughly 14,000 feet below us). So to send them down and back can take a few hours. This is an extremly chemistry heavy trip with these thousands of seawater samples being analyzed for everything from CO2 to trace metals. It is called CLIVAR and it is basically the US contribution to the world community on understanding how all this climate change might be affecting the ocean. We have almost 40 scientists on board from Scripps, Florida State, Korea, Germany, China, England, Australia and NASA. Some of the equipment they are using for analysis is crazy. All sorts of tubes and vaccums and bottles splitting the sea water and mixing it with more chemicals. We are getting very near Latitude 40 South with the infamous nickname "The Roaring 40's". Its raining right now with a decent size sea throwing the ship around. Walking down the corridor, its like someone shoving you into the "bulkhead" every few minutes when you least expect it. This trip is way different than the last. Not much work to do, so I have to really drag my work out and pace myself to fill the hours. Life is good and I have less than 5 weeks until we hit our next port call in Cape Town. Single tear rolls down cheek. Its minimum security prison life in a maximum security setting. I know we are heading into the Southern Seas based on the Albatros that have been buzzing around the ship. Biggest seabirds I've ever seen. They have the bodies of monsterous white Thanksgiving turkeys with the wingspan of a ultralight. Also, while we were "on station" yesterday doing a cast, 2 Fin whales circled around us for a while. I wanted to get on the radio and let the japanese whaling fleet know, but decided to be a nice guy and let them avoid becoming "research" specimines. Ha

Maybe you can post this e-mail on blogger for me since my connection is so slow right now. I did see some of your latest posts on blogger and they are great. That morning time Okie sky was awesome. Hopefully it'll warm up soon for you. I will hopefully be able to get a pic or two posted before too long, but someone is always waiting to use the darn computer. I guess I should get up late at night and try....but the half of a twin size matress they let me sleep on is so cozy....

Brandon