Coming to an End

It is hard to believe we will be back in Italy Saturday morning...these two weeks have flown by! The past 4 days of insanely rough seas have made me homesick..but I feel like there is still so much more for me to learn onboard Nautilus! The crew, the places, the setting, and the overall experience have been something completely new to me and it's absolutely life-changing.
As an update- Mrs. Duffy has her "sea legs" (as she likes to call them) back and is happy to be vertical again! She temporarily lost them during the rough seas but she is rested and getting better! (Just in time for the port stop in Palermo :) )! Somehow I managed to go two weeks without getting seasick... I am still trying to figure out how I pulled that one- but no complaints!! The rough seas and storms proved worth it when we saw the rainbow at the end....

(Hercules pilot Gregg didn't realize I was trying to take a picture!)

Here is a picture of Stromboli we liked to hang around to shield some of the wind this past week..I swear everytime I woke up we were back here to seek more shelter (as much as you can on sea anyway!) But it is worth it to see the eruptions. We are actually back near Stromboli tonight diving on a sight called Casoni that we never got to before. This final dive will start around midnight tonight and we will wrap things up around midnight tomorrow. We plan to pull into port around 8 am on Saturday and then go through the very long Italian customs.

Since the storm calmed down, we got to resume diving yesterday early (like 5 AM) and have been in the water around the submarine volcano Palinuro. Around 2 PM we started our transit BACK to Stromboli for the final dive.


So today (like everyday!!!) on the ship has been VERY busy....

Yesterday, the cook Jeff caught a whole bucket of squid! (See slimy picture below) and this afternoon he found me in the kitchen, handed me a bowl, and said try this (I was a little scared). I tasted what he gave me and it was actually AMAZING! He cooked the squid he just caught in a broth of wine and spices and it was delicious.

The next several pictures are of the usual cycle of events that happen here on board!!

Everyone on deck during launch and recovery is required to wear hard hats and life jackets.Below is a picture of Hercules getting lowered into the water. Hercules stays in a shed on the back deck, so when it is time for launch it gets rolled out and this crane below lifts it and drops it slowly into the water. It's really magnificent to watch first hand.

This picture is Argus getting launched. This is also a complicated process that involves very strong men to hold the ropes as the line controlled from an upper deck slowly lowers Argus into the water after Hercules.

The picture below is one I took in the Control Van, which is the room that is freezing, dark, and on camera 24-7!! This is where our shifts are. The station below is where I sit, along with the chief scientist and other data logger. The chief scientist on my watch is Dr. Steven Carey, and the other data logger is his grad student Josh. We sit at the monitors below and evaluate maps, take captures, log data, and announce various information such as the temperature changes taken by the probe on Hercules at certain sites, on my watch it has been of the ambient water temperature and the hydrothermal vents.

After a dive, all the samples collected in Hercules are brought into the wet lab for analysis. Below are some of the volcanic rock samples we collected and brought up today.

Dr. Carey is in the picture below hammering one of the larger rocks. He cut it up into different pieces so each of the head scientists could take a piece back to their labs (I got a piece of this too!)

In the lounge onboard, there is a library of books on tons of different scientific subjects- geology, oceanography, archaeology, etc. Today during a break, I found myself drawn to this one by Dr. Ballard. I picked it up and could not put it down. It was truly fascinating and the pictures are amazing...if you need a good read I recommend it. It goes really in depth about Dr. Ballard's mindset before, during, and after the exploration- every trial, triumph, frustration, and success. Very cool to read while on board Dr. Ballard's ship!!

After dinner I had a very pleasant surprise...we don't get many drinks other than water, coffee, and a little bit of juice so when there were cans of tea and sprite in the fridge- they were gone in a flash!! In the fridge there ALSO were small cups of pudding and jello and yogurts- we haven't had a lot of dessert either so this was nice!!! and finally after being in the wet lab with the samples all day, Dr. Carey let me take some samples of the rocks we collected as a souvenir (assuming they make it past customs) which are in the lower left side of the picture below.
A nice sunset cruise with my first sprite in 14 days, some dessert, and some rocks! :) good end to the afternoon. But now...

After this nice afternoon, we are almost at the dive site again! John, Karl, and I helped Mark with the LAST daisy chain of this leg...then we had our watch as the vehicles were lowered into the water! I will have one and maybe part of a second watch tomorrow and then we will be finished with the diving. Watch nautiluslive.org to see live feed from the final dive. One more day....

Courtney