Love at first sight

What an incredible day. Woke up early this morning, unable to sleep because of the excitement. Mac and Max stayed with me at Tamaki’s “guest house” last night and she came to pick us up and drive us to the pier. The boat is breathtakingly beautiful, especially nestled among all the cargo ships and barges in this part of the Honolulu docks. She’s surprisingly smaller than I had imagined and it’s hard to see all of us living in that amount of space for a month.

I boarded the ship at 14:00 after passing my knots test, although I was so nervous that I had to tie the bowline twice.

Once we boarded, we got to run around to all the bunks (called “racks”) and find the one with our nametag and a letter representing the watch that we’re to be a part of. My bunk is in sleepy hollow, the quietest and most stable part of the ship, hooray! In my bunk area are seven bunks for myself, Kat Mac, Miles, Jon, Zora, Alex, and Mike. I will be a part of A watch with Talia, Caroline, Marina, Sam, Zach, Ian, Zora, and Jon.

After unpacking all of my stuff into my assigned cubby and flattening my duffel under my bunk, we had our first watch meeting. We are starting out under Pamela, the first mate, who seems like a great person to learn from. She clearly has vast knowledge and experience and a simple no-nonsense attitude. Our science mate is Adam, the second scientist and medical officer. I think we have a great watch and excellent officers, I can hardly wait until we’re underway. The rest of our day was filled with orientations were we learned about our duties on watch, how to deploy the research equipment, how to do a boat check, and how to handle the lines. The research equipment was surprisingly scary and according to Giora, the hydrowinch is the most dangerous thing on the ship. We were all a little nervous operating it as we set the carousel down on the pier and lifted it back up again, but we worked together well. For line handling, we had to lift Liz, the maritime studies teacher, in the boatswain’s chair by sweating a line. It involves using body weight, momentum, and leverage to pull a line tighter than you would otherwise be able to. I had my doubts, but was able to lift Liz, so I guess it works.

I don’t know how we’re expected to sleep with the big day tomorrow, but I suppose I should try. We’re going to the fish market at 5:20 before we head out after lunch.