Jen Costanza, Shipboard Education Coordinator

I got to do the COOLEST thing just now. I was in the computer lab working on the interviews of the crew when the head Alvin Pilot, Blee, came and told me that I was missing two super cool things that were occurring on the ship. Gavin, a pilot in training, was changing one of the windows and Bruce, Head Mechanic and one of the pilots, was doing some electrical work on the sub. Both of these were part of the yearly maintenance on the sub. Blee led me into the hangar and allowed me to walk out on top of Alvin. It was SO AMAZING. This thing that I had heard about since I was a little kid, and dreamed of going down in, was under my feet. I was touching it. It was the most tremendous feeling, all of this excitement coursing through my body! The window that Gavin was replacing was the one on the hatch of the sub. I took a bunch of pictures so check those out in the "Neat Stuff" section of the site.

Then I headed down to the lower level of the hangar to talk to Alvin pilot Bruce Strickrott. He was also doing yearly maintenance work. One of the lower windows had been removed and he was doing tests and checks of the electrical system. He taught me a lot about it. He said that Alvin is like a big physics project. It is just the laws of physics used in every way. All of the wires are surrounded by dielectrode oil in a tube so they don’t burst under the pressure of the deep sea. Remember that unlike gas, liquid is not compressible. So if the wires are surrounded by a liquid, the pressure of the deep sea does not affect the wires. This is a good thing!

Bruce also told me about what it is like to become a pilot. First you are a pilot in training. This means that you go down in Alvin with one of the pilots and you get to do some of the work. It is a complete learning-by-doing process. After many dives (at least 15–20) in this situation, you are ready for your first "solo" dive. On this dive, you are at the controls the whole time, but Pat Hickey, the expedition leader of Alvin and a pilot, is there to observe. Then you have a week of orals exams on board. Then you have to head to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where you have a day of oral testing in front of a board. Then, finally, you have a day of tests with the Navy. It’s a lot of hard work, but all of these guys seem to love their job and appreciate how lucky they are to be here. None of them seem to mind the hard work that it took them to get here and the hard work they still do every day. Last night they were working until 11:00 p.m.

I woke up at 5:45 to head up to the Galley to help make breakfast. The head cook was ill an hour before we left the dock, so the science party is pitching in to help make meals and clean up. It's tough to cook for almost 60 people. We have egg, cheese, and sausage biscuits, and I made some Hungarian panckaes (secret family recipe). I had to do some quick math to figure out how a recipe that is made usually for three people should be modified to make enough for 60. Boy...it's good to learn how to estimate. I spent the rest of the day prowling the ship taking mug shots of the crew so that the scientists can learn all of their names. I meet people all the time and can never remember their names. So having a cheat sheet of faces and names is a good idea. I'll make sure you see some of the better ones.

I also spent some time in the Alvin hangar watching one of the windows be replaced in the sail. What a job! Alvin has to be checked after every dive. It also gets checked thorougly after every 25 dives, then every three, six, and 12 months. There is a rigorous procedure for these checks and they never take short cuts. Blee (Alvin pilot) told me that they are very cautious and careful because the lives of so many people (including theirs) depend on how careful they are. So they never try and do something haphazardly. Sounds like a good philosophy to me!

Dinner was a grand affair of baked chicken with key lime pie for dessert. I sat and talked with Dr. Craig Taylor for a long time after dinner about his research, and he is really eager to get to the dive site and get going. We all are, because there just isn't that much to do while you're steaming to the site. Jen and I are the busiest by far right now of the science crew. Most of the scientists were unpacking today and getting their space ready for when we start diving on the 28th. There's a huge amount of room for them to spread out, and they have.

Last night, we had our first science meeting and heard what everyone will be doing at the site. Many of the scientists are studying the chemistry of the water and the vents. Most of the rest of the team is looking at DNA and RNA extractions. When it came time for me to introduce myself, I told them the only thing I'd be extracting is information. I don't have any idea how RNA extractions are done, but I'm sure going to learn.

But, I digress from the day's events. A couple of the Alvin pilots have been saving money from T-shirt sales on the boat and bought a foosball board. What a great idea! So now we have foosball and ping-pong to entertain us. Blee (the chief Alvin pilot) is excellent at the game. The real surprise of the evening was the hidden talents of Dr. Stefan Sievert. Talk about a ringer! He played with great skill and deadly accuracy — no easy feat when the boat is rolling from side to side. Several times, we watched the ball just trickle into the goal because the boat took an unexpected roll. Playing foosball at sea is way more challenging than on land.

I was well into my third game when Dr. Cary came and broke some bad news. It wasn't enough that we had a tough flight out with major turbulence, and it certainly wasn't enough that the A-frame was broken and we had to leave a day late. It was really tough when the head cook had to leave the boat an hour before we sailed, but now...NOW...there's a tropical storm, soon to be a hurricane, heading "safely out to sea."

TO ANYONE reading this, the words "heading safely out to sea" are good for you, but bad for boats! We don't know how much this will affect the sea's conditions, but we're likely to run into some really rough weather over the next 24 hours. So, only time will tell.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll be able to get some great video and photos during the rough weather for you to see. That is, if I can make it out of my bunk! With any luck, we'll miss it completely and make it to the dive site on time. I sure hope so! I can't wait to see Alvin dive!

It's 10:15 p.m. our time right now, and we still don't know if we are going to continue on our path, or try to head into land. News of the impending hurricane abruptly ended a heated foosball game as everyone headed to their staterooms and labs to tie things down and make sure important equipment was well secured.

Some folks are pretty scared and some are not scared at all. A couple of the science crew, Kurt and Laura, went out on deck with me. It was amazing out there. It is very dark, the perfect temperature, and incredibly calm seas (the infamous calm before the storm). The water is a deep blue, so it's almost black. The sky is clear and you can see thousands of little bright stars. The moon is huge and glowing and cuts a bright glistening streak across the dark water that hits the port side of the bow. The only thing missing was a breaching whale across the moon. I have never felt so at ease before in my life. Everything is very calm out there.

When we came in, we ran into some of the crew who are seasoned veterans of high seas ships. They told us stories of their experiences in storms. They say that when it's really bad, you can't eat, can't sleep, can't walk, can't cook, can't do much of anything. One of the guys said the worst storm he was in was 71 mph winds (72 is hurricane force) and 65-foot seas on a ship about 25 feet longer than Atlantis. It was a rather unpleasant three days, but everyone was safe. So that's the story here.

Everyone is just kinda waiting around to see what happens. Although the storm at this point, from what they can tell, is about two days away, we should start hitting rough seas sometime early tomorrow afternoon. As everyone knows though, these things are pretty unpredictable, so you never know. Who knows, maybe we'll all get an unexpected day or two in Mexico! I'll keep you updated.