It’s been a few days since I updated the blog as you could see. It has been busy and tiring the past few nights. Equipment malfunction was the cause for late hours as well as fatigue where writing anything (even technical reports) was the last thing I wanted to do. A hot shower and hit the rack was the priority the past nights.
We are at Kingman Reef until Monday evening. I kidded about Jarvis Island having a human population of zero and birds infinite. Kingman has a human population of zero, birds zero and surface vegetation zero. It is a piece of sand out in the middle of nowhere, literally! It’s odd seeing a sandbar in the middle of the ocean and from a distance you would see breaks. It is common to see those when coral reefs are off the coast of a tropical island but to see breaks where you do not see any evidence of land until you get close is peculiar. The color of the sea changes too and the winds makes the waves look higher than they really are. The weather has not been good since we arrived. Cloudy and windy is pretty much the forecast with occasional rainsquall and as we say in the Pacific Northwest, sun breaks.
Aside from work there has not been too much to write about. The overtime in the evenings consisted of working on the CTD equipment that collects data from different depths of the ocean as well as water samples. It started going haywire and then one thing led to another. Final result, it isn’t working like it is supposed to.
Spirits of a very tired crew picked up this weekend as we entered the single digit midget phase of our cruise. We will be in Honolulu next weekend! For me it is less than two weeks before I fly home. Looking back at the calendar it has been two months since I left Western Samoa. It seems like it never happened and the time there was one long dream. Did I really see the family and that little girl who three years ago in her terrible twos had not wanted to do anything with me was asking me to help her put together a puzzle?
In two weeks it will be back to Seattle to my other life. I wonder what holds for me after I get back. I told “L” we are going to have to see more movies and I know she thinks I am into Tarentino type violent flicks at which I am not. There will be catching up to do with all of them. I want to see and talk to my daughter again as well as her husband and see my grandson walk. Last time I saw them was for less than 30 minutes last November before Thanksgiving. Activities we did for Christmas and New Years seems like ancient history. After seeing all of them, it will be like it was a dream when I return to sea at the end of June after the first night. “L” and “I” will be going to Samoa in mid-June and I will be leaving for Hawaii several days after.
I am literally exhausted and notice I have been slowing down somewhat. Tomorrow is another day and still has tasks to do and I have to keep “Murphy” at bay. I do not want my relief to think I let the ship go to hell in a hand basket.
I bid you goodnight from Kingman Reef in the North Pacific.
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