the bow

We are still in transit. There are 152.8 miles between the port in
Punta Arenas and me. I've been a little stir crazy for about three
days now. Ever since I was little, I always felt uncomfortable
without having a schedule, without something to do. You could ask my
mom, Sundays used to be my least favorite day of the week. I am
starting to feel like I have had one too many Sundays in a row.

Two days ago I got off the night shift. Within 200 nautical miles of
Chile we have to turn off all data collectors because there is some
kind of permit the vessel and Chile need to do scientific studies.
We turned off all of these systems yesterday. No more schedule. No
more ping editing. It has been quite the struggle to get back onto a
normal schedule. The first night I went to bed at 2 am and woke up
again at about 4:45 am. I couldn't fall back to sleep until sometime
after lunch. Then I slept until 3 pm. What an attempt at a normal
schedule! Last night I tried again. I went to bed at about midnight
and woke up again at 3:30 am. Hmmph. That's no good. I got back to
sleep at about 7 am and slept until 3pm! Whoops again! Hopefully
tonight I will be able to get closer to normal. I have two more
nights until I am back at school and back in class. I might not be
sleeping well because I am so excited to get home. As you all read
in the beginning of this blog, that was my problem when I was getting
ready to leave the U.S. My brain just doesn't want to stop turning
thoughts!

Today we (as in Steph, the roommate, Jeremy, the Marine Tech, and I)
went out on the bow. The seas have been pretty rough, and we have
been rolling quite a bit. When we stood out on the bow (the very
front of the ship), the waves were so huge that the ship would slam
down into the water and splash water all over us. It was so fun and
surprisingly not that cold either! The more north we go, the warmer
it has gotten. We were at an amazing 9ºC today! I haven't been this
warm in months. It's now getting to the excessively warm stage.
Since we are no longer doing any research, all of the doors have been
closed all day. This makes for a very very warm inner ship
experience. Woooh! Everyone has stripped to their t-shirts and
jeans from long underwear, long sleeve shirts, fleeces, and carhart
overalls. I can only imagine how shocked my body will be when I get
back to the sunny spring in Colorado.