Feb 27

Today is February 27, 2009. It is another boat day. I did homework, blog work, and wrote in my journal during the morning.

After lunch I went to go see Happy Feet. Everyone said that they liked that movie better than March of the Penguins. I think I agree with them. After the movie it was tea time, but I went up to the bridge instead because there were HUGE swells that were rocking our boat all over the place. The waves were mostly about 20 feet high and some were as high as 30 feet! The first officer was in charge on the bridge and he told me that these were the largest waves that our ship had ever been in (it is only about a year old). It was fun to be in huge seas. Every now and then all the spray from the sea would hit the bridge window. It was really fun to experience the power of the seas.

I was up there until it was time to go to Jason’s talk. He is a scientist onboard the ship and lectured about the Southern Atlantic Ocean. He said that the ocean currents and the wind currents move counter clock wise immediately around Antarctica. And so lets say a glacier from the Ross Ice Shelf broke off it would typically move all the way around Antarctica before melting and going up North, but the winds coming from the North hit the winds around Antarctica. So there are little circles of wind patterns going clockwise – and the predominant winds in the Southern Ocean move clock wise... This probably doesn’t make sense… oh well; it was still really interesting to hear from an expert.

         After the lecture, we watched a video that the under sea specialist made for us. One of the spots where he dived I was right above on the surface. Then it was time for dinner. I had a good day.

 

Bye for now,

 

Emily