seas have calmed down a lot as we sail south along the Moroccan coast. We
will be arriving at the Canary Islands tomorrow morning and we plan to
heave to (ie. stop) to allow surface sea samples to be taken. I've been a
lot more accustomed to the gentle rolls of the ship now and slept quite
well last night. Being utterly exhausted probably helped as well! As the
ship rolls my muscles automatically compensate so I don't fall over. I am
finding that really tiring and it doesn't always work :( Hopefully the
tiredness won't last and the bruises will soon fade...
A few people were queasy as we left Lisbon but no-one has been badly sea
sick. I think the crew are a little disappointed ;) With only 3 of the
scientists having been to sea before, they expected us all to be dying in
bed for the first few days. I think the current and wind both being with
us has helped. We've seen ships travelling north past us and they are
having a much harder time pitching and rolling all over the place. That
will be us in a week. I'm really hoping the weather is good then!
Trev and I are making progress on the instrument. We found Darren, the
science liason person, is a whizz in the workshops so we have him making
bits to try out in the cell! To anyone who knows what I'm talking about,
so far we've managed to cut the background laser scatter to half what we
saw in Leeds (that's good) and hope to reduce it further with some playing
tonight and tomorrow. It's much easier to align lasers/diodes in the dark
so our entire container have become nocturnal! The girls are struggling
with bits of kit they borrowed from other people but we'll try and help
them as much as we can while we're waiting for bits to be made.
I'm still eating too much but I'm avoiding deserts and trying to stick to
salads, till they run out. Anyone want to set bets on what size I'll be
coming home?!?
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