Ring of Fire

Every once in awhile, I'll wake up in the morning, unsuccessfully try to brush my crackling hair and notice it's a bit hotter and smoggier than usual, even for Los Angeles. It takes me a few hours to realize that the Santa Ana winds are blowing in, bringing hot, dry air and the perfect conditions for wildfires.

That was yesterday. Today it's impossible not to notice the evidence of wildfires. The sunlight streaming through open windows has an orange tint to it, and every breath of air tastes like smoke and ash.



The newspapers say Los Angeles is surrounded by a "ring of fire," but that's a bit of an exaggeration (as poetic as it is). There's a fire out near Santa Barbara, two hours to the northwest of LA. In the Los Angeles metropolitan area itself there's a fire to the northwest in San Fernando Valley and a fire to the southeast in Chino Hills.

As always, people and homes in urban areas are fine (myself included), but those in less dense neighborhoods running up into the mountains are being hit hard.

New Blog Home

I am in the process of transferring from my z0r_palmer Livejournal to this, the Wandering Geologist blog. I hope this makes it easier for people without Livejournals to navigate and comment on my blog. Besides, Blogger seems more professional (blog-ish, one might say), while Livejournal seems more personal (journal-ish), and what I write here is intended for a broader audience.

I have moved over all my old Palmer Cruise posts and written a few new posts, mostly about the end of the cruise in Punta Arenas, Chile. The new posts are:
3/23/2008: The Bridge (photo of the Palmer's bridge)
3/29/2008: This is where science happens (photo of the watchstander station)
4/2/2008: Roll-o-meter 2000 v.2.0 (photo of my Roll-o-meter)
4/14/2008: Oops (the Chilean flag)
4/15/2008: Pisco Calafate (what sailors do with their first night on land)
4/15/2008: Punta Arenas (the town Plaza)
4/15/2008: Sagrado Corazón Cathedral (going to a Chilean church)
4/16/2008: Goodbye, Punta Arenas (self-explanatory)
4/20/2008: Amusing Signs (photos of, umm, yeah)

I will go through my Croatia/Venice posts soon and add new stuff.

Amusing Signs

From the New Zealand part of the trip.


A bar in Lyttelton, New Zealand.



Teehee! They call their shopping carts "trundlers" in New Zealand. Isn't that adorable?

Goodbye, Punta Arenas

I leave Chile today. I'm going to miss all my friends from the Palmer, the science-ing, watching movies in the afternoon, eating greasy food (especially when we ran out of fresh fruit three weeks out), even the 25 degree rolls. Until next time!

Sagrado Corazón Cathedral

One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to go to church. This sounds bizarre because most people skip church when they're on vacation, but I love seeing local customs first-hand. You can only get so deep into a culture by shopping in tourist-y stores. Chile is predominantly Catholic, so it seemed like an especially good idea to go to mass.

I stopped by the cathedral near the Plaza and took a leap of faith that a sheet of paper on the bulletin board saying "Masa Domingo 8:00, 10:00. Masa Diario 16:00" meant that I should show up at 4 PM. Much to my surprise (have I mentioned that I don't speak Spanish?), people were actually gathered for mass when I came back.

Since Catholic services follow the same order everywhere, I was able to follow along and mumble English responses. That's another beautiful thing about going to church in a foreign country, knowing that everywhere across the world people are going through the same rituals, reading the same Bible passages all in their own languages.

Once mass was over, two old men stopped to talk to me. Our conversation was basically them talking in broken English and me attempting to make Latin sound Spanish-y. It must have worked because I figured out that they were thanking me for stopping by their church and telling me "peace be with you" (one of the responses during mass). We managed to work out that I was about to meet a friend at the Plaza. They also told me, "You look, to my eyes, very good." And now I can say I've been hit on just outside church by guys three times my age.

Punta Arenas

That's pronounced "Punta Arena," by the way, because final s's are silent in the Chilean accent. My (non-existent) Spanish is ruined forever. The next time I visit Mexico I'll go around saying "Gracia" and everyone will think I can't even say "Thank you" correctly.



This is a statue of Magellan in the Plaza. Sailors are supposed to rub the big toe of the guy sitting down for good luck before a journey. I rubbed it for retroactive good luck on the Palmer.

The Plaza itself is adorable with a few stands set up selling souvenirs. Apparently Chile is famous for its wool. Guess what you'll be getting, guys back home! Because the ship sure didn't have a souvenir stand.

Pisco Calafate

The first night in port we went to a restaurant (with meat! lots of meat!) and then to a pub. It turns out sailors like to get REALLY DRUNK their first night back after a cruise with no alcohol allowed. I think this photo captures the spirit of the night. (No, parents, I didn't get drunk.)



The regional drink is Pisco Calafate, similar to Pisco Sour but with Calafate ("Magellan barberry") juice. And don't ever get Chileans started on the "Is Pisco from Peru or Chile?" debate. It turns out Pisco Calafates are really good, which is sad because they don't exist outside of Southern Chile.

Oops

When we first arrived at the port, I was astonished by the number of boats from Texas. Almost every boat had a Texan flag.



Turns out I need to study my flags.



I think the mistake was understandable.

We've Arrived

We got into Punta Arenas this morning. I woke up briefly at 6:30 AM and went up to the bridge to see the sunrise. We were hanging out in the harbor for a while since they weren't expecting us until later. I've been out to see the city, but it's not nearly as photogenic as Christchurch was. I'll try to find some good pictures to post, though (now that I have internet!).



(originally posted on Livejournal)

Land Ahoy

Things are slowing down on the boat. Turned out there wasn't a ping editing party this morning since most people finished their edits beforehand, so when I woke up we had stopped collecting data and land was in sight.



That rainbow has been following us all day. :) Ironically, the land we're seeing to either side of the channel looks a lot more like the LotR scenery than the stuff I saw in New Zealand. (The picture above isn't actually an example of this.)

It's funny how my subconscious has gotten so in tune with the rocking of the boat. When I woke up this morning I opened my door and didn't close it or latch it open right away and just left it hanging. This is amazing because after about the second day of the trip I learned never to leave a door open because it will just slam shut or attack you when the boat rocks. But my subconscious had noticed that we weren't rocking any more even if my mind didn't.

The next few days:

Monday: Get in to Punta Arenas in the morning (4 AM?). We're free to get off the boat as soon as customs is done with us (9 AM?), explore! and spend the night on the boat.
Tuesday: More exploring, possible trip to a penguin colony. Spend the night in a hotel.
Wednesday: Begin making my way back, Punta Arenas to Santiago, Santiago to Lima, Lima to Los Angeles (Lima being in Peru, which I didn't actually know.)
Thursday: get to LAX in the morning :)
Weekend: work like crazy

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Ping Party

Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. Once we reach the continental shelf we finish collecting data. And then once the ping files are ready we'll have a giant ping editing party so that Marcel and Chris can finish processing all the data before we dock. Rumor has it we'll be able to see land pretty soon, too. :)

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Only one week left

Yesterday we had really strong headwinds that slowed us down to 5 knots from our usual speed of 10 knots. :P The view outside was cool because the wind kept blowing back the water on the crests of the waves. Unfortunately, the strong wind meant we had really lousy data and had to throw out a few hours worth of data for the first time. But in general we've been lucky - the last cruise Marcel headed only had about 4 days of good data.

It's hard to believe there's only a week left until we get to Chile.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

More Iceberg Excitement

Last night we had an iceberg that didn't show up on the radar. I was asleep already, but apparently it was about 100 feet long and we came very close to it without noticing. The rest of the night we slowed down to watch for more icebergs. The Palmer may be an icebreaker, but it probably wouldn't fare so well against an iceberg. (Rumor has it there's a dent in the front from when the first captain tried it.) All these icebergs are probably breaking off of something bigger that somehow made it pretty far north, but I doubt we'll see it.

We're also heading into rougher weather. The isobar map shows a big low pressure spot in the middle of our path, which is apparently bad. I woke up twice last night because of big rolls. R.G. and C.H. said that the homemade "Roll-o-meter" showed about 25 degrees of roll. We might get into 30 foot high waves later on in the trip. I'm looking forward to it, but it'll be bad for the data.



(originally posted on Livejournal)

Iceberg!

Yesterday we saw an iceberg! I would be excited about seeing an iceberg any day, but I was especially excited after being on this ship for 14 days with nothing out the window except for ocean. No one expected to see any icebergs because winter is just starting and we're not that far south (just ~50 degrees), so this was a special treat. And then later when I was outside taking photos of V. and S. doing a Argo drop, we spotted another, smaller iceberg. The photo doesn't really show how humongous this thing must have been - at least as big as the ship, if not several times as big.



While we were watching the iceberg from the bridge we saw a cardboard box with "bomb" written on it. We thought it was odd, but it turns out it was for a drill today. About once a week we have one of these drills, and all of the passengers (us) have to go to the conference room with our life vests and immersion suits to prepare for boarding the life boat. This week the crew got to practice finding a bomb. Unfortunately, they didn't find it before it blew up. It turns out the captain himself was the evil guy who planted it on the bridge, and when the crew members went to sweep the bridge he told them he'd already done it, and they left. So we're all dead.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Roll-o-meter 2000 v.2.0

The shipboard inclinometer only updates once every second, so unless the ship happens to be at the top of a roll at exactly the right time, the maximum angle doesn't get recorded. Obviously, I had to make a Roll-o-meter. It updates continuously and so is obviously superior to the "fancy" electronic instruments.



(The photo is staged, I don't think I would be able to hold on to a camera and take an in-focus picture if the ship were actually in a 25° roll.)

0-10°: M.C. falls over when standing on one leg
10-20°: chairs and drinks fall over
20-30°: drawers open, science falls on the floor
(referring to our first big roll when all the unsecured maps and log books fell)
30-40°: blub blub

Hail, Hail

We just had a brief hail flurry! I heard a weird noise outside my cabin window and looked outside to investigate. I thought it might be snow at first because V. and C. saw a snow flurry when they dropped an argo probe a few nights ago. I went outside to take pictures (the captain thought I was crazy), and I really like how this one turned out. The flash caught the hail right in front of my camera. The reflective crosses on the lifeboat don't usually appear like that, they were just caught by the flash, too.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Rock and Roll

I got to help V. (the biologist) reload the XBT autolauncher the other day. The conditions were pretty good - the waves weren't too big and the boat wasn't rocking much - so I was safe. Even so I had to wear the ridiculous looking orange suit. When the conditions aren't very good it can actually be pretty dangerous. If you're knocked off the ship then you have about three minutes before you go unconscious, which probably isn't long enough for the ship to turn around. But there are safety precautions to make sure nobody goes overboard. If the waves are really bad the captain closes down the deck, like she had to yesterday.

We've arrived at our area of study, the Vacquier fracture zone. Brief geology lesson: spreading centers (such as the Mid-Ocean Ridge in the Atlantic or the East Pacific Rise in the Pacific) are offset by perpendicular transform faults in order to compensate for the spherical geometry of the Earth and make all the plates happy. The transform fault is the active part and the fracture zone refers to the entire structure - both currently and historically active.



We've started zig-zagging to get data for a wider area. The ship motion has been relatively small up to this point in our cruise since we've been traveling with the wind (the winds go clockwise around Antarctica) and therefore with the waves. But now that we're zig-zagging, we're going against the waves, and the ship's been rocking a lot more. We had one 19.94 degree roll last night, and we've had a lot of rolls over 10 degrees.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

This is where science happens

Science! Continued

V. and C. reload the XBT launcher. In funny orange jackets.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Science!

Some people have been asking what I do on the Palmer. (My parents forward me any comments left on the journal, in case you were wondering.) We collect magnetic, gravity, and multibeam data as we sail. Unfortunately, we're not doing seismics, which would have been a blast (literally...). We also do XBT launches. The XBT (Expendable Bathy Thermograph) looks sort of like a missile with a copper wire extending back to the ship. It collects temperature data as a function of depth.

The multibeam works like sonar. A "ping" is sent out from the ship, and instruments on the bottom of the ship record when it returns. Based on the temperature data from the XBT, the distance to the bottom of the ocean is calculated. The instruments record data from an array of angles, so for each ping we get a line of data. You can hear the ping from most parts of the ship, and the first time I noticed it I thought there was a bird sitting outside the window. You can hear it from the bedrooms... once every few seconds... all night long... Grr.

There are 6 watchstanders, and we each have 4 hour shifts, so that one of us is on duty at any time during the day. C.H. is midnight - 4 AM, R.G. is 4 AM - 8 AM, me 8 AM - noon, M.C. is noon - 4 PM, R.A. is 4 PM - 8 PM, and I.M. is 8 PM - midnight. So it ends up that R.A., I.M. and I hang out together during the day, and C.H. and R.G. hang out together at night just because of how the shifts worked out.

We have to make sure all the instruments are working correctly and recording data. Every 15 minutes we record everything in an Excel spreadsheet and in a written watch log. We also have to watch the multibeam and adjust the angles constantly. When the weather is good and we're getting good data, we set the multibeam at a larger angle, so that we collect the most data we can given the conditions. Just right now the data is lousy, and I keep having to decrease the angle.

When we're not on shift, we edit multibeam files. This mostly involves deleting bad data points. If the temperature data doesn't match the actual ocean temperature, we get smilee and frowny pings (it looks like the topography curves up or down at the edges, when that's not what's actually going on). When the ocean is rough, air mixes with the water, which completely messes up the multibeam, so even though the instruments account for the pitch and roll of the ship, the data's still bad.

That's about it. I'm going to watch V. and S. do a XBT launch this afternoon, so hopefully I can post some shots of them getting drenched on the back deck. (V. does her own XBT launches to collect data for the National Weather Service and for Scripps, and S. is the representative from Raytheon.)

(originally posted on Livejournal)

The Wave

Last night was pretty rough weather, and no one I spoke to had a good night's sleep. There's just something about being thrown against the headboard and then the footboard of your bed that makes sleeping difficult. But, again, the experienced people say it's nothing. The ship's maximum roll last night was about 19 degrees. When I came down to the lab this morning, it looked like a destruction zone with chairs on their sides, papers and odds and ends all over the floor. There's no point in putting them back because everything will just fall over again (it's still really bad this morning). I was looking out the window in the lab and saw a wave that looked just like the famous Japanese print, The Wave. The navy blue was the perfect shade, with foam on the crest.

For reference:


Yesterday was Easter. I celebrated by... doing my shift as usual. I did get a visit by the Easter Bunny (myself) and got a slightly melted chocolate bunny. I thought of my mom as I ate the ears (the Foxtrot mom always steals the ears off of her kids' bunnies). We did have steak and shrimp for dinner, which I guess is pretty good for being in the South Pacific.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

The Bridge

Photos from when we were in port at Lyttelton, which is why there's no one, say, steering the ship.

Some captains won't let you on the bridge when the ship is moving, but the Palmer's captain is nice and lets us up there about anytime. We can also go out onto the upper dock if the weather's alright. Which is great because, you know, getting fresh air a few times a month is recommended, I hear.

Negative Time South Pacific?

Sometime last night we went over the International Date Line, so I get to repeat Saturday over again. It's a shame it didn't happen a day later because then I could have had two Easters. :)

I have the 8:00 AM - noon watchstander shift, which works well because lately I've been an early bird (I blame my 8:30 classes this past term). The other watchstanders are M.C., R.A., C.H., and R.G.

M.C. is the one in charge. He's going to be using the data from this trip and from a few others he's already been on for his thesis.

R.A. has been on the Palmer before, on one of the Antarctica trips. In fact, that's how she met M.C., and now they're married. (aww)

C.H. grew up in California, but goes to school in Hawaii. Back a few years ago, he was working in a scuba shop in California, when my professor came in to buy masks for her daughters. He saw that she was wearing a geology sweatshirt, they got to chatting, and the next day he was signed up for a Palmer cruise. He's filling in for someone else who couldn't make it on this cruise.

R.G. is from my rival school. She's been traveling around the world in the year since she graduated - doing archeology in Greece, field camp in New Zealand, etc, which is pretty awesome.

So... now you've met my fellow watchstanders.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Goodbye, Land

We left Lyttleton yesterday morning and are 348 nautical miles from New Zealand now (someone with google calculator will have to convert that into miles for me) (edit - 400 miles).

You haven't heard from me in awhile because I've been seasick. :P I've never gotten motion sick in the car, on rollar coasters, anywhere. As a little girl, I even used to read while spinning around as fast as I could in a rolly chair. But I forgot one important thing - my stomach reacts horribly to greasy food. So, of course, I had yummy, greasy breakfast sandwiches for breakfast and yummy, greasy rolls for lunch just after we left port. By about 1 PM, in the middle of our IT orientation, I was feeling pretty lousy. But taking medication, throwing up (yes, in that order), and then sleeping for 13 hours seem to have done the trick.

The motion of the ship is actually very calming, and I find myself almost falling asleep all the time. This afternoon a few of us watched a movie (Whale Rider, a New Zealand movie) in the lounge. The lounge has these awesome recliners, so lying on them with the boat rocking felt like relaxing on a float in a swimming pool.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

On the ship!

I'm on the ship now, and we leave in 3 hours. No more internet for a month! Meep!

Lyttleton is very beautiful. In the afternoon the fog rolled in, creating this cool effect as it sloshed over the mountains and down into the city. On the plane ride into Christchurch we almost couldn't land because of the fog.



This is the port's "time ball," which is dropped at a certain time each day so that all the ships can make sure their clocks are correct:


Here's the Palmer:


(originally posted on Livejournal)

Akaroa

Yesterday C.H., R.G. and I road tripped to Akaroa, which is this cute Frenchish town about an hour and a half drive from Christchurch.



We stopped by Lyttleton, the port we're departing from, on the way back. And we got to see the Palmer. :)

I'm short on time, we're leaving for the Palmer in just a few minutes. Don't know if I'll have internet access again besides the limited onboard email. So these may be the last pictures. I'm excited though!

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Welcome to New Zealand

6:40 PM (New Zealand time)



C.H. and I arrived at the YMCA earlier today. The room is small, but I'm completely happy with it. I get a balconey and the view isn't bad. I'm leaving the balconey door open when I'm in the room because it's absolutely gorgeous weather. This bothers me, though, as it's the end of summer (also everybody stands upside down because we're on the other side of the world) and probably the hottest it gets here.



The YMCA is near the center of town, so we left our rooms and walked around a bit. The cathedral was odd because it was half tourist trap, half place where people actually worship. The "Cultural District" is a bunch of buildings that used to be part of Canterbury College but now house expensive art stores. Think a combination of Hogwarts and Caltech and then shrunk by 75%.







We ate at a Japanese/Thai place, and I had ramen. Very yummy. After walking around I went back to the room to crash for a few hours. Now it's 11 pm Pacific Time, and I definitely feel like I need to be asleep still. But the sleep part was nice. I missed that.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

The Flight

10:30 PM (Pacific Time, no idea what time zone I'm actually in), flying over the Pacific in an "aeroplane" as the flight attendants with the funny accents like to call it

I met up with C.H., who's also going on the cruise, in LAX. It's nice to be traveling with someone else.

Overseas flying is, apparently, very posh, which makes sense, as someone is paying hundreds of dollars for my ticket. They keep forcing free snacks and hot chocolate (with marshmallows) and socks and sparkling chardonnay upon us. :) The dinner, despite looking like a sad school cafeteria accident, was actually very good. (I think there was even goat cheese in the salad.) There's also a great selection of movies. I just finished watching Juno, which I highly recommend. It was artsy-ily made, which usually comes off as pretension, but was completely okay in this movie. Also, I have to buy the soundtrack when I get back to America. Remind me about that. Now, to work! (despite the tempting call of Gone With the Wind, Enchanted, Beowolf, random foreign subtitled films, The Lost Tomb of Jesus, and The Great Four Inventions of Ancient China documentary)

2:31 AM (Pacific Time), just crossed the equator

So... turns out it's almost impossible to sleep for more than 2 hours in an upright position. Fun! Maybe some law studying will put me to sleep. Or Beowulf, which actually is just as bad as everyone said it was.

7:11 AM (Pacific Time)

The future is now! (just crossed the dateline.)

7:50 AM, Tuesday (New Zealand Time)

We've switched planes, and now I'm on my way to Christchurch after a brief stop in Aukland. My rasberry danish had corn in it. I am confused.


sunrise on the aeroplane

9:31 AM, Tuesday (New Zealand Time), 1:31 PM, Monday (Pacific Time)

We've arrived! I've had something like four hours of sleep for the last two nights. Now we're bumming internet off the Antarctic Center. :)


penguin at the Antarctic Center

(originally posted on Livejournal)

I am a d0rk

My boyfriend and I rushed out of the hovse at 3 pm, bf really worried about making it in time since he thought we needed to be there three hours early. So, in the car, I called my parents to say goodbye, and asked if they thought two and a half hours before the flight was an okay time to get there. To which they replied, "Isn't your flight at 8 pm?"

See, I had a special method of calculating what time I should leave. My flight was at 8 pm, so I should leave at 6 pm, two hours earlier, but then I realized it was international so I should leave three hours ahead of time, at 3 pm.

In conclusion, bf and I are now chilling at his house.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Frantic!

Gah! I leave for the airport in an hour and a half. I'm mostly packed, now I'm just downloading anything I might possibly need from the internet. I ran into Andy, who went on the cruise a few years ago, and he said I'll have an insane amount of free time. So... if anyone has any ideas of how to spend it, please let me know.

I still have to turn in a lab and two finals, so hopefully I'll get a lot done on the plane ride. It would suck to spend my time in New Zealand finishing up classwork, and then have infinite free time on the cruise once I can't sightsee.

I know I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to everyone, so... if you're reading this... Goodbye!

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Excited!

I'm leaving in four days... and I have so much left to do - a seismology set, a lab, some redoes, packing, etc. (I'm putting off my two finals because I can do those on the plane and then email them in when I get to New Zealand.) But I keep getting sidetracked looking at New Zealand tourist sites. Turns out Christchurch is a beautiful, English-y city with mountains and the ocean nearby. I have no idea what I'm going to go in Christchurch yet, but, ah.. we'll find out when I get there!

Turns out you can track the Palmer online. It looks like it's coming in from Antarctica right now.

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Information Security Awareness

I have to take an Information Security course before the cruise. Example question from the final exam:

Information Security does not protect against which of the following?
a. Identity Theft.
b. Global warming.
c. Natural Disasters.
d. Accidental / intentional loss or change of data.
e. All of the above.

(Is it an information security breach to post a question from the Information Security Awareness exam?)

Also, is it okay to run an Ebay business from Antarctica? I just know I'm going to get that question wrong...

(originally posted on Livejournal)

Welcome

During March and April I will be on board the icebreaker, Nathaniel B. Palmer, doing geophysics research. I will have limited access to the outside world (just small emails via satellite phone), so I created this journal to keep in touch with my family and friends. My parents will be posting the emails I send to them on this website, beginning next week.

Schedule:
March 16 - leave LA, California
March 18 - arrive in Christchurch, New Zealand, after a brief stop in Auckland (I will apparently be traveling at relativistic speeds, since 2 days will pass during my 15 hour flight.)
March 18-20 - sightsee!
March 20 - board the Palmer
March 21 - depart Port Lyttelton
April 14 - arrive in Punta Arenas, Chile
April 15 - leave the Palmer and fly home
April 16 - work like crazy catching up on schoolwork, worry about how my taxes were due yesterday

(originally posted on Livejournal)