Lessons from Stanford @ Sea: The More I Learn the Less Sure I Become

I think a lot. Usually, I think too much. Beyond the rocking of the ship and the resonating boom of the hull crashing into turbulent waters, my thoughts would keep me awake during nights I could barely keep my eyes open. I felt cheated. Previously, the thoughts that kept me up at night centered around my life in California, a life I departed from for 5 weeks when I embarked on this adventure. Most of those thoughts stayed in California, but the void they left was shortly occupied by new thoughts related to my life at sea, providing me no respite for my sleepless nights. There’s no escape from one’s own mind.

However, not every thought stayed in California; in particular, one question that traveled with me burned ever more brightly in my mind as time passed: what do I really know? The root of this question lay not in a lack of self-confidence but rather in the realization that the more I learn about the world around me, the more I’m reminded of my own ignorance. Uncovering mysteries of the ocean revealed dozens of new unanswered questions. Visiting new islands and peoples added layers of complexity to my understanding of the world as I tried to accustom to new surroundings and culture shock. Every lesson I learned about ship handling taught me that there are always more lessons to learn. I began to wonder if I would ever feel like I knew what I was doing if every clarification led to more confusion.

The more I thought about it, the more I came to terms with the fact that being in a state of constant confusion isn’t inherently a bad thing. If anything, feeling disoriented isn’t an indicator of failure; it’s an indicator of an eagerness to absorb and discover. My bewilderment stems from my refusal to stop questioning everything I see around me, and from my unwillingness to admit that I am truly knowledgeable about anything.

The process leading to this recognition encompassed the entirety of my journey at sea as I struggled day and night with the idea that I wasn’t meeting some sort of intangible expectation. At some point I stopped interpreting these feelings as signs of shortcomings and merely observed them as they came and went. Instead of guilting myself into thinking that I should have a better understanding of something, I prided myself on my desire to learn more and improve. In my longing to better understand the world, I came to understand myself better. And what more could I hope for? I’ll never truly understand all the complexities that make the world what it is, but I can come to understand my own place and way of interacting with the world.

Stanford@SEA contributed to my internal growth by helping me come to another important realization about myself: I need people in my life, and I need to tell them that. As I said my goodbyes to fellow shipmates and crew members at the dock in American Samoa, I was struck by how each and every one of them positively impacted me in more ways than one throughout our journey together. I’ve never felt more fortunate to have been around such a group of compassionate, hard-working and goofy individuals. And the timeliness couldn’t have been better –  my Winter quarter proved to be one of the most difficult three months of my life, as I learned was true of many of the friends I made on this voyage. I never properly expressed how much I needed their companionship and support, so I hope this will do. Thank you for uplifting me. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for making me laugh. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for putting up with me, despite my incessant need to make bad jokes and puns. Thank you for making this voyage one I will remember with nostalgic fondness and melancholy. If that wasn’t enough, hopefully I can thank you all with one final song you’ve all come to love (or hate) me for.

-Daniel Jacobson


Ballad of the Robert C. Seamans (to the tune of Piano Man)
(sick harmonica / piano duo)

‘Twas 11 o’clock on a Saturday
Irregular crowd shuffled through
Friends and strangers stood next to me
Beginnings of a rough n’ ready crew

They said, “Welcome aboard the Bobby C!
Forget everything that you know
We’re to set sail across the deep blue sea
Anchors away and get down below!”

Sail us away O Seamans!
Sail us away tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for an ocean breeze
And you’ve got us feeling water-tight

Now Chris at the helm is a captain fine
He got us to Iles-Maria with ease
With its corals aplenty, a beauty worth envy
Oh there’s no place that I’d rather be

I said, “Megan this journey is thrilling me!”
As I stood lookout in her stead
She said “I’m sure glad you’re having a blast,
But did you see the lightning dead ahead?”

Now the journey to Palmerston was strenuous
The winds howled forty knots with might
Under the care of B watch, three sails they did botch
We motored the rest of the night

And Tongatapu it was marvelous!
As Alema inspired a crowd
Yes they’re sharing a moment called companionship
I don’t think I could be more proud

Sail us away O Seamans!
Sail us away tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for an ocean breeze
And you’ve got us feeling water-tight

It’s a pretty good crew for a Thursday
As  Barbara Block gives us a smile
Cuz she knows that the journey’s come to an end
And we won’t see each other for a while

And Samoa it looked so beautiful
And the harbor it smelled like fish
And we stood in a circle and held on to each other
And it fulfilled our every last wish

Sail us away O Seamans!
Sail us away tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for an ocean breeze
And you’ve got us feeling water-tight

Full Circle

Four years ago, my classmate Hannah and I stood in front of the gathered crew and students of S259 and presented the results of our research project studying how seabird community composition changed as we sailed north from Tahiti to Hawaii.

Today, I was one of the faces in the audience as students shared the results to the questions they have spent the past weeks working hard to answer. As we rotated through a series of scientific posters duct taped to the port side of the lab, I had flashbacks to my time as a student spent attempting to interpret and organize data into a compelling story.

During our last class underway, the students became teachers as they shared the results of their projects. I learned that sea cucumbers impact the alkalinity of the water they live in, that deep water squid use chromatophores (color changing muscle) to manipulate their photophores (light producing organs), and the plastic pieces we have been collecting in our neuston tows reflects areas of converging currents. I enjoyed stepping back into the role of a student and learning more about the ocean and Islands we just spent four weeks sailing through.

Sailing this trip has been more sentimental for me than usual. I fist stepped aboard the Robert C. Seamans May 2015 in Papette to sail as a Stanford@Sea student. Though I grew up in the Bay Area, I had never sailed a small boat before in the San Francisco Bay, let alone a tall ship in the Pacific. As time passes I remember less and less about my time as a student but what remains is the overwhelming sense of newness and confusion, the joy of learning lines, how to gybe, shoot stars, and becoming familiar with a ship that I now call home. What I remember most of all is the burning desire to return. As I said bye to the crew and ship, any sadness I felt was eclipsed by the knowledge that if I could, I would come back. I was hooked on the purpose and satisfaction that came with shipboard routine and hard work, and I had only just scraped the surface of the seemingly endless pool of learning opportunities.

I am fortunate enough to say that after finishing my undergraduate degree at Stanford, I was able to return to SEA and sail as a sailing intern and now, scientist. I have had the pleasure of spending this trip getting to know energetic, curious, and hard working students who are excited to be here and remind me how grateful I am. I have spent quiet moments reflecting how much I have learned and grown as a person, educator, and shipmate over the past four years. As long as there is more to learn and room to grow, I am excited to keep sailing.

This afternoon was just the beginning! I look forward to learning about the rest of the student projects tomorrow afternoon, followed by some quality time together as a ship's company one final night at anchor.

-Anna Wietelmann, 2nd Assistant Scientist

Reflecting on the Voyage

Now that our voyage is almost over I'm reflecting on all of the amazing parts of this voyage. For me, one of the most exciting parts of each day has been seeing what zooplankton we caught in the net tows.

It's rare to get a glimpse of what lives below the surface of the ocean.
We've seen whales come up to look at the ship and flying fish leap out of the water and glide for longer than seems possible. We've caught fish and snorkeled among the bright tropical coral reefs. Sea birds visit when we are miles from the nearest island. There are fleeting glimpses of the fantastic organisms that make this place their home but those glimpses are often interspersed by miles of waves and sky.

Part of the reason for this is that we're traveling through an ocean desert.

Few things are able to grow here because of low nutrients. However, just as in a land desert this does not mean that the area is devoid of life. It is still full of organisms entangled in a complex web of interactions that enable them to survive in a place where other organisms can't. How do we observe the life living in the water column, hidden out of sight of human eyes? One way (at least for smaller animals) is to do net tows. During a net tow we drag fine mesh net alongside the boat. Usually we do a Neuston net, which is dragged across the surface layer, or a Meter net, which is sent deep water column where many organisms take refuge. But the exciting part is what comes out of the net. You get a first look during the initial processing when you can watch the zooplankton swimming around the bucket, confused about why they are no longer in the ocean.

During the next step we do what's called a 100 count to get a measure of species diversity and you get a closer look under a microscope. I love looking at the fantastic shapes, shells, legs, gelatinous structures, eyes, and segmented bodies that make up the organisms we find. The best part is that I've seen organisms I didn't know were possible, full of strange curves and crazy shapes that give clues about how they live. Some of my favorites are the many varieties of pelagic snails (a type of zooplankton that we've been seeing more of recently). Pelagic snails have a shell and body like the snails you see attached to rocks but instead of having a foot they have wings that allow them to swim through the water. Some have shells that are a round spiral while others have spikes or shells shaped like ice cream cones.

A common find in the Neuston net are tiny purple snails called bubble raft snails that create a raft of bubbles that they use to float at the surface of the water. There are even naked pteropods (snails without shells) that look like little angels flapping their wings as they swim. I've seen so many amazing creatures and learned so much during these past five weeks and I'm excited to continue learning about the ocean.

-Laura

Birthday in Tonga

Land Ho! We arrived in Tonga the morning of June 4th - convenient for me since my birthday is June 5th! As I write this, it's still my birthday back home in Texas thanks to the weirdness that is crossing the International Date Line. I have yet to contact my family since getting on the ship (sorry, y'all), and because I couldn't help but think about being with them on my birthday, this one's for them.

We got time off the ship yesterday morning, and while multiple plans and ideas of where to go and what to do were circulating, I had set my mind on three things: the blowholes, the market, and ice cream. Somehow, I managed to get my wish, so first stop was blowholes. I wasn't entirely sure what that referred to or what I'd see when we actually got there, but I was not let down! It was a whole stretch of coastline where big waves would crash up against a cliff-like ledge and water would be pushed through holes in the rock and shot way up into the air. The bigger the wave, the bigger the spray! The most magical part was that in all the misty spray left in the air, you could see rainbows. All in all it was a very majestic spot, and I was glad to have gone.

Next stop was the craft market. There were beautiful handmade necklaces, earrings, bags, cloth, figurines, and so much more. I stopped at one woman's stall, and she explained to me all the different materials used for each piece. Some were mother-of-pearl, some were conch shell, some were black stone, and I found it impressive that she could make beautifully carved pieces in every one of them. Right next to the market was an ice cream shop with some of the largest single scoops I've ever seen. Most of us got a big ole scoop in a waffle cone, and I gotta say, there really is something so nice about eating an ice cream cone on a hot day. By then it was about time to get back to the ship, but I'd had a great few hours.

As appreciative as I am for having the privilege to spend my 21st birthday in Tonga, though, I have been thinking of home. There have been many moments this whole trips where I take a second to zoom out, and I have a feeling of being so distinctly far from home. Not even really in a bad way at all, but in a way that urges me to treasure all these moments. My distance-from-home measure has been to imagine taking my mom from our favorite cozy chairs in our living room (the epitome of my comfort zone if there ever was one) and plopping her down wherever I am in that moment.
However much she'd be freaking out is how far I am from home - both physically and figuratively. I think I've been associating the word home less with places and more with feelings these days. Home, to me, is where I feel at ease. Most times it's at the house where I've grown up in Houston, but sometimes it's at Stanford getting lunch with my friends. Or maybe it's trying not to fall asleep in the Hopkins library. Or maybe, just maybe, it's laying in my bunk on the Robert C. Seamans, looking out my porthole, thinking about the incredible, weird, exhausting, exciting day I've just had and how amazing, fascinating, and beautiful the next is bound to be.

With love,
Casey Mullins

Still Growing

There's a reason why the Spiderman franchise has been rebooted three times in the last 15 years.  Yes, corporate politics are involved, but think about the point in the story we always come back to.  Everyone knows the origin of Spiderman, and yet the franchise always kicks off with Peter Parker's transformation into a superhero.  Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, or Tom Holland, we start with a young man who must learn how to use his powers and, to a larger extent, about his place in the world.  The first movie in the series is almost always the best because origin stories are easy:  the whole world is new to the hero and the path to growth is straightforward and well defined.  Subsequent films struggle because there are fewer obvious paths toward character development, and without growth, the story gets boring.

This anecdote was very much on my mind in the beginning days of Stanford@SEA.  Having previously done Stanford@SEA in 2017 as a student and returned this year as a TA, I felt like I had already lived out my exciting origin days and had landed myself in a dull sequel.  I grew a lot during the last Stanford@SEA simply by virtue of being thrown into an entirely new environment.  I had to learn to adapt to constantly changing levels of responsibility, to manage the logistics of hourly deadlines, and to rely on my watch mates to accomplish complex tasks using our combined memories.  All these new experiences and demands meant that no conscious effort was required on my part to grow.

Joining the Robert C. Seamans in 2019, though, I felt stagnated.  Everything that was going to happen in the next five weeks, I'd already done.  Sure, I could learn more about sailing, because there's always more to learn about sailing, but I'd already crossed the arc of personal development that the SEA program leads students through.  Staying at the end of that path didn't sit well with me.  So few people have the privilege of experiencing something as incredible as Stanford@SEA once in their lifetime-let alone twice-and I couldn't stand the thought of coming out this time the same as I'd been before.

I really didn't expect my time as a TA to lead to much growth:  TA-dom is not a new role for me and it wasn't a leadership position like being on SEA staff.  However, the emphasis on increasing responsibility for students in SEA has taught me something extremely valuable:  how to act when it's not about me.  The second phase of SEA, which we just completed, involves the students learning to take the responsibility of running lab and deck.
Students have to learn to start thinking about everything that needs to happen on watch so they can become a watch officer in the third phase of the program.

One of the most exciting parts about coming back to the Seamans was being able to use everything I had learned two years ago.  I derived a tremendous amount of satisfaction from being able to immediately go to the appropriate lines when it was time to set or strike a sail.  This was helpful in the first week when students were still gaining their sea legs.  Past this point, though, it became inhibitory.  If I raced off to the correct line any time we went to sail handle, the students would never have the opportunity to take the initiative and figure things out for themselves.  This trip is their experience, and it's more important that they learn the leadership and self-assurance that comes from puzzling through a task than it is for me to feel proud of myself for two minutes.

In the past month, I've learned a lot about putting the group's needs above my own.  I've had to think hard about how I naturally react to certain situations and whether that reaction will benefit the students' experience.
It's a mindset that I've never had to sustain for long periods of time before.  I've spent the majority of my life as a student, where the focus was on me and how my needs could be met so I could better learn.  Even as a captain of a dance team, my needs were still at least at medium priority because I had to go out and dance like everyone else.  On the Seamans, I'm no longer front and center.  I'm not even on the stage.

Learning how to take a back seat wasn't initially enjoyable, but it's given me a deeper feeling of satisfaction in the way I conduct myself.  I feel like I'm becoming a more mature person in a way I didn't two years ago, and I'm still growing in ways I never could have imagined even in the early days of our voyage. 

After I leave Stanford in December, I will enter a world where nine times out of ten, it's not about me.  Further, I plan to join a line of work-marine conservation-where it's especially not about me.  I've started learning a mentality that I can take forward and use to be a better teacher and more effective coordinator.  Hopefully, I can continue to grow in this direction.

-Emma

Finality and the Future

Throughout this entire program we have been forming relationships and having all kinds of crazy, amazing experiences that make it my favorite Stanford experience thus far. We have learned so much about the movement of the waters in the ocean and how to harness the winds to takes us from one place to another. We have had many star frenzies with us scrambling around the quarter deck shouting, "Standby Jordan on Sirius," waiting for "Standby, Jordan" to bring the star down to the horizon and gain our approximate location, interspersed with countless tea times in the middle of evening and dawn watch marveling at the expanse of the universe and talking about whatever crazy salp (all hail the great salp!) or lucifer shrimp we found in the neuston tow that night. Through all of this we have been learning to sail our vessel, the Robert C. Seamans in preparation for this third and final leg of our journey, where the students will take over as junior watch and lab officers. As our journey nears its end and we enter this final portion of our voyage I can't help but think about all that has transpired and what amazing memories this experience has made.

Today as I was watching water spout up through the blowholes on the southern coast of Tongatapu I couldn't help but think about the fact that in less than ten days we will be docked in Pago Pago culminating our journey and parting ways for the first time in five weeks. When I first had that thought I was overcome with a sense of sorrow and a desire for this trip to continue on and never end. I truly believe that this has been one of the happiest times in my life and I don't want that to go away. Throughout all of our dawn watches from 0100 to 0700, the rough and calm seas, and the incredible foreign port-of-calls our entire group has grown closer and become a family aboard the Robert C. Seamans. The thought of not being with these people every day as we travel around the oceans is not one I enjoy. As I pondered the concept of a never -ending trip more and tried to find the silver lining, I realized that it wouldn't be as special if we were constantly on this voyage. We would get into more of a routine and everything would become so normal and mundane. Part of what makes this trip so special is that it is only for a limited amount of time. We are lucky in terms of SEA voyages in that the students all go to the same university and can have reunions more easily, but we likely will never have another period of time on a ship together, especially with all of our amazing staff from SEA.

Though I will probably never be together again with all of the inhabitants of the Robert C. Seamans from these past five weeks, they will forever hold a special place in my memory for all of the crazy experiences that we have had together since embarking on this voyage. The memories from the past five weeks are made that much sweeter with the realization that this is it and each moment is precious on this glorious vessel. I have been thinking about a quote by one of my professors at Stanford a lot recently.

He says that, "the future informs the present and the present informs the past." This means that we often don't know the full significance of a moment while we are in it. On this trip it is easy to say it is just another day on the Robert C. Seamans, or wonder why we have to get up for evening watch again after dawn watch that morning but looking back on the trip thus far, each of those watches and every single day is significant. I think we all have a sense of this concept when something happens and we look back on how we got there and things make sense that didn't before, but I think it is very difficult to remember in the moment. The finality of this trip and the limited time that we have on this vessel with these people is a part of the future that helps to inform every moment that we spend on the lab rooftop giving our spotlights or the many hours on deck and in the main salon playing music together.

We as students can't possibly know the full effect of that this trip will have on our lives. From the experiences we have had to the skills we have gained and the relationships we have formed this voyage is sure to be an important event when we look back on our lives, years in the future. Yet, like other beautiful moments the fact that they are just moments is part of what makes them even more special. I may want this trip to go on forever but I am glad it is not. The fact that we only have eight more days together aboard the Robert C. Seamans makes each of those days that much more special and each of the days we have already had so significant.

For reference here is a list of other moments or events that are improved by their finality:
Sunsets and Sunrises
Holidays
Family vacations
 Time at home from school
Rain showers
Rainbows
The night stars
Life

-Jordan Ferre

No Tech On Deck

My phone has been in airplane mode for 26 days. It's practically useless, along with my computer, which spontaneously went black two days after departing Tahiti. On the open ocean, I quit silicon cold turkey. It feels amazing. A few days ago, I sat down and read a book cover-to-cover in a day for the first time in years. The same day, alongside friends, I processed a neuston tow, helped put a gorgeous furl on the jib, saw ten minke whales surrounding the boat, planked on the quarterdeck, hauled on dozens of lines to set, trim, and bring across sails, laughed uncontrollably. How many of these delightful moments would screens have stolen?

It's feels like time stands still. Swells are a constant frothing through the limitless bright, but their metronomic rise and fall becomes a constant.

Stepping off the ship, as I did today for the first time in over a week, it seems not a day will have passed for the rest of the world. The various pieces of information that I normally use as references: the news, my personal calendar, seeing friends, meeting people, daily routine are gone.

Physics says motion is relative. A moving object will appear at rest if the observer moves with equal velocity. Say time is a car, zipping along a ribbon of the space-time continuum. In my previous life as a land lubber, references aplenty shot past my window, proving the car's motion through their relative motion. But now the azure South Pacific occupies my entire window. The car forges onward, but from my seat, its relative velocity is zero.

There's a part of me that itches to reconnect with the rest of the world.
How is my family doing? Are my summer plans still intact? Who won the Stanley Cup for goodness sake? My whole life as a citizen of digital society, a wiggle of fingers revealed these answers. Sometimes, these well-programmed fingers still open my phone and head to email or internet browsing. Of course it's just blank screens. Habits are hard to break.

Do I want to access the internet? I had the opportunity to do so today in Nuku'alofa, Tonga. But overloaded WiFi made the decision for me; I had no bandwidth to check email, send texts, or read news. So until American Samoa, I am off the grid. I will relish my last days away from impersonal cyber-clamor. But I do look forward to eventually reconnecting with friends and family who I love dearly and have not heard from or spoken to for quite some time.

My experience at sea has been too special to go back unchanged. One of my main takeaways: the ocean reminded me how little I truly need a phone or computer. These are tools with beneficial uses no doubt, but I developed immunity to their ails until the ocean took my devices away. Now, I can live in the moment, every moment. Things will change when we leave the Robert C Seamans, but don't be surprised if there are days I leave my phone off and zipped up somewhere. Life is too short not to be present for it.

Being present for the past 26 days resulted in opportunities for reflection.
What does reflection look like? It is staring into the bioluminescence exploding in the bow wave for an hour, a fourth-of-June sparkler. It is writing more. It is spending endless hours with friends laughing and singing and of course, fitting in a core workout between every watch. Praying alone.
Hanging out with friends and thinking about only what is happening in that room. It is not being able to get over the way the light plays on the ocean surface. When the towering swells during our transit to Palmerston shook us violently, the ocean was like a shredded cloud, left jagged, torn open, grey. Then for the smooth passage to Tonga, it undulated in smooth puddles of violet, pale blue, and teal, a liquid kaleidoscope.

Reflection is a blessing. Without it, I chase time away and lose track of part of myself. At sea, less technology and more reflection increased my productivity and joy. I shall not forget this lesson back ashore.

-Nathan Marshall

The Hunt for Squid

As I blindly make my way to my bunk in pitch black darkness, the landscape of stars above still covers my vision. At night, I find myself staring up at the ships mast amongst the expansive and vast star scape and picturing the boat as one softly floating through the universe. Being out at night is a time in which I feel so simultaneously connected and disconnected from the world - something I rarely encounter in other environments or journeys.

This trip has thrown so many new firsts, insights and challenges into my life. Reflecting on our five days at sea since Palmerston, I've realized how quickly days are passing by as life on board the Seamans becomes the new norm. The ship has become more of a home to me than I ever could have possibly imagined since first walking through it in Tahiti and thinking "How am I ever going to be able to live on this thing for five weeks." I have come to love my small bunk, eating meals on gimbaled tables always in constant motion, the many bruises I have accumulated from hitting walls and poles as I attempt to move around the swaying ship, and even the hot and cramped engine room checks I will probably miss in some strange way after leaving the ship. This home to me is also waking up in the morning and being able to sit out on the open ocean - a landscape more complex, powerful, and dynamic than I had always pictured it being. Last week as we headed to Palmerston, we were encountering 14 foot swells and dark cloudy swells whereas today and yesterday we've been floating on a flat and glassy blue expanse. It's powerful to be able to live on and directly study what I've been interested in for so long, and to see firsthand how vast this blue planet really is and how it operates so forcefully out of sight from human eyes every day.

After leaving Palmerston, part of me was fearful for our eight straight days at sea. I think this second leg however has been one full of growth, awe, comfort, and knowledge. During these 8 days we have been tasked with more responsibilities and are serving as shadows to the watch officers and lab officers. We have successfully learnt the name of all 83 lines on the boat, from the Jib Downhaul to the Mains'l Halyard, where they live, and what they do. I feel more and more connected to the boat as a whole as I continue to understand why each sail is set or down and how to best stop, slow down, or make speed in the wind. This week we have also been learning how to navigate using the stars and the sun through viewing them with sextants and recording their angle relative to the boat, as well as the time that the sight was taken. In lab, we've still been busy deploying CTD after CTD, collecting neuston nets full of bright blue copepods, man o'wars, myctophids, pteropods, and taking meter net samples at varying depths in the water column. The bioluminescence has been really amazing and can be seen just through looking at the waves formed by the boat at night. It's been interesting to see the change in organisms as we make our way towards the Tongan trench - an area much more nutrient rich than the South Pacific Gyre desert we are sailing through.

Being apart of the squid research time, much of the first three weeks were spent unsuccessfully squid jigging at evening watch during times when our boat is heave-to for deployments. We became so desperate for squid that catching one was written into the night orders made by the captain every night. Soon everyone was out on the edge of the boat at night wearing large colorful squid hats to "become the squid." The night of May 30, to our astonishment, we caught a large purple back flying squid with the help of Barb and Mike, and two nights ago, Bella, Thom, and Dan all added to our growing collection of specimens. When first looking at the squid with UV light, it was crazy to see the 6cm by 3cm light producing photophore on its mantle along with photophores dotting the rest of its muscle tissue like a star dotted sky. We were also able to get great footage of the color changes that each squid produced as it stretched and contacted its chromatophores, from translucent to purple, to half purple, to spotted purple. Now that we have quadrupled the amount of squid data in the last two days, we have just became to conduct our dissections and are excited to be able to hopefully map the photophores that these squid have as well as try to more fully explain its color changes.

One last thing to add: we saw the coolest 6-7 foot blue shark last night at the seamount near Niue island that we sailed by to fish and chum the waters. It was truly beautiful to watch it swim around so gracefully in the crystal clear water as it reflected a bright iridescent blue from the lights coming from the boat -definitely an experience that I will never forget. I think we got some pretty great Go-Pro footage and other photos that may be published :)

-Alex

Beauty and Power

Today marked the end of the third week at sea, and it was one of the most exciting days our voyage so far!  I awoke just before sunrise and as I climbed the stairs to the deck with my cup of coffee, I was immediately struck by how calm the ocean was. The water was almost glassy, with only the smallest ripples visible on the surface. This peacefulness, especially in comparison to the 15 foot swells and 30 knot winds we experienced a week ago, was a clear reminder of how the ocean can be simultaneously extremely beautiful and powerful.

The excitement of the day started just after lunch. As my watch was relieving the previous watch from their deck duties, we heard one of our fishing poles start reeling off fast - FISH ON! For about 45 minutes, three different crew members battled the fish while the rest of the boat huddled around the rails trying to catch the first glimpse of what it could be. It was a striped marlin, about 4 feet long, and just as beautiful and powerful as the ocean. We watched it swim around the surface for another 20 minutes before it snapped the line and swam back into the deep blue.

We've been living on this closed community  vessel for three weeks, and while we do some daily cleaning of the common areas, a deep clean was definitely needed. For about 2.5 hours, everyone on the boat chipped in to scrub the boat from top to bottom. It started by creating a "fire line" of people leading from the galley (kitchen) up the stairs and on deck. Almost everything from the galley was emptied and passed down the chain of people to be washed and rinsed on deck. Every floor, wall, seat, corner and ceiling on the Robert C. Seaman's was scrubbed down. It was hard work, but we were blasting music and passing around chocolate and candy to make it fun. And it felt good to take care of this wonderful ship that is keeping us afloat!

After scrubbing and cleaning for several hours, we earned a well-deserved swim call!!! Jumping off of the deck and into the clear blue water was immediately refreshing. I brought my snorkel mask with me and dove down where it got quieter and looked down into the endless blue water. I tried to imagine everything that lay below me in the 5000 meters of water. Then I floated on the surface and looked up into the endless blue sky and tried to imagine everything that existed above me. I felt very small, but also very lucky to be in such a beautiful and powerful place.

But the excitement of the day wasn't over. we had slightly re-routed our course so that we could visit an unnamed seamount near the island of Niue. A seamount is an underwater mountain that generates upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich waters and can attract marine life. After a delicious dinner in our sparkly clean salon, we started chumming the water with bait. Within an hour, we saw a shadow of something large and graceful swimming deep below our boat. After throwing in some more frozen sardines, it came up to the surface and we were all amazed to see that it was a blue shark- one of the most hunted sharks in the ocean. It was as blue as the ocean, had long pectoral fins, and a streamlined body. Everyone on the boat was captivated for an hour, watching it glide through the water. And again, I was amazed by how much power and beauty the ocean contains. It was the perfect ending to another perfect day on the Robert C. Seaman's.

-Adele Zawada

New friends on Palmerston Island

Just as the sun broke the horizon after a night of tumultuous seas, the cheerful call of "Land Ho!" could be heard throughout the boat. We had reached the island of Palmerston, home of the Marsters family, notorious across the Pacific for their kindness and hospitality. In Rarotonga, we had picked up one of the residents of the island, Edward Marsters, who had been looking for a boat that could take him back to his home for months. He filled the journey to Palmerston with good company and beautiful guitar and ukulele playing. As we proceeded towards the atoll, four boats approached our boat, the islanders expertly guiding us through the coral reef until we could safely anchor. They then loaded our crew and all of Edward's belongings into their small metal boats, ferrying us to their home.

We were welcomed with smiles and handfuls of candies called Minties which we'd be given by the bucket throughout our time on the island. With a total population of 43, the arrival of the Robert C Seamans had suddenly doubled the island's population. Everyone had gathered in the Palmerston Opera House, a structure with a palm frond roof built on the sandy beach filled with homemade hammocks and plastic chairs for an opening ceremony. The voices accompanying these new smiling faces melded together as they greeted us with traditional hymns. Each song had such complexity, yet each voice blended in perfectly to create a sound like nothing I've ever heard before. The mayor then explained that everyone in the crew was invited to stay with families on the island.

An especially smiley girl named Carlie introduced herself to us, inviting myself and three other students (Zack, Nate and Casey) to stay in her house. We grabbed our bags and followed her down one of the sandy roads. After showing us our beds, Carlie introduced us to her mom, Mary, siblings, Maeva and Ray Charles and her nephews, Dion, Robert, James and Aloysius. 

At first the kids were a little shy, but they quickly became less timid as they showed us their pet blue-footed boobies. They explained that they took the eggs from nests once a year and then each hatched, raised and trained one bird. James looked so proud as he introduced us to his bird, Cool James. The birds would leave once a day to go fish but seemed to come back every time. We were caught off guard as Robert let one of the juveniles bite his arm, prompting us to pet its white down fluff, promising he's used to getting bitten.

We were called away from the birds by Mary who told us it was time for church, handing myself and Casey fancy church hats. We removed our shoes at the entrance of the church, a mere 100-meter walk from our house, and were divided by gender into the pews. The pastor led a lovely, incredibly welcoming service, full of more passionate singing. Afterwards, they organized an opening ceremony for a rainwater treatment center funded by the German government. This was followed by a feast of barracuda, parrot fish, rice, breadfruit, coconuts and cakes that could feed hundreds. We spent the next days in paradise, playing soccer and cards with our host siblings, eating each meal with our warmhearted host families, finding endless hermit crabs, snorkeling on beautiful patch reefs with such high biodiversity including white-tip reef sharks and parrot fish, circumnavigating the island as the sun set, sleeping in beds that don't even move, laying on the beach at night, marveling at a sky full of more stars than I thought was possible.

I feel so grateful for the wonderful Marsters family for opening their hearts and homes to the entire Robert C Seamans crew. It was difficult to leave such a spectacular place with such special people, but I know we're all excited for the next seven days on the open ocean as we head towards Tonga and will hopefully one day have the opportunity to return to our new friends.

Chloe Peterson-Nafziger

Arrival at Palmerston

We have arrived at Palmerston in the Cook Islands. We have been tested by the seas after some forty knot winds and large swells. The students at and staff are enjoying the incredible hospitality of the Palmerston hosts with all students ashore on land for two days. We are surveying the beautiful reefs and learning about the area from our local hosts,

who are amazingly gracious and helpful. Our computer system has a few issues so please be patient on our shipboard blogs!

-Barbara

A Sea of Paradoxes

In this microcosmal world, life is both busy and simple at the same time.

There are lines to memorize, sails to haul, mouths to feed, and projects to finish, but there is still the simplicity and peace that accompanies the realization that this is your world, at least for the moment. What we have, and who we have, is all we have. There is a phrase on the ship that has circled around: "ship, shipmates, self." Before you take care of yourself, you must look out for the ship and those around you, which in turn keeps all of us safe. Living on this floating island has given me a new perspective on the urgency of conservation: just replace "ship" for "earth." The care that goes into this ship is intentional and rigorous; every day we mop the soles [floors], clean the heads [toilets], sheet our sails properly to protect them, maintenance machines, clean dishes, and scan for danger on the horizon. These chores come from a collective understanding that without the ship, we would all be in danger very quickly. I am reminded of this feeling of dependence on the ship and my shipmates every time I climb aloft and look down at the concentration of life on deck, and the vastness of the ocean that surrounds us. The islands that we have visited seem to have a similar mindset.

Image credit: Alejandro Dobles

However, with the earth, it is not as easy as climbing aloft to understand that this is all we have. It is more difficult to see how connected we are, that each piece of plastic we produce could end up in the stomach of an albatross, or that each Amazon package we have shipped contributes to the warming of our oceans. When Sylvia Earle came to visit our class in Monterey, she talked about the importance of the image "Earth Rising," a picture of our planet taken on an Apollo mission circling the moon. She talked about how looking down at our finite and precious planet, and the expansive galaxy that surrounds us, inspired many people to better protect it.

This trip has been full of paradoxes, and at the same time that this ship feels limited and precious, the voyage has reminded me of the immenseness of the ocean and the mysteries it holds. We hold small petri dishes full of glowing life and look up at an expansive sky twinkling with stars. I feel so close already to the thirty-nine other people aboard, despite only being together for less than two weeks. Within a day, or even a watch, I feel frustrated, overjoyed with a cool discovery, hysterical with laughter, or sad at the sight of plastic adrift so far from land. Perhaps this trip will be a process of grappling with these problems of immense (how will we save this planet?) and microscopic (can I count these plankton without getting seasick?) scale.

By being placed on a vessel in the South Pacific, thousands of nautical miles from my comfort zone, I have become acutely aware of my own shortcomings and how much more I have to learn about sailing, the ocean, and myself. However, I could not be more grateful for the endless sense of wonder and growth that this adventure has brought me so far, and the newfound connection I feel to my shipmates and the watery world that surrounds us.

-Audrey Bennett

P.S. For a better glimpse into our life on board, I've included a list of some of the most memorable sights, smells, sounds and feelings that I've encountered:

• The hot air of the engine room
• The sound of a guitar, ukulele, and someone singing
• The sky just before dawn
• Huge swells and thick, sweet cinnamon rolls
• Laughing and eating oranges until my stomach hurt with Thom and Alema
• Seasickness and my desperate attempts to curb it: ginger and saltines
• The drop in my stomach when the ship falls into the trough of a wave
• The sense that every place and person has an important role 
• Looking out the port holes and seeing water
• The tug of a squid on my line
• The way that everyone seems connected by the same forces that bring us to stand in awe: a whale, a sunset, a good meal, the sight of land
• The inevitable hysteria that comes with standing watch from 0100 - 0700
• The thoughts of home and family that punctuate my day
• The sounds of waves hitting the hull as I go to sleep
• The cool breeze in my bunk from one small blessed fan
• The sound of the wind in our sails
• The cold, quick water and our shouts of joy when Daniel, Alex, Chloe, Thom and I arrived at a beautiful waterfall
• Singing sea chanties at the helm with Snark [our second mate] in the middle of the night
• The confusing feeling of waking up and wandering into the main salon for a meal, having no idea what meal it is
• Learning about tuna anatomy and physiology from Barb as she reaches into a freshly caught yellowfin to find the heart
• How difficult it is to close heavy doors in a big swell
• My sense of time, which has been defined by the 18-hour watch schedule
• The sight of several minke whales that swam alongside our ship, and the feeling that we are all at the mercy of the same winds, seas, and forces
• The simplicity of the greatest joys on the ship: a delicious meal, a good laugh, full sails, sleep, natural beauty, a shower

Iles Maria

The familiar hum of the motor suddenly dropped in pitch quite audibly. As my brain started to turn on, I noticed the familiar "chirp" from below my bunk pinging off more rapidly than usual. Upon opening my eyes, the light shining through the porthole confirmed my suspicions. We'd arrived at Isle Maria.

I'd finished my evening watch at 1 am that very morning and spent the next hour or so triple checking that all my batteries were charged, and I hadn't forgotten any important gear. My project, using drones to map coral reefs in 3D to monitor vital health parameters, requires that I collect data at the right time, at the right place, with the right weather, and the right waves.

Isle Maria, the first stop on our 5-week voyage, is the only uninhabited island on the itinerary, making it a critical opportunity to map reefs that have the luxury of being relatively untouched by humans. It took us 5 days to sail here from Tahiti, but I'd been dreaming of the place for a few years at least. As I write this, I'm overlooking the four small islands that make up the isolated atoll. Fenced away from the South Pacific Ocean by a protective barrier reef, Maria is slowly sinking into the ocean while the corals struggle to keep up by growing towards to. In between the islands, a shallow lagoon harbors gentle, shallow inner reefs of the most turquoise water you can imagine. Looking over the port side, I can see the bottom over 100 feet below.

It was 0700 and my boat was scheduled to leave at 0900 hours. Even though I'd slept only 5 hours, there was no chance I could go back to sleep. I was too excited. I spent the next hour nervously sipping my coffee while we sailed around the island looking for a channel to get into the lagoon.

Captain Chris was at the helm, something that only happens when something special is going on.

At 0900, we started hauling our gear over the side of the Seamans into our two inflatable rescue boats to start shuttling everyone with island projects into the lagoon. Looking at the size of the waves splashing over the side of the boat reassured me about my purchase of a waterproof backpack.

We started motoring out to a possible channel through the barrier reef.

Large frigate birds, probably having never seen humans before, glided feet above our heads, peering down at the strange visitors to their island.

Chris, who had left the helm to lead us through the break, slowed down the rescue boat and we started to do laps around a seemingly calm spot. Barb, our professor said what we were all thinking.

"Right here looks perfect! A zig and a zag and we're inside."

But Chris said nothing. I could see the calculations in his head. We're only anchored at Maria for 2 days, but the winds were blowing in the opposite direction than normal, and so the waves were breaking over the entrance suggested on our charts.

"Robert C Seamans, Robert C Seamans, this is Defender 1"

"Defender 1, this is Robert C Seamans, go ahead."

"We're gonna come back and try the other side."

All the scientists in the boat, me included, sighed with disappointment. But I was grateful that our captain prioritized our safety over our data. It's always our first reaction to put the science first, so I'm glad there's someone else to prioritize my safety.

We spent the next 4 hours drooling over the starboard side, less than a hundred meters from the most beautiful island I've ever seen. We managed to spend the afternoon snorkeling on the forereef, just outside the lagoon.

However, snorkeling on a fore-reef is like smelling a barbecue you can't have.

I was able to collect some great data for my project as well as some fun images of the team snorkeling. Nearly 100% coral cover provided excellent food for the schools of parrotfish that would circle you with curiosity if you dove to the bottom.

We ended the day by projecting a movie about sailing onto a sail, after which we found spots to sleep on the deck of the Seamans so we could share the cool night air with Maria.

J.P. Spaventa

Steering by the Stars

Beige sand sifts through my feet as I look up to see the many mounds of an expansive desert. Behind me, a pillar of burnt orange sandstone rises out of the dry air and dominates the horizon… “Julien, hey, Julien.” Confused I turn to hear, “it’s um 12:30 on the 13th and you have dawn watch in like 30 minutes. The skies are clear and the air has cooled off, but like don’t wear a jacket, cool?”

My dream of a lurid orange desert under the heat of the midday sun fades into the gentle rocking of my rack in the middle of the night. I roll out of my bunk, grab a headlamp, and run to the head (or bathroom) to brush my teeth. While I had taken seasickness medication the day before, the constant motion of the boat disoriented my senses. Walking down the hallway, the world around me rocks in synchrony as if the curtains, pots, walls, and books all got the memo, but I had missed the email (probably because T-Mobile doesn’t cover 17˚ 38.201’ S, 150˚ 09.459’ W under its international plan). I stumble against the wall (and maybe the floor…) a couple times and scramble up the latter onto the deck.

The cool breeze of the sea feels refreshing as I enter a new world. The Robert C. Seamans, our vessel for the next five weeks, is on the open ocean traveling from Moorea to Îles Maria in French Polynesia, the first leg of our journey. When I fell asleep, the last rays of the sun had just set over the ancient volcanos of Moorea, casting shadows across the sea. Now, Moorea appears as a sliver of orange light on the horizon sixty nautical miles away.

“To the forstays’l, we are on a port tack and need to jibe within the hour,” the first mate shouts. Not yet fluent in sailor, I follow and grab the line last held by our first mate. I tug to no avail, but behind me I feel the slack disappear and hear the shadows shout, “two six heave! Two six heave!” So I too shout, “two six heave, two six heave,” and watch the sail rise into the moonlight. The cool breeze I felt when I first walked on deck struck the sail and sent a ripple down to its line. I look overboard to see our wake grow and its bubbles fade faster into the distance. Turning to my shipmates tired yet beaming faces, I smile as well. As a team, we had hoisted a sail in the middle of the night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and harnessed the power of the wind to push our ship onward.

“Julien, muster to the quarter deck to take the helm,” the first mate shouts. While he could not see my eyes widen in surprise, I walk to the back of the ship. In front of me, a large compass encased in a glass dome filled with water reads 170 under the red light. The first mate instructs, “the wheel controls the rudder. The wind pushes our sails to the starboard side, so compensate by turning the rudder to the left. Lastly, you can align the mast with a star in the sky instead of staring at the compass. Relieve the person at the helm.”

“I relieve you from the helm,” I state.

“Julien, I have been steering a course of one seven zero and have the rudder turned ten degrees to the left,” she responds.

I grab the weathered wood of the steering wheel and feel the resistance of the water pass through the rudder. As the boat rocks and the compass sways with it, it took time to steady my hands and stay within ten degrees of the ordered course. To this day, I still learn, but over the course of the first night my eyes leave the light of the compass and turn towards the stars. Sirius, Beetlejuice, and Spica sit among a mass of stars as numerous as desert sand. What I first glossed over as a gray cloud reveals itself as a great arm of the Milky Way. Under the most beautiful sky of my life, I steer by the stars and laugh in excitement. While exhausted on watch at 3:30 in the morning, I could not believe the opportunity I had been given at Stanford at Sea and steer onward– excited for the many adventures to come.

-Julien Ueda

For all those that helped me along the way...

For all those that helped me along the way, and to all those to whom I will return the favor...

At meals, I often take the chance to glance up at the galley port holes and ever so briefly see the sea rippling beyond the glass, catching a silent glimpse of life below the tumultuous blue that surrounds us. Yet to just call it blue would be a disservice to its playful and shifty nature. I've never seen a blue like the blue I am utterly immersed in when we pass over these ocean depths. Not only that, it can be a royal purple, a shimmering silver, a pale purplish pink. Or more often than not, it's a carefully crafted combination of an innumerable array of brilliant shades that dance freely across this moving canvas.

Just as an endless energy flows around this vessel, I too find myself dizzyingly surrounded by endless opportunity. For example, the opportunity to experience the rare and mysterious facets of the remote South Pacific, to explore the ins and outs of life on the open ocean, to contribute to a greater cause or answer a pressing question, and - most amazingly so - to be able to do so surrounded by a safety net of support and seasoned guidance from our wonderful staff and crew. Where else can I learn how to navigate a ship using nothing but the sky? Where else can I see sea dragons, pelagic white tips, and other incredible marine fauna on an everyday basis? Where else can I experience the joys and pains of living in a floating co-op (1) with an actually effective cleaning system? We're only ten days into this voyage and I can already feel that this will certainly be quite the experience of a lifetime.

But despite the excitement each new day brings, there are times where I can forget that.

There are times where I'm standing watch at 0300 after a long morning of bruised knees from cleaning soles(2) and a long afternoon of hauling my hands raw to be hove-to(3). These are times when I forget where I am, who I am, and how I got there.  I think nothing of the amazing discoveries I casually partake in, nor do I internalize the amazing skills I accumulate on a day to day basis. In that hazy mindset, I've become numb to the gifts I've been given and blind to the doors that are wide open for me.

As if at the snap of a finger, I eventually have the sense to awaken from this forgetful haze and when I do, I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed and must constantly remind myself to remember.

Remember what specifically?

Well, to remember to be acutely aware of the privilege of being where I am, of being who I am, and of even having the simple opportunity to have gotten there in the first place. After all, my life is the product of a convergence of lines upon lines of socioeconomic advantage, abundance of opportunity, and a number of other seemingly miraculous strokes of good luck and favor.

These lines created a foundation that was just enough to ensure that almost nothing but my own decisions could ever hold me back from achieving whatever I set out to do.

Knowing this, when I take a moment to pause, zoom out, and actually process the inequity that exists in this world, to think about that repulsively uneven distribution of opportunity and resources that stifles so many brilliant minds and incredible people, I feel sick.  My stomach turns, anger fills my head and clasps tightly around my heart, and I feel hot tears threatening to form in response to the bitter fact that billions bear this injustice and its back-breaking burdens.

But those are tears I hold back and set aside, and this is a flame that I try my best to keep carefully controlled, never fully doused but rather one that is compressed - coolly burning as I shake myself from this ungrateful haze of complacency and spoiled dissatisfaction. After all, what good are hot tears for tackling our immense inhumanity to one another? Without a mission or a worthy outlet, anger is also deeply toxic to those that hold

it- a silent poison that creeps into our very bones, and makes weary an already heavy, hurting heart.

And so, every day I've stared deeply into this endless ocean, seeing in its tossing waves and brilliant colors more than just a beautiful depth or a once in the lifetime experience. Here in these waters I silently regain a sense of duty and obligation to my family, my friends, and the strangers that I so painfully love and care for.

Though, I must admit that I worry I am being too serious about this. Perhaps I am just restless in my youth and too quick to anger in my relatively narrow experiences of the world and its people. Perhaps I am just a fool burdening myself with these societal illnesses larger than my individual self could ever effectively do anything about. But then again, perhaps that is just my nature. Perhaps I am simply a creature that craves justice.

Perhaps I am the type that simply cannot rest in a world that insists on doing what's wrong because doing what's right seems utterly impossible and uncertain.

We're only ten days into this voyage and we've only got a little over twenty days to go. I'm bursting with excitement and humbled with appreciation for the chance to be here with waves beneath my feet, lines clasped tightly in my hands, and the steady winds pushing all of us ever forward to our next thrilling destination.

(1) A cooperative living situation wherein people who are not family attempt to live like one. Includes the parsing out of duties such as cooking, cleaning, etc to its residents

(2) Floors

(3) A position in which the sails and ship rudder oppose each other, forcing the ship in a stable position for scientific deployments and other such activities

- Kiara Louise Bacasen
Photo credits to: JP Spaventa

End of Dawn Watch

Dawn watch is delightful delirium. It is less quiet than I expected, punctuated by the slap of the swell on the iron hull and calls of “Lance on deck! Mica below!” from the quarterdeck. But these sounds fail to deny the night its tranquility. A waxing half-moon shattered on the azure sea. The dynamic geometry of fragmented lightness and darkness that resulted could have entertained me for the entire night. The moon set, though, at 3:30, and its exit prepared the stage overhead for the night’s headliner – the stars. As the Milky Way emerged, it struck me that it appeared quite similar to the soupy bucket of plankton the previous watch had left our watch to process after their night tow. The intricate blue copepods and the stars blazing from a distant branch of the galaxy harmonized. There are few places on the planet that this subtle symphony between the microscopic and macroscopic is audible, but I think dawn watch on the Robert C Seamans might be among these few. The galaxy was strung taut from the bow of the Seamans to the stern.

My responsibility toward the end of our six-hour watch was to stand at the bow and look out over the air and water ahead of the ship. By then, the eastern sky was excitedly anticipating dawn. I waited for the sunrise by doing box step-ups and calf raises – great on-ship exercises. As I finished, the cumulus clouds ahead of the bow blushed pink, and the cirrus behind us caught fire. The sails, shrouds, and lines of the Seamans were black silhouettes, an angular negative space in the dawn’s watercolor wash. Kiara came out from below deck, and we watched, quiet. The start of our third day of Stanford at Sea, though days themselves now feel irrelevant given our watch schedule of six hours on watch, twelve hours off.

After my watch passed instructions to the next and Jordan relieved me at the bow, we consummated the transfer of authority with a hearty cry of “chief mate has the con!” and cheered our success. Inexplicably invigorated – or perhaps just more delirious after a night awake – I was in the shrouds minutes later, climbing aloft to the second yard on the foremast. I was the weight on a giant metronome, dangling over the port side and a moment later, starboard. Blue is the only color in open South Pacific, but there are more shades and tints of blue out here than even stars. The ocean and sky merged into a royal blue fabric, and I realized that, the sun on the back of my neck, the wind in my hair, the sky and ocean wrapped me in this fabric. There was nowhere I’d rather be. And below, the Seamans was full of life, an island amidst the blue. From above, it seemed even more delicate.

Back on deck, Jules and I gazed toward the horizon. “Wait what’s that?” he asked, pointing. Maybe a whale, he wondered. It resurfaced, paleness disturbing the blue. “Whale ho!” Barb shouted from the quarterdeck. Others ran eagerly to the port rail, hoping for another sighting. But the whale, resupplied with oxygen, had embarked on its half-hour expedition to the mesopelagic.

The jingle of a triangle shook me awake for lunch and class after a morning slumber. Tiredness had finally chased me down. But my afternoon stupor evaporated when our class gathering concluded with Barb’s announcement: “swim call!” The deck erupted with energy. We plunged into 4000 meters of water, bobbing on the tall swell from the northeast. In the water, we became even more finite, shrunk by the illusion of oceanic infinity. If I were at the highest point in my home state of Idaho, the bottom I was swimming over would be sea level. How can we possibly understand the ocean when it is so vast, opaque, unforgiving, humbling, secretive, blue?

This is the great challenge of oceanography. Simultaneously, it is the ocean’s great allure, drawing me from inland to study this region of the planet that so defiantly resists human comprehension. As I transitioned to my night watch station in the lab, I learned a fragment of the answer. Helen, our science officer, taught Daniel and me three deployment procedures: the hydrocast, meter net, and neuston net. The hydrocast descended to 600 meters, collecting a stream of continuous data and twelve bottle samples. We threw the meter net over the rail and lowered it to 150 meters, where it filled with plankton. And we dragged the neuston net along the surface, gathering another biological sample. It takes immersion in the ocean to better understand it. And that’s why we are out here in the South Pacific, dreaming, climbing, swimming, and doing good science. All in a day’s time.

-Nate Marshall

Science Begins and Iles Maria Lies Ahead

Spirits are high aboard the S/V Robert C Seamans as our Stanford@SEA students are now experienced sailors with over 4 days and nights at sea.  We are very close to Iles Maria, the first stop on our cruise track in the outer islands of French Polynesia. The weather has been super calm and warm with very light winds.  We've had a few whales grace our cruise track, leading to a loud call of "Whale ho!" and  we have identified short finned pilot whales, beaked and humpback whales.

Nathan deploys a plankton net

Our students are now in their watches (A, B and C) and rotate on 6-hour shifts into "Science" and "Deck" watches. Our daily science deployments consist of two CTDs to sample the oceanography below the ship, 2 neuston tows to sample the plankton for student projects, evening squid jigging and late night meter net tows.

The South Pacific Gyre water is relatively low in productivity as promised- crystal blue. We have sampled the mesopelagic with our nets, and caught a small wahoo in the epipelagic that we released by the boat.

Everyone is now in the swing of things- and preparations for the first reef stop are being made by students and staff. We had a wonderful discussion in Conservation class on What is a pristine place?We realize now that very few people have ever been to the remote island we have in front of us on our chart.  Iles Maria is protected naturally.

Swim call in the South Pacific

Pictures provide glimpses of ship life including Nathan deploying the plankton net, the entire class taking a swim on a hot day in the South Pacific Gyre, and Adele and JP planning for the reef projects.  Our students are writing blog,s so starting tomorrow there should be regular student entries to look forward to.

From the South Pacific-

Project planning with Adele and JP

Chief Scientist Barbara Block

Happy Sailors

I am happy to report all Stanford@SEA students have emerged as happy sailors and we're two days in on our trip. We're in the South Pacific Gyre south of Tahiti, headed towards Iles Maria. We're halfway there and the Gyre water is warm. 

Sightings of Cuvier beaked whales and large numbers of Tahitian petrels and red-footed boobies have lit up the deck team sighting birds. We're introducing students to the instrumentation on board and of course they are learning their sail handling and watch routines.

Everyone is in great spirits and when we have more capacity we'll send a few photos of the ship and company.

Best regards to All- 

Chief Scientist, Barb Block

Training and Getting Under Way

We left the dock at Papete Tahiti on a brilliant sunny afternoon. Our passage to Moorea was met with a wonderful pod of short fun pilot whales literally welcoming us to sea simultaneously with a rainbow from a passing shower. 

The first passage was gentle to a picturesque bay with steep volcanic peaks in Moorea, where we were gently tested with a long period six foot swell. 

The afternoon was filled with classes and drills focused on learning about the ship and safety training. 

Learning to work aloft

After an overnight in Moorea, we plan to be under sail this afternoon for the official start of our passage. Students at anchor are learning how to operate the Hydro winch and climb up the mast and onto the rigging. 

Training on the hydro wire

All students have done well very enthusiastic and smiles abound. Several students practiced project science and began getting equipment ready.

-Dr. Barbara Block

2019 Voyage Under Way!

Our Stanford at Sea class of 2019 has completed the Hopkins portion of our course and are now all headed to Tahiti to board the Robert Seamans. 

You can follow along here as students share their experiences through blogs from the ship, and as we trace their voyage in the map below.