Pago on the Horizon
Finishing final reports and enjoying 60 pounds of fresh Ahi…
FRIDAY, 03.27.09
1319: On Time
We’re on time for an arrival Sunday morning in Pago. It looks like all of our logistics are holding, food and fuel-wise. Most of the RVSJ personnel have already traveled. There are no difficulties anticipated for the Woods Hole personnel.
One of our deckhands is coming from Alaska where Mount Redoubt erupted this morning, and she may be unable to fly due to ash fallout. If that happens, we will simply have to do without her; we’ll make do. We can use a ship’s deckhand to assist with launches and recoveries, and I will fill in the gaps. I’m not going to wait for her because there’s no guarantee it won’t happen again — the volcano has been going off intermittently all week. I think I may even be able to get her ticket refunded due to an ‘Act of God.’
All else is well. Crew spirits are high after yesterday’s shore leave on Gardner, and all those folks leaving are stoked to be going home. We should have the reports on past performance and future predictions done by the time we tie-up, and then Andy Sherrell will be in touch with Ted Waitt and Chris Nutter to prioritize the remaining boxes.
Comms are spotty so I’m currently on BlackBerry. We are expecting two more full sets of 120/410 transducers in Pago, which for now, will both be spares. The set Ted brought is on Mary Ann and the set of 75/410s is still working on Ginger (we anticipate the one that showed problems to eventually fail, but who knows?). Joe Lepore will get off to go to Ted’s ship in Samoa. Greg Packard, Steve Dabagian, Andy and I plan to meet with the Kongsberg techs Monday afternoon.
I’ve asked Harbor Branch and Woods Hole personnel to do all they can to total up costs for Leg 1 for our accounting and planning purposes, and it’s a work in progress. I know we did very well on fuel consumption on this Leg, so there should be a significant savings there — won’t know how much until we top off early next week.
About all I got right now. Weather is cloudy and rainy, which has George stoked because it’s desalinating us. We’re in very calm seas and getting a slight push from the wind at 11.3 knots. Crew caught three big tuna yesterday, so we’re all gorging on 60 pounds of fresh Ahi.
Three yellowfin tuna supplement our menu on the way into town.
Cool. That’s it for now.
