See ya in 6 weeks!!

Well after several days of delays I am finally off.I actually left thursday afternoon from Pier 28 in Halifax.

We are working in the Sohm Abyssal Plain south east of Nova Scotia. Its incredibly deep here. Right now our depth is 5631.2 meters. Yeah thats right, over 5 kilometers deep... thats pretty crazy if you ask me.

The crew that I have met have all been pretty nice so far. I think I've been nicknamed 'shorty' but I might have heard wrong.. I am rooming with one of the cooks who is from the Phillipines. He seems like a very nice guy. He told me that the Phillipino crew members sign on to 6 month contracts. He got on right around the same time as I did, so he will be on here until around January. Thats pretty crazy if you ask me..

One of the Phillipino crew members saw me as I was heading to the back deck. I, along with the other crew members, had on bright orange coveralls. Mine were 2XL. So a tad on the big side.. I think the Phillipino guy thought I looked pretty silly... I have to agree.. I'll try and get a picture of myself in it sometime tomorrow.

I did some practice runs at collecting and processing data and I think everything looks good. Still a bit nervous about it... It hard getting used to working when everything is rocking back and forth and you are trying to concentrate. The only thing I can compare it to is trying to concentrate during a mild earthquake... everything is always moving.. I'll get used to it. I did last time.

I've been taking my Bonamine, so I haven't got seasick yet. And at this point I don't think I will. When we were transitting from Halifax to the work site we were going 9 knots. My room is at the front of the boat, so when things are rough the stuff at the front experiences the most rocking.. know that it woke me up a couple of times last night.. currently we are only going 3.6 knots. Considerably slower than last night. I believe that our speed during the survey will be around 6 knots. I'm not about to stop taking my seasickness meds just yet... but I think I'm in a safe 'no-puking' zone now.

Some of the crew just started putting the seismic streamers into the water and it will be some time before they will be ready to start collecting data.I haven't taken any pictures yet.. its 11:30 Atlantic time now, so there isn't much point of taking pictures.. I'll be sure to post some up when I take them. I was feeling a little bit homesick yesterday, mostly because I was pretty bored. I've got plenty of stuff to read and DVDs to watch.. but I was still worried about making sure everything was going smoothly so didn't read too much, or watch any DVDs.

Feel free to write to me and let me know whats going on back in the world.
(WRITE TO ME!!)