February 5, 2003

Back to work.
By Rachel McEvers, Project Oceanica

We started back out to sea around 9:00 this morning. It will take us approximately 8 hours to get back to the gyre. Obviously we made it through the storm but even being as close to land as we were we still felt some large swells from the storm. I’m sure glad we weren’t in the middle of it!

While we were anchored Jon Hare, the Chief Scientist, learned that the extra drifters he had ordered prior to the cruise had finally arrived at the Beaufort lab. He had someone drive them down to Wilmington then took one of the small boats from the ship to the shore to pick them up. That was great news. Especially since 3 of the 5 satellite-tracked drifters have already gotten caught up in the Gulf Stream and been swept away from the gyre. Now we can put out 3 more.

To entertain ourselves last night we did Karaoke in the galley. They have a Karaoke machine on board and lots of CDs to go with it. I got them on video without them knowing it and plan to put it on the web site when I get back. Make sure you log on for that!