All gear onboard

We had an uneventful (that's good!) transit over from Suva, passing a few islands owned by Tonga that looked like the tops of sharply peaked, green felt hats rising from a dark blue sea.  Those exotic islands of King Kong movies now don't seem so make-believe.  We docked in Pago Pago, American Samoa at 0930 on this our second Friday, Aug 30, thanks to coming east across the Intn'l Dateline.  To make up for it we'll have to skip one of the upcoming days on our way west again.  We've made this detour to pick up the seismic streamer shipped here several weeks ago. After a 2-hr shore call where several scrambled to find last minute items in local stores, we were all back on board and the crew cast us off shortly before 0100.  Work will begin in the cool of the evening unpacking the six 100-m hydrophone sections just brought aboard, and we'll start making up, testing and winding them onto the awaiting reel centered on the fantail.  Several electrical lines have been run into the computer lab; more are to be done.  Software for seismic recording and QA/QC needs to be tested.  Other chores over the next several days involve assembling the core splitter and core storage racks, laying out a core description / sampling area and devising a method of photographing split cores.  With a little diligence there ought to be time for a few games of ping-pong.  --- Greg Mountain

At sea at last!

It's been a long time planning and thanks to the efforts of a _lot_ of people we're on our way.  We got back to the fueling dock late yesterday afternoon, topped off and pulled away shortly before 11 pm.  It was overcast and sprinkling, and as we slid away from the sounds and sights of Suva it was like pushing into a dark curtain, making our way south and then east into the black and welcoming sea.  All were up early today and to the job of setting up their equipment, and talking over the flow of core processing that will consume our time and energy once we get started.  One by one the underway instruments were turned on to record swath bathymetry, sub-bottom profiles, near-surface Doppler current measurements, radar detection of surface wave fields, and others I may not yet be aware of.  A mid-day fire drill got everyone on deck, and to the delight of all the day had turned bright and sunny.  Because of our eastward progress towards Pago Pago we're crossing time zones as well as the International Date Line.  Accordingly the ship's clocks get turned ahead 1 hour tonight, and we all enjoy two back-to-back August 30ths tomorrow + the next day.  On that 2nd one we have a short 'touch+go' docking to pick up equipment; it’s unlikely that anyone will go ashore.  Then back out to sea and west to rendezvous with the rest of the science party outside the harbor of Alotau, Papua New Guinea. We'll be ready.  ---- Greg Mountain

Ready ... Set .... .. .

Greetings from Suva Harbor, Fiji, about 500 m from shore. This is a very busy port and available docking space is scarce. We had to move off to a mooring last night, but we're due to ease back to a fueling dock and top off later today. Then we're out to the briney deep, east to Pago Pago (American Samoa) for additional scientific equipment, and then over to the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea to pick up the rest of the science party. We should be collecting our first cores just a few hours after they climb onboard Sept 8. Steep learning curves, dead ahead! ---- Greg Mountain, Co-Chief Sci.