Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 02:16:02 +0000 (GMT)
From: Jason Goodman <sci5@knorr.whoi.edu>
To: seadiary@MIT.EDU
Subject: Mom says I can't go outside.
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970212014524.2351E-100000@mike.knorr.whoi.edu>
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57 15'N, 53 54'W
Temp: -6 C, Winds 20 m/s
Seas: No one's allowed on deck.

  Last night, shortly after I sent that e-mail, we had some entertainment 
deploying an XBT.  The bridge decided to continue on-course during 
deployment instead of turning into the wind.  My coworker Dan lent his 
videocamera to Bob (the chief scientist) to tape us as we went out to 
launch it.  The playback shows us walking out, me holding the XBT and the 
radio, Dan carrying the launching tube which sticks out over the rail during 
the cast.  Then the ship's tail lurches downward, and the camera sees 
black foam approaching coming up from behind/below us.  The camera goes 
jerking out in random directions, and Bob (father of four, and it shows) 
yells "grab the safety line, grab the rail!"  And then the camera shuts 
off.  It wasn't that bad, actually: the wave didnt' actually come on deck.  
But it looked cool.  We launched the XBT, then went back to the hangar to 
wait for the probe to fall through 2 kilometers of icy water.  Bob left 
with the camera to put gloves on, and that's when the real wave came.  It 
submerged the launcher up to about head height, and came over the rail 
where we'd been standing 30 seconds earlier.  We didn't try that wind-astern 
trick again.
  The captain sent the crew out this morning to de-ice the foredeck while
the science crew deployed a couple of floats and did a CTD cast.  I was
asleep during all this.  Bob was on the 02 deck, watching them pound away
ice four inches thick on the foredeck.  A crewman ran up to him and said
"Hey, did you see the hammerhead?  There's a hammerhead in the water!" 
Bob looked over the side in confusion (hammerhead sharks aren't found
around here), and saw the head of one of the ice-pounding mallets floating
alongside: it'd flown off the handle.  Later, just after the science
group left the deck after the first CTD station, a wave crashed onto the
CTD area, big enough to knock a life-ring hanging ten feet from the rail
free from the bulkhead.  The captain ordered the hatches sealed and
science activities suspended shortly thereafter. So now we're sitting on 
our butts, with the ship standing nearly still with its bow to the seas, 
waiting for the weather to improve.  It'd be exciting if it weren't so dull.
						Jason