Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 03:04:10 +0000 (GMT)
From: Jason Goodman <sci5@knorr.whoi.edu>
To: seadiary@MIT.EDU
Subject: February 19
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970220024547.2399B-100000@mike.knorr.whoi.edu>
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58 06' N, 54 36' W
Temp: -12 C, Winds: 16 m/s
Seas: unfriendly

A storm started blowing up late last night (though 'storm' only means the
weather got even nastier than usual) and has continued all day.  The owl
didn't leave, though.  Oh, I didn't mention the owl.  A storm three days
ago left us a gift: an arctic snowy owl landed on the bow during the
storm, and has stuck around since.  It's not an open-ocean bird, and
apparently got blown out to sea accidentally, so it's very lucky it found
us.  One of the sailors, who knows about these things, says it eats small
land birds (it only needs one a week), and can live out on sea ice... by
coincidence, we're headed toward the sea ice on the Labrador coast.  So if
it doesn't starve to death in the next week, it should be okay. 

I haven't been writing much because there's not much to tell: the 
weather's lousy, we're still doing CTD stations toward Labrador, with 
occasional float or drifter deployments, and the ship and everything on 
it is constantly icing up.  It'd be nice to hear from my friends once in 
a while!