Monday 31 August 2009

Day 22 and 23, 28th and 29th August.

As we spent most of these two days cruising, I have grouped them into one post as to be honest very little happened except working, relaxing and of course sleeping, until the evening of the 29th when we had a Lu’au (a Hawaiian party) and the Screeching in ceremony followed by a 7 hour CTD section.

For the Lu’au, which seems to be a traditional event on the Larsen, the crews lounge was incredibly well decorated. There was a volcano, numerous palm trees, the bar had been renamed and there were flowers and fish all over the walls. Fortunately, I had brought with me a pair of board shorts and fairly Hawaiian looking shirt so didn’t look too out of place. To add to the outfit, I also made from foam a half size ish surfboard. I must admit it looked pretty awesome and it went down really well with everyone. I have no idea what to do with it now, so may well leave it on the Larsen and add it to the decoration pool. Other scientist and crew had made grass skirts from duck tape and Kevlar rope, flower necklaces and many other difference bits of Hawaiian tat.

The Screeching in was quite an experience for the eight of us who had to go through it. We firstly were fed some steak and brewis (hard dog biscuit) before having to sit one at a time in a dinghy called ‘me punt’ that the crew had made especially for screeching in. We then had to repeat Newfoundland sayings as fast as we could without getting them wrong. Of course if you got them wrong you had to have a shot of screech. I think it took me at last three tries to get it write. However it wasn’t over once you got it right. To finish the initiation you had to kiss ‘Rufus’ the salted cod. Unfortunately I was last and by this time the kiss had turned into a full face smothering which wasn’t particularly nice. It was such a laugh and after washing my face all was good again.

But, as I mentioned earlier we couldn’t party all night as at 1.30am we arrived on station for the final CTD/Rosette section of the trip. It was by no means a small one and its nine stations would take us over 7 hours to complete. So off came the outfits and on went the Arctic floater suits before we headed out into the dusk on the foredeck. Shockingly the sun had set and for the first time this trip we had to work under the floodlights!!

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