A research cruise isn’t just spending 24/7 collecting, monitoring, and processing data...
By Michelle Lee
Because of our rotating
shifts, everyone also can enjoy some leisure and down time. Besides research,
what is there even to do on a research vessel in the
middle of the ocean?
One of the main leisure time activities
that seems popular amongst everyone is reading. Many of us brought books with
us onto the vessel to read during down time but on board there is also a
library stocked with books ranging from seismic textbooks to the entirety of
the Twilight series (I haven’t seen these since middle school, a good 10 years
ago!) If you don’t want to physically flip the pages of a book, you can also
opt to listen to an audiobook. Located right next to the library is the theater
room. Amongst one of the hard drives in the room is a folder containing all the
audiobooks you could possibly think of! Just head into the theater room with a USB,
plug it in, and you can download the audiobook you want.
While talking about the theater room, we
can’t leave out movie time! Within the theater are multiple hard drives
containing hundreds of movies (and music!!!). Any movie you can think of is
likely located within one of those hard drives from documentaries about the
Great Barrier Reef to the latest Avengers movies. You can choose to enjoy a
movie in the theater set up with rows of seats and a large TV screen or to
download the movie of your choice to view on your laptop in the comfort of your
room.
If you don’t find us during our leisure
time reading or watching a movie, you might be able to find one of us on the
top deck of the ship, in the gym. Equipped with various machines and equipment
such as a treadmill, elliptical, yoga mat, and weights, you might see us
exercising off the extra calories we consumed by taking the last slice of
cheesecake drizzled with chocolate or the extra scoop of ice cream on top of
the freshly baked pies.
The board games can get real serious! |
We can’t talk about leisure time without
games, from board games to card games, with two people or the whole science
team. Occasionally you will find us gathered around the long table at the
corner of the main lab playing Ticket to Ride, Codenames, or some card games.
We’ve also gotten into a new game introduced to us by Victoire called the
Werewolf game (she handmade all the cards for the game herself, so that we can
play! Thanks Victoire!). This game, a very similar game to Mafia, got the whole
science team turning our backs against one another when it comes time to vote
for who we believe were the werewolves killing off the innocent villagers at
night.
Axelle and Tanner get in some practice before 'The Big Game' |
Of course, we can’t go on without mentioning the ping pong tournament
that is about to start! With the pongvision set up in the main lab to watch the
game, we are about to start the journey to find the best ping pong player
aboard the Langseth!
Ship gear gives you attitude... and balloons. Tanner, Morgane and Michelle show us how it's done... |
With Sam and his camera, you might also
find us in the midst of doing photoshoots with our newest Langseth gear amongst
the monitors or leftover balloons from Morgane’s 21st extravaganza
in the main lab. You can also locate us in the mess munching away at the snacks
available at any hour of the day or just up and about the vessel intaking the
views from outside (on a nice day of course) or chatting with others about
whatever comes to mind.
At the end of the day, after listing all
these fun leisure activities to do during down time, we can’t leave off the
most important activity of all, nap time. Sometimes all we really need after
hours of standing watch or processing data is some quiet time in our bunks
beneath the comfort of our blankets dreaming about ourselves guessing the
correct number of eggs on board the ship or the number of shots we complete within
a 24-hour window and ultimately winning the surprise prize for most points
earned with the “question of the day”.
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