New Zealand Trip

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08 Dec 2003 - At sea

0710 - I woke easily this morning at 7 AM.   I sleep very well with the rocking of the ship.  I find, though, that lying on my back is best because on my side, the rocking tends to want to roll me over but on my back I don't have to exert any effort to stay where I am.

Last night I watch a movie from the ship's library.  It was "Deep Impact".   It was OK - nothing special.   The Indonesian sub-titles were distracting at times.   Luckily, the world was saved.   The only people I recognized in it were Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall.

So, this is my second full day at sea.   I like the rhythm of it.   The ship drives on and on, while the sun rises and traverses and the meals are served like clock-work to break the day.   And, for all the rest - I do whatever I want.   Today, I will begin programming on the GENA program.

Yesterday, I worked a lot on this web site to get the hyperlinks along the left side of all of the New Zealand pages to work like I wanted.   Now, I think all I have to do is just make entries as I go along.

The sky is about 30% clouds and the sea is normal.   The sun just rose a few minutes ago.   We're 560 miles from our departure point in LA and we're at 28.14N, 124.49W.   ...and it is time for breakfast.

1051 - Kan se (phonetic) came in to clean my room.  He's the same fellow who cooks or serves in the officer's mess.   I asked about washing clothes and he took me down to deck D and showed me the officer's laundry room and explained how to use the washer and dryer.

I'm getting back into the GENA iPAQ development environment.   Lot's of stuff to remember after so many months.

1430 - We're at 26.28N, 126.40W.  Light clouds, about 70 degrees, very nice topside.

1700 - Just spent an hour and a half sitting on the platform just above the bow reading.   It's about 70 outside and we have a following wind which must be blowing at about the same speed the ship is advancing which is between 22 and 23 MPH.  I sat there comfortable with barely a breeze.   John, the other passenger, was up on the bow as well doing a crossword puzzle.   I'm reading John Brockman's collection of essays called, The New Humanists - science on the edge.   I've read four essays so far (going through in sequence) and they've all been good.   It amazes me that scientists need to explain the value of science - but I guess that's why they're doing it.

Looking down at the water, I could see the fractal nature of its surface.   Little ripples, medium ones and the big ones we call waves all adding and subtracting across their range of scales.  I kept looking to see if I could confirm the wind's direction from the water's surface.  After awhile, I discerned that I could.   The smallest ripples I could see were arced away from the breezes pushing them.   In general, this level of ripples are always at right angles to the breeze and the arcing tells the wind's direction.   They say that wind blowing over a wide body of water can build from tiny ripples to small wavelets to full waves, given enough time or the small effects to add up into the big ones.   That also explains why, in an hour and half, we'd never seeming gotten any closer to a huge bank of low clouds ahead of us.   The wind was driving them before us.

This part of the North Pacific is really empty.  Polynesia lies far in front of us past the equator (2500 miles).   Hawaii is far to the west (1900 miles) and the North American continent is now 750 miles behind us.   There are no islands in this part of the ocean.  Just water and more water.   You can climb as high as you like on the ship and the horizon always looks the same.

The water is a dark blue and visually impenetrable.   I've looked but I've seen no sign of fish.   Further south, we'll find flying fish and, as we pass through Polynesia, I expect to see dolphins coming to play in the bow wake.

I mentioned to the Captain over lunch that if he liked, I'd be glad to spent time on the satellite phone talking to his tech support to see if we could recover the E-mail computer.  He smiled and mentioned that it costs $2/minute and I gathered that he thought it too expensive.   Not a big problem but it would have been nice to be able to drop a note to Sharon every day or so.   It seems odd being so out of touch with her.