Questions Submitted by Rocky Mountain School
How does the boat survive such big waves?
I had a great discussion about how ships react to ocean water with Captain Ralph. We were comparing the sea-worthiness of the Seward Johnson and the S.J. II. Ships move a lot in the water and the basic motions are: pitch (end to end), roll (side to side), and yaw (a sort of pivoting motion). There is a lot of physics involved in your question, and I would like to ask Captain Ralph one more time before I give you my final answer. I would like to encourage you to do a little web search, or independent study so that you can compare what you learn with what the Captain says. Believe it or not, he just ordered me to go to bed! I'm sitting in the galley with my laptop and he just breezed by and said with a big grin, "It's way past your bedtime young lady, get to bed!" I saluted him and said "Aye, Aye Captain!"
What food do you eat on the boat and is it any good?
The food is delicious! Gloria (nickname Sam) and Wendy give us a lot of different foods to eat. I wish that I could cook like they do! They have real talent. We've had spaghetti, breaded salmon, shrimp & oysters, corned beef, sloppy joes, and more. They even prepare vegetarian dishes too. Two people celebrated their birthdays while on this ship, and each one had their own birthday cake. Ieng Jo had a chocolate cake, and Sarah had a carrot cake. There is a little pantry stocked with crackers and cookies for snacks. Many times I'll toast some cinnamon bread for a nighttime snack. Yum!
What are the differences in the clouds you see from the boat and the ones in Michigan?
We get really complicated weather in Michigan. Michigan is a peninsula state, surrounded by water. Michigan have a lot of stratus cloud formation in the winter, with long gray sheets that cover the sky and make me depressed! We also have a lot of lake effect snow. In the spring we have a lot of thunderstorms with cumulous cloud formations. In the Caribbean clouds here are pretty simple, and the scientists hoped they'd be simple enough to study and figure out.
How does the amount of cloud coverage affect the results of your experiments?
Actually we are studying the clouds! One thing scientists wish to do is to find out more about what creates this kind of cloud cover, and what this cloud cover depends on. One goal of the mission is to take the data and create a computer model of cloud cover so that meteorologists can better predict the weather.
Has using your radar to determine the depth of the ocean floor ever failed with your ship or any other ship you know of?
As far as I know, the radars the determine the depth of the ocean floor don't really fail. I haven't heard of a failure on the 4 cruises I have been on. Boats really depend upon them so they don't run aground, and I imagine that they may not go out unless their depth sounders are working, it's too dangerous for them. - Paquita
Did you find answers to any of the questions you set out to answer and what were they?
Well....we still need to analyze the data to see how well the data can address the questions we are interested in. - Paquita
Have you discovered any new species? Have you had any problems with insects?
I'm glad you ask about new species, because creature studies are fascinating aren't they? However, we were all focused on the sky and ocean surface mostly because we were studying clouds and rain. There was always a lot of excitement on the ship when Paquita spotted clouds that were raining, or were about to rain. On the island of Antigua, if the winds died down then the mosquitoes came out. It's kind of joke for us in Michigan though... you can by t-shirts claiming that you were carried off by mosquitoes because they get so big here. When I saw the tiny ones in Antigua I laughed and asked "Hey little guy, where's your mother?" Still, even the little ones can carry diseases, so I was glad those prevailing trade winds kept blowing and the mosquitoes left us alone. The day we walked the beach all morning we were bitten by sand fleas, but it didn't really bother me much. - Judy
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