Hi, my name is Jenn Conyers. I’m an undergraduate ocean engineering student at UNH from Franklin, MA. I’m here helping the research team, which should be very interesting because I’ve never spent more than an afternoon out at sea. Living on a boat is a very strange but exciting at the same time. The boat is constantly rocking back and forth which can make it difficult to walk down hallways but is nice when you are trying to fall asleep. This afternoon some of the scientists lost the battle to the drowsiness side effect of the sea sickness medicine and had to take a quick recovery nap.

Today, we left San Juan to start the trek to our first site which should take roughly three and a half days. As the boat was leaving, there was a harbor pilot driving the ship out of port. As we neared the exit of the channel, a small boat came up next to us and followed alongside for a bit. Then the pilot who was driving our boat handed the reins back over to our captain. He then literally hopped onto the pilot boat from our boat and we watched them pull away. It was very strange watching land disappear off into the distance, knowing we won’t be setting foot on it again for a few weeks.