“Man must understand his universe in order to understand his destiny. Mystery, however, is a very necessary ingredient in our lives. Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis for man’s desire to understand. Who knows what mysteries will be solved in our lifetime, and what new riddles will become the challenge of the new generation? Science has not mastered prophesy. We predict too much for the next year yet far too little for the next ten. Responding to challenges is one of democracy’s great strengths. Our successes in space can be used in the next decade in the solution of many of our planet’s problems.” — Neil Armstrong, in a speech to a Joint Meeting of the Two Houses of Congress to Receive the Apollo 11 Astronauts (16 Sep 1969), in the Congressional Record.

The science crew made sure to make the best of our time while we were transiting by celebrating the holiday! The dry lab was decorated with numerous hand-drawn spooky monsters and critters such as Nessie who came all the way across the Atlantic to see us and other creatures of the night.

Hello! Jake, the fish guy here. A little over the halfway point, in the trip, and things are starting to get a bit spooky here on the boat. The night shift took some time to decorate the main lab with some not so spooky decorations, and everybody is excited to dawn a costume and celebrate Hallow’s Eve.

Happy Halloween! I was trying to think of something witty to connect DNA and Halloween, but have come up empty-handed. Or, perhaps a discussion of DNA sequencing and dredging up memories of past genetics coursework is frightening enough by itself for some of you out there. It still scares me sometimes too...

Everything we do at sea revolves around the sunrise and sunset. You’ll see members of the crew and science party swarm outside at both dawn and dusk. It always looks similar, but there’s an element just different enough every time to keep it interesting.

Today is the night of October 29, day 14, on the R/V Armstrong. Yesterday was also our cruise Humpday! YIPPIE! Our plan of the day is at our second to last station, JAX. We will start out doing a FSAS and then a BONGO and IKMT shallow tow. The waters are relatively calm, so I am hoping we catch something cool! (Although we have caught a lot of cool things up to this point.)

I thought adjusting to the 12am-12pm shift would be a long process since it’s nearly the opposite hours of my regular life schedule, but the anticipation of seeing new ocean creatures every night shift along with the excitement and gorgeous weather during the day shift have made the transition a breeze.

Living life as a member of the night watch has inverted many of the habits one might expect to develop while out at sea. After rolling out of bed before each shift at around 4:30 (pm), I head downstairs to eat breakfast (dinner). Depending on my mood, I have my choice of either toasting a bagel or serving myself some shrimp, steak, or mashed potatoes.