Hello from Kingman Reef!

After spending yesterday afternoon capturing stunning videos of some curious sharks on the reef using the ROV and an evening enduring some wet & windy (40 knots) squalls, it’s cleared up to be a blue-sky day here on the RCS. In fact, today’s been full of excitement – we’re talking a water bottle overboard rescue (“this is not a drill!” – blog to come on that tomorrow), tagging three tunas, and celebrating the birthday of our very own steward, Ashley!

You may be wondering how we’re getting by out here on the sea – what’s filling our bellies? How many meals are we eating a day? How are we surviving without our Starbucks and other comfort foods? Are we catching fish for dinner? While we did catch our first, second and third tunas of the trip within the last 24 hours (all yellowfin tuna!!), we caught them for research and released them back into the ocean after tagging them for science.

But don’t worry, our bellies are full, the galley (kitchen) is most people’s favorite space on the ship and we couldn’t be luckier to be graced with the warm & humorous presence, radiant smile and unparalleled focaccia making & wooden spoon whittling skills of our steward (chef), Ashley. Ashley does much more than fill our bellies with food. Being assigned a day in the galley working as Ashley’s assistant steward as part of our watch rotation schedule is the most highly coveted job on the ship. In fact, it’s one of the most highly bartered things on this vessel (aside from midrats). When you’re assistant steward, you get to dream up delicious meals with all the flavors you’ve been craving, take occasional trips to the reefer to grab some veggies (and linger a little longer to cool your body temperature down a couple degrees), and of course, sit on the galley stools and chat about life (or boat gossip) with Ashley. Long story short: Happy birthday, Ashley! We love you!!! Simply put, you’re such a delight.

An Ode to Ashley, Our Galley Queen:

What a Day!

In the wee hours of the morning, our queen rises from her bunk, slips her apron over her head, and gravitates towards the coffee station.

Dawn Watch has completed their mission – brew a fresh pot of coffee before Ashely wakes up: Check!

As the sun’s rays begin to peek above the horizon and glisten through the galley portholes, our queen is already perched in front of the griddle.

As she turns up the heat, she chuckles to herself remembering the dance move that A Watch and Duncan taught her last night – the griddy. She scrambles the eggs and flips the bacon as she rehearses the steps in her head, preparing for her next Swizzle performance.

She eyes the hutch, where last night’s “midrat” (midnight snacks) containers lay picked bare. The cookie bars, of course, were a hit once again.

Moments later, Dawn Watch is graced by the presence of our queen on the quarterdeck. Everyone pauses for a minute to feel the warm light of the sunrise break through the layer of cumulus stratus on the horizon, to listen to the faint flap of the sail as it luffs with the gentle gusting winds, and to breath in the blend of salty sea spray and bacon wafting up from the galley.

Someone turns to our queen Ashley, points their finger towards the sky and exclaims, “Delight!” – a gratitude practice she has spread amongst the ship’s co.

After the brief sunrise appreciation is over, Queen Ashley returns to the galley to ensure that no one has been snack jacking.

Just as she steps into the galley, the ship surges forwards & backwards, left & right, up & down all at once, causing a raucous crash of pots and pans and all other loose miscellaneous items.

An unattended cup of hot chocolate unfortunately left on an un-gimbled table goes tumbling to the floor.

“Sole towel sole towel sole towel!” The nearest idle hands rush to the cleaning locker to retrieve a towel to clean the mess from the floor before it spreads with the rolling of the ship.

Our queen, observing from her galley throne, looks on to the commotion in the salon.

She taps into her sixth sense and knows that it’s going to be a day of rough seas (confirmed also by the radar in the doghouse).

The assistant steward enters the galley, proudly dawns the lime green rooster apron, and locks eyes with the queen. They give each other a nod to acknowledge the high likelihood of hip bruises from bracing themselves against countertops, pruney fingers from washing dishes and inevitable pit stains.

On a day like today, Queen Ashley considers choosing a recipe that is simple and time efficient, such as ramen.

Sigh   She remembers that the social snackers have blown through the ramen stockpile weeks ago

Plan B: maybe a quick and easy PB&J sandwich bar? Nope, the peanut butter ration is running low too… She thinks to herself, “Dang, either these Stanford students need to work on their self-control, or I really need to put a padlock on the snack cabinet.”

Luckily, our Queen can step up to any challenge, and within a couple of hours, she has prepped one of the hardiest, most nourishing meals of all our lives.

We leave the gimbled tables feeling rejuvenated, connected to one another after some meal-time laughter, and full of delight.

It’s safe to say that our queen Ashley, as well as the entire ship’s co, can go to bed tonight (or this morning or this afternoon), letting out an accomplished sigh, saying “what a day!”

-Jessie Kaull

Editor's note: we had some technical difficulties with this post, so it is a bit out of sequence here, having been written on 5/26 when the ship was still at Kingman Reef. Sorry for any confusion this causes!

Falling in Love

Today concludes our stay at Palmyra. In this moment, preparing to leave the comfort of the lagoon, I feel as if I am leaving something very special behind.

I think it's fair to say that many aboard the RC Seamans have fallen in love with Palmyra. The gorgeous tropical reefs and sparkling beaches tickle the hearts of even the saltiest of our sailors. I, however, am in a more unique predicament. I have fallen in love on Palmyra.

I first saw her on the beach. She was there when our group stepped ashore, gazing out over the ocean like Poseidon's daughter, one with the sea. Struck by her beauty, my eyes briefly met hers. I looked away in embarrassment, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw she too turned red.

After some internal deliberation, I finally gathered the courage to approach her. I walked up to her, still sitting on the beach, and introduced myself.

To my horror, she looked at me with fear and started to back away. What had I done wrong? Was it something in the tone of my voice? Was I being too forward? In a moment of sudden clarity, I realized my mistake. Crouching, I leaned back onto my hands, and side by side we began to stroll down the glistening reef flats.

I'll admit, my lover was rather shy. Despite my efforts to lead conversation, we always deferred back to content silence. As I see it, our special bond transcended words - we spoke only the language of love. As we walked, we drew closer and closer, our steps falling into a harmonious rhythm. Perhaps it was the equatorial heat, but I could feel my chest fill with warmth. She too, became livelier, increasingly opening up and coming out of her shell. Before long we were dancing together in the sand, frolicking with unbridled joy. Minutes turned to hours as we basked among the coconuts and coral. Cupid's arrow had struck me firmly in the heart.

As the sun began to draw closer to the horizon, I realized my time with my newfound love was setting too. Soon, the boats would arrive at the dock, tearing us apart. Dark clouds formed overhead, and we were quickly overtaken by a violent squall. I fell to my knees in the muddy sand and cursed the sky, pleading with whatever cruel force of nature had brought us together, only to separate us with such haste. The sky's sole response was more thunder, a mocking laugh to my misery.

Struggling to hold back tears, I tenderly lifted my soulmate and placed her in the palm of my hand. Peering into her eyestalks, I could see that she was similarly devastated. Holding her pincer between my fingers, I whispered consoling words, knowing full well that my promises were empty. As the life boat whisked me away, I watched the elegant outline of her shell disappear into the rain.

I suppose it was doomed to fail from the beginning. I, a boy from a small town in West Michigan, and she, a stunning Palmyran Strawberry Hermit Crab.

Star-crossed, in every sense, yet connected by some deeper force. Even now, as our ship undertakes its journey northward, I scan the horizon for signs of her. My eyes are met with nothing but empty blue ocean. Such is the tragedy of the boy and the crab.

With great sorrow,

Dakota Riemersma

Palmyra Review

5/18: As we motored through the narrow channel into Palmyra’s west lagoon, we were greeted by a group of 6 Mantas performing barrel rolls along the port side of the RCS. A single grey reef shark swam a few meters alongside us just as we cruised out of the channel. Later that day, a few of us rode the defender to the the Nature Conservancy’s research station, where we took our first steps on land in 3 weeks. After hiking through sand flats filled with brilliant yellow butterfly fish, banded snake eels, and more hermit crabs than any of us had ever seen, we emerged out of the forest onto a pristine swimming hole. Maitri, Mark, and I snorkeled around the clearing, as Drive and Dakota took turns taking off a rope swing into the crystal-clear water. At one point, I climbed a slanted palm tree about 12 feet above the swimming area, and watched my first blacktip reef shark of the trip cruise directly beneath me, just a few feet from the swimmers. Our time on Palmyra would be very different from that spent on the high seas.

5/19: My second day in Palmyra was my first chance to snorkel the iconic reef. The first thing I noticed about the habitat was the incredible 3-dimensionality of the corals. In addition to being vibrantly colorful, the reef, which ranged from 0 to about 15 feet in depth, was characterized by unique and intricate geometries. My snorkel buddy Dakota and I first circled the boat, taking in the sensory overload of fishes, invertebrates, and coral that we had been waiting so long to see. However, as soon as we stared down our first subadult blacktip, we had a new goal - finding as many sharks as we could. In total, we counted around 9 sharks that day. My favorite encounter was a whitetip reef shark that I intersected as we each rounded the same patch of coral. I suddenly found myself just a few feet directly above the shark, and it allowed me to follow it from above for what felt like 2-3 minutes as it cruised through coral around our site.

After returning to the boat in the afternoon, Dakota, Mark, and I climbed onto the bowsprit, where we watched two mantas cruise directly beneath us. We watched the mantas circle around the boat and under us for thirty minutes, before heading below deck for dinner. Later that night, Sydney taught me how to extract DNA from a potential anglerfish sample that we had each placed bets on.

5/20: Hiking through the sand flats and forest of Strawn Island are what I will remember most about my time in the atoll. I spent my entire third day in Palmyra traversing the uninhabited island, and finding just about every terrestrial vertebrate Palmyra had to offer. As we motored toward the island, JP pointed out a turtle 15 feet off our boat, and I knew the day would be good. Hiking alongside the water, we were greeted by juvenile blacktips on our left, and dozens boobies on our right. At one point, hundreds of mullet began jumping out of the water. It looked as if one huge mass was galloping through reef, surely being chased by a hungry blacktip.

Diego helped identify nesting brown and masked boobies, and I took some of my favorite bird photos ever on the hike. He also spotted a small gecko just off the water, and I had the chance to get a photo I’ve been imagining for a while - a small lizard on a tropical coast, with palm trees in the foreground and untouched beaches in the background. Once we had spotted many more geckos and boobies, we emerged onto a larger sand flat from which we could see the RCS in the distance. Audrey met us for lunch, bringing apples, hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter, and honey. As we all wolfed down what felt like one of the best meals of our lives, Karthik (who had brought a plastic ziplock instead of a water bottle), Mark, and I tried our hardest to open coconuts on some rocks.

Soon, Chinmay, Matt, Mia, and Jenny arrived after a successful morning Manta mission. A few of us took temperature measurements throughout the sand flat for a fun project idea we had thought about while at Hopkins. Next, the group hiked through the forest and explored a series of World War II era bunkers. Inside one of them, we found the only mature coconut crab encountered on the trip. We were all really excited for Matt, who had been excited about seeing coconut crabs for many weeks, and happily shared all the facts he knew about their life cycle.

5/21: I finally got the chance to join Chinmay and Matt on a manta mission, and we set out with high hopes to deploy a net-tow, perform CTD-casts throughout the channel, and possibly see some mantas. Although no mantas made an appearance, we all had a great time. Barb cracked jokes as the net deployment turned out to be a failure. Chinmay, Anna, Matt, and I marveled at the groups of sharks that would circle our boat every time we stopped, dipping our heads into the water to spot blacktips, red snappers, and titan triggerfish from both up close and afar. I returned to the boat excited, but wanting more than ever to see new marine animals.

5/22: Before settling on studying white shark migration to Hawaii, Mia and I had planned to study how the thermal structure of sand flats influenced blacktip shark movement. Although we didn’t get to make it a full project, we were able to spend time on our second day at Strawn setting up some cameras and taking temperature measurements across the nearest sand flat. All the other Palmyra projects had made me jealous to do science around the reef, and sampling along our transect along the flat reminded me how much I love conducting field work, and how it helps me better appreciate interesting habitats. After the transect, we spent the rest of the morning further exploring Strawn. Camille collected coconuts to bring back to the boat, and JP ventured off to photograph boobies. 

5/23: My final day in Palmyra was spent appreciating the coral reef the atoll is so well known for. I departed for Penguin Spit (our most common snorkeling destination) with Matt, Chinmay, and Karthik, and we all formed a big snorkel group as soon as we got there. On my first snorkel trip, I felt overwhelmed with all the unfamiliar animals surrounding me. However, this time I was able to focus, and take everything in. We didn’t spot as many sharks this time, but we were able to marvel at a group of massive barracuda cruising through the reef, and schools of hundreds of fishes traversing corals.

Extra: Although we have left Palmyra - the pinnacle of our voyage, our days have been anything but devoid of action. A few days ago, Mark helped reel in a 100 + lb yellowfin yuna, and we tagged three yellowfin in total. It was my favorite day of the trip. To celebrate Ashely’s birthday, we had a meal of yuna prepared in three different ways, all of which were delicious. We recently found out that eDNA samples (tirelessly collected by Tanvi, Sydney, and Shaili) from along our cruise track included ghost shark, megamouth shark, thresher shark, mako shark, blue whale and other DNA. Today was Mia’s birthday, and we celebrated with cookies and ice cream. I also reeled in our first skipjack of the voyage, which later turned into a delicious poke.

Jaden Clark

25 Way(ves) to Describe the Ocean:

.               Liquid land

.               Sea blanket

.               "Puka" (dimple of sorts) in/on a Perfect Plane

.               Mother Nature's Gatorade

.               Flooded/Fully-Filled Trench

 

.               Big Blue - Captain Greg

.               Planet Earth's Breath - Jan Whitting

.               Place of Peace, Turbulence & Turmoil

.               Molecule & Mineral

.               City of Stars

 

.               Moving Mountaintops

.               Peeking Meerkats

.               Marching Windswept Waves

.               The Biggest, Saltiest Raindroplet Ever

.               Heaven's Tear

 

.               Pinhole from the Clouds

.               Hissing Splash & Sputter

.               Fizz & Foam

.               Whirring Whisps

.               Liferipple & Mist

 

.               Seavalley Hike

.               Ceiling of the Deep

.               Chest of the Sea

.               Mother (of All)          

-Matthew Mettias                                            

From Safe Harbor in Palmyra

After 1400 nm of sailing south from Hawaii at an average speed of approximately 6.5 knots- in seas that ranged between Beaufort 4 and 7 for most of the trip we are finally here at the Marine Protected Area known as Palmyra Atoll. Our Transect oceanography work is now complete with 6 project teams collecting oceanographic data daily that ranged from measuring pH, Chlorophyll, collecting and sequencing eDNA samples, to measuring the relationship of the depth of the oxygen minimum and deep scattering layer- to measuring the biomass captured in our meter net tows.

The squalls of the inter-tropical convergence parted ways today and full sunshine greeted us as the ship entered the Palmyra channel with emerald colored waters that have a gorgeous blue color when the sun hits the shallows- ocean is contrasted by the deep greens of the vegetation  of this tropical paradise.   Hundreds of Masked Boobys flew in to greet  us and alighted on our rigging as we motored through the narrow channel with mantas swimming beneath us. Students looked in awe as we entered the west Lagoon and with a local escort we set our anchor for the first portion of our stay.

Once secured, a briefing by our TNC and FWS hosts took place, and then  two sets of Stanford teams set off in the ship's zodiacs to explore the reef to conduct the first set of coral reef fish transects on the terrace near Penguin spit. The objective today was to begin re-examining the status of the reef as discerned by our Stanford@SEA 2003 class, a project led  by former student Charlotte Stevenson. This year a team with Courtney and Lilah McKormick along with additional students Anna, Regina and Jess are surveying the same areas to see how they have changed.

In addition Postdoctoral associate Camille Pagniello and her acoustic team are "listening to the reef the next few days" to measure the fish sounds- a distinct way to assess the reef health. Finally our Manta Team has begun their oceanographic survey late this afternoon -  sampling the Manta habitats using the 2.1 million acoustic detections and satellite tagging data we have collected with our Colleagues previously as a guide on where to go. 

Remaining students are enjoying some well needed R & R at the Palmyra Swimming hole, and having guided tours of the bird habitats and landscape that makes this unique refuge a delightful place to visit.

From Palmyra,

Barbara Block

Prothro Professor of Marine Science

Infinity at Palmyra Atoll

I have dreamed of going to Palmyra since I was sixteen. Over the past half decade I have envisioned ten thousand versions of the moment I'd one day see it. None of the those imagined futures, not even the sum of all them, could approach the magic of real thing.

The ship was predicted to spot land sometime early this morning. I awoke at sunrise, slammed contact lenses into my eyeballs, and blitzed above deck.

The sky was wispy-grey, with rippling sheets of high-altitude clouds giving way to clear morning sky. On the far horizon, underlit cumulous clouds radiated pale yellow like the floor of Olympus. A thin gold line pierced through just above the horizon-the sun was edging upwards. Minute by minute, light rays grew and spilled over the horizon and refracted on the bottom of the clouds, which glowed orange, pink, and red. The full moon stood watch above the multicolor drama. 

There was Palmyra. Sixteen islets of silhouetted palms rising straight up from the ocean. Some parts of the forest appeared from this distance to be dense masses of jagged treetops, while others were thinner, and the outlines of individual trees emerged.

A Watch (we work in A, B, and C Watch group teams; I am in C Watch) was laughing happily as more folks came above deck and gazed baffled at the land. We all smiled silently as we leaned over the railing, each letting the realness of this moment filter through our own many imagined fantasies of it. Of all the different emotions we were each feeling individually, a core part of this experience carried the same inexplicable gravity for all of us.

*Aside: They had first spotted land that morning around 5:30 am (Erika shouted the definitive "Land Ho!"). About half an hour before that, A Watch had seen something in the sky. Erika saw it from the bow, and within seconds Vuk had rushed over and reported seeing the same thing: a pencil-thin line of brilliant white light, the length of the moon's diameter, streaking across the sky. And it didn't fade out-it soared on and on and remained in the sky for full seconds. A Watch religiously maintains that that they saw a UFO.* 

The water was purple. Then the sun peaked up and splashed it orange. Within a minute, the sky gave way to brilliant day.

*20 minutes later*

I'm sitting on the doghouse now. There is no wind so we've revved up the engine to motor towards Palmyra, aiming to anchor at 0900 in the lagoon. 

Now we're close enough to see color and depth on the island. What were once solid grey outlines now reveal themselves as three dimensional: there are forwardmost trees and trees receding into the distance forming a cove around a lagoon. Waves are breaking on the reef and throwing spray into the air.

We're under a mostly blue sky with a couple cloud puffs but a cluster of heavy grey clouds are gathered over Palmyra. A grey cube of opaque rain sheets down over the rightmost corner of the atoll. 

All morning, I had thought that the island seemed indifferent, stalwart-neither inviting nor shunning our approach. But now, as the dark rain mass crawls across the whole island and masks the emergent greens, blues, and whites back in grey, I sense the first note of foreboding. The ominous dread consistently documented in the sailing logs and journal entries of Palmyra-visiting mariners going two-and-a-half centuries back. (I and everyone else journaling about today aboard the RCS joins that anthology).

*5 minutes later*

Suddenly we're close. Students are asked to stay on the forward deck as the crew commandeers this tight, difficult channel entry. A couple crew with walkie-talkies have climbed up forty feet to the top of the rigging, another is standing on the bow, and Captain Greg stands with commanding confidence on the quarterdeck near the helm, and Duncan steers. As we enter the reef channel, crew members mandate that we all be quiet so commands can be received and updates given between the RCS and the small dingy manned by Palmyra staff, guiding us in.

No one would be speaking anyway. Language has melted away at the feet of the temple we were entering. Towering jungle trees of shimmering lime and deep dark green and every tone in between shoot up from the thinnest band of visible soil, ringed by a couple meters of powder-white sand, lapped by kissing baby waves. Above a single treetop circle five dozen boobies, moving like a feeding cyclone over an abundant feast. In another single branched tree, forty birds sit like porcelain Christmas lights. And that is every tree on this dozen-acre-long-patch of outcropping paradise. And the then the next islet is upon us: some different but equally spectacular wrangle of knotted up, squawking forest-vibrantly, aggressively, defiantly alive.

We scan all around us. All of a sudden we are inside it, in the lagoon. We are surrounded on all visible sides by these islets that formed millions of years ago when a colossal ocean volcano subsided on a moving tectonic plate down below the ocean surface and the coral reef growing around its rim crept upwards a couple centimeters per year, just faster than the volcano sank or the Pacific rose, and on the reef accumulated soil and sand, and trees grew and shark swarmed and birds nested and Polynesian voyagers stopped by during long voyages to catch fish and rest and then pass on, and still not a single human soul stayed and lived in this mystical place until just the last century.

Some of the islets are just a single, isolated, tall, 100-meter-across mottled mass of overgrown trees. Others are just five lone trees on a little spit of sand in the middle of the lagoon. We float past each in near silence. A deep, powerful rumble resonates from the edge of the reef, where the Pacific crashes on the coral. The main ambient soundtrack is, of course, the bird cries. Above that is the occasional click of some metal pulley in the rigging, tapping the mast. Above that are the sporadic directions Captain Greg is receiving through his radio and the updates he voices back.

Then, at a hushed murmur amidst that all, are our awed whispers. Regina just described the silence as "reverent." I am thinking of a quote from an essay I once read: "Language itself seems to fall to pieces when it touches certain topics."

The water below us is blindingly blue and pierced with sun rays. Farther on, surrounding the islets, the water is a pristinely mint-green, iridescent snow-blue, and can't be deeper than a couple feet. The magic of the moment is coupled by the gravity of the danger. Leaning over the railing, we can see clear-blue down to the reef floor below. Our slow, tactical entry over depths as shallow as twenty-five feet has incredibly high stakes.

"Mantas on the port side!" We all scramble to the railing. Two meters from the side of the boat, four manta rays swim at the surface. Each is about a meter across. They twirl and spin over for us. Their wings playfully flap the water before they retreat below. Then the water is calm for a minute, and then a blacktip reef shark passes by.

***

Within minutes, we had just seen all this. And we had merely just glided in without yet even trying to explore the layers of wonders alive and dead and undead in this place. Just then it collectively dawned on us-like a radiantly sun-lit cumulous cloud drifting overhead during sunrise-that we had entered an infinity. Unexplored and unexplorable depths of beauty and diversity thrive here.

That realization was augmented by another: we had never really "entered" an infinity because we had never left infinity. All the world is endlessly magnificent in ways that every living, conscious, and curious creature can spend their lives trying to understand. No matter if we try to master some portion of the night sky, a transect of the sea, a single islet, or a small patch of soil, we will never explore to the ends of all its dimensions. The world in its infinite complexity spans out farther and macroscopically bigger-but also more inward and microscopically smaller!-than any of its inhabitants can ever hope to comprehend.

Then, a third realization came: the endless beauty drifting past us before our eyes, and the endless beauty of the whole planet that hosts it, is the same infinity that we carry in each of ourselves.

Staring at the sun's glistening reflection in the water, picking up and letting go and picking up and letting go each of these infinities, I accepted that I could hold them all at once. And I was blissfully content with that.

- Charlie Hoffs

 

1,000 miles

Yesterday morning just before 0600 local time, our trip log reached 1000 nautical miles. While I peeled carrots in the galley later that day, this number kept sloshing around in my thoughts. I began to consider the personal ground I've covered in these 1000 nautical miles.

At mile zero, tethered to the dock in Honolulu, I had no idea what happened when you hauled on a braille or a clewline. At mile 1000, I know that if you do a heave to maneuver and you're still making two knots of forward progress, you have to double gybe again and sheet in hard after the first one to reduce the lift generated by the jib and stays'ls, and make sure the cow of the jib is resting against the forestay.

At mile zero, I was ravenous for knowledge. I wanted to know the name and function of every line and be able to convert between degrees and cardinal directions without looking at the chart. At mile 1000, I am much more invested in learning about and supporting my shipmates. As it turns out, the parts of a sail rarely make you laugh until your ribs feel like they might snap.

At mile zero, I was so concerned about getting enough sleep, anxious that without enough of it, I'd have no energy to learn and socialize and be a competent sailor. But I know now that energy on the Seamans doesn't just come from a proper night's sleep and a full stomach - it's granted in spurts that rain down on you just when you need it most. It surges when I stand lookout at the bow in the dead of a moonless night, and the gentle exhales of giants surfacing all around me sends tingles through my fingers. It bubbles up when a rainbow kisses the sea just a few dozen meters ahead of me while I take a deck shower. It rushes through me when I step on the deck to find the sky looking up at me, the sunset's golds printed onto the dimpled waves. It spikes when, on a quiet, sleepy dawn watch, a flying fish launches out of the water, ricochets off Diego's stomach, and flops onto the deck.

At mile zero, home was far away, present only in the pictures and letters of my loved ones taped to the ceiling of my bunk (that I do in fact smack my head on every time I sit up). At mile 1000, those pictures still represent home, and I look at them for a few minutes every night before turning off my light. But at mile 1000, home is beginning to seep into the floorboards of the Seamans too. I catch whiffs of it in group workouts at the bow, when a big roll sends us flying into one another in a knot of limbs and laughter. I sense it in the moments where I speak without thinking beforehand. I feel it in my ability to joke with my shipmates, watch officers, and even professors. I hear it in the guitar and ukulele plucking at all hours of the day, and in the temporary tattoo parlor that pops up in the salon after dinner.

We're only 1000 nautical miles in, with more than that to go. And so while in less than a month, I'll be flying home, I know that by that time, I'll be leaving home behind here too.

Lilah McCormick