Time....

The clock in our dry lab keeps track of time.....

 
I have been thinking a lot about time while on this ship. I've really lost track of what day and time it is......most of my time is spent indoors in a window-less lab. There is a GIANT clock that keeps track of Universal Time or GMT, and that's the easiest to follow. Most of the computers are on local time, but they also have a little pop-up that tells you GMT. The ship runs on a 24 hr clock (so 6pm would be 1800 hours) and so all announcements are made using that. My watch is on PDT (yes Ted I haven't changed my watch!) and for some reason my itouch was on Auckland time! It has been very calm but cloudy so you also can't tell what time it is by looking outside. Many people are on 12 hr watches and a few are on from12pm to 12am. They really don't want to know what time it is because time moves slowly for them. For me time is moving slowly because I am away from home and quickly because my instruments aren't quite ready yet. Much of our time is spent waiting around.....the Coast Guard is very careful and so any operations have to have a plan- and then there are meetings about the plan. So we all hurry when we approach a site for sampling and then wait for the samples or wait for the broken winch to get fixed or wait for a new plan that then has to clear the helm and then it all starts over....