A day in the life...

What people think I do...What I actually do...

Life at sea was a challenging schedule to adjust to, but it came with many rewards and a level of simplicity and order that landlubbing lacks. I'll describe what it was like to go through the typical day aboard the Robert C. Seamans, and the crazy things that became normal for me! 

On Deck
Life aboard the RCS runs on a 24-hour clock: at any given point someone is sleeping (except for all-hands meetings), while others are standing watch over the ship and her crew. Military time was engrained in our heads to avoid confusion. We students were divided into 3 groups of 8, to be accompanied by a mate and assistant scientist: all together making up a watch. A typical day could run like this:

• 0300 - A watch relieves C watch
• 0700 - B watch relieves A watch
• 1300 - C watch relieves B watch
• 1430 - All-hands class, crew stands watch
• 1900 - A watch relieves C watch
• 2300 - B watch relieves A watch
• 0300 - C watch relieves B watch

And so on...

The fabulous C-watch

This was our schedule for the entire duration of the sailing voyage, and the only exception to this was during port-stops when students would stand dock, or anchor, watch in groups of two for an hour, between the hours of 2300 (11pm) and 0700. In some ways it made each day feel extra long and each week extremely blurred, but it also ensured we had plenty of Pacific sunrises, dark nights under the milky way, and hopefully sleep. The watch schedule ensured that each day we worked between 7 and 10 of any given 24 hours, and the remaining pigeon holes of time were spent sleeping, writing papers, sitting on deck, and socializing.

In the Galley

Helen, Conor, David, and Kyle helping in the galley

Of course, the one thing that kept everything running smoothly was coffee. No, food, I meant food, but yes also 24-hour coffee. In comes Lauren, our fantastic cook who showered us with birthday deserts and made our lives joyous and stuffed. Because the RCS housed 40 hungry souls, each meal was eaten in two seatings, with the oncoming watch and others (professors and crew) would eat first (0620, 1220, or 1820) and the relieved and lazy (inactive) watches would eat second (0700, 1300, 1900).

Helm-star Hayden and Lauren, the cook

In between these always fantastic meals would be morning, afternoon, and midnight snack, ensuring we would never ever go hungry! Everyone got the chance to act as assistant steward for the day, helping Lauren perform the magic of the galley. It's easy to forget that all these meals were cooked while the ship rocks back and forth a few times per minute, sometimes up to 20 degrees each way. It's magic I say.

Clean, clean, clean, all day long
Arguably, cleaning was one of the most time-consuming tasks aboard the Seamans. It's an all day, every day, affair to keep her shipshape, taking participation from everybody. When at sea, it seems the dirt won't relent, which means that with no land there's only one place all that mung (dirt) is coming from...ew. Every beautiful morning after breakfast the exhausted dawn-watchers engage in the holy ritual of Dawn Cleanup (DC). Here we brandish our foxtails and dustpans, sponges and squeegees, and scrub every last inch of the sole (floor) from fore to aft. We squeegee the vile black dirt water from the sole, clean the heads (toilets), showers, and empty all the trash into the on-deck dumpster. And now it's only 8am! Having vanquished the mung, these warriors go off to sleep until class at 14:30.

Sienna very excited about cleaning

The next round of cleaning is happening on deck, with a sunrise deck wash, scrubbing the Seaman's beautiful wooden deck, rails, and deck-boxes. Special missions may include scrubbing of the doghouse (chart house) or lab rooftop. At any time of day, a valiant watcher is the designated dish washer, juggling 40 persons' plates, bowls and cups, all while the ship is rocking back and forth. They also have to tackle the pots and pans for cooking all that food! The galley gets special treatment, and every night after dinner a task-force of watchers cleans and sanitizes every surface, scrubs the griddle until it shines, takes the floor mats on deck to dry, and cleans the floor.

Laundry wherever it can fit

We say that a good sole cleaning is good for the soul. Every week or so though, the mung armies amass their forces in an epic battle with the residents of the RCS known as Field Day. I'm truly not exaggerating when I say that this event involves the cleaning of every square inch aboard our beautiful home. Floor, wall, and ceiling; cracks and crevices; even under the coffee machine... After our sermon on the mung eradicated from our holy abode, we often undertake a personal cleaning, involving shampoo and jumping into the ocean. Field Day always took place in port or at anchor, so the rare swim call was always welcome.

Free time!

Besides class at 14:30, watches, and trying to get a broken 6-7 hours of sleep over the day, the rest of the time was ours! Successful time management meant you got work done on papers and research, leaving time for socializing! Music was a favorite, with guitar, ukulele, and voice. You could find other shipmates basking in the sun, trying to exercise, or going aloft. There was never an absence of sea birds to watch swooping by, and the dolphins frequently disrupted class to bring us on deck.  During port stops, there was much do in terms of collecting data and interviews for our research, but so much more to do for activities!

That about sums up the day-to-day things going on aboard the Seamans. Every day brought new things, and over the trip we became super at all our tasks. Read on!