Life at Sea!Q: Are some of the other
workers your friends? Do have fun working with them? Name of answerer: Olivier
Fabbri
Well, when I arrived on the
ship, I only knew one French colleague from the group of 27 scientists (and
almost 150 total people) onboard. But I quickly became friends with most people
I am working with. In particular, I have found a good friend in an American
guy, and now we spend our free time discussing of course our work onboard and about
the science behind it, but also about politics, social matters, comparing ----------------------------------------- Q: How do you talk to other
people on the ship if you don't use the same language? Name of answerer: Olivier
Fabbri English is the official
language on the ship. So everybody tries and succeeds in communicating in
English. As a non-native English speaker (I am French), I have some difficulty
understanding what my Q: This is a weird question but, what are the bathrooms like?
Name of answerer: Xixi Zhao The Chikyu’s bathrooms are similar to the ones you can see in
hotels with two important exceptions. One is that we do not have a bathtub (for
that we use the Sauna and Jacuzzi room). The other is the vacuum toilet. The
vacuum toilet is similar to the ones used in commercial airliners. It makes a
huge noise but it uses very little water. Potentially it can flush in any
direction since a vacuum system does not use gravity to move water. The pipe
does not need to go downward, meaning that you can avoid cutting into the floor
to put in new toilets. Katie Name of answerer: David Goldsby
Thanks for asking! Name of answerer: Matt Knuth
There are a lot of sea gulls around the ship all the time. We
didn't see any until the start of January, but now it seems like there are more
every day. They mostly just fly around the ship, but occasionally they land on
the helideck. The only type of fish I have seen is the Mahi-mahi, which we can
see swimming around the front of the ship on clear days. When we were using the
submersible ROV at the first site, we could occasionally see smaller fish
through its camera. Q: Do you wash your clothes on the boat or do you wait until you
dock? Name of answerer: David Goldsby We wash our clothes on the boat - or, rather, someone from the
excellent housekeeping staff on the boat does our laundry for us. We just place
it in a bag outside our cabin door and usually it is back within a few hours,
clean and folded! Thanks for asking! Q: Are you allowed to wear your own clothes or do you have a uniform? Lina Name of answerer: David Goldsby We wear our own normal, everyday clothes with one exception - when
we walk in hazardous areas of the boat, which are mostly located outside of the
scientific labs. Then, in addition to our normal everyday clothes, we must wear
a kind of uniform, which we call “full PPE,” or Physical Protection Equipment.
This includes a hardhat, safety glasses, steel-toed boots, and coveralls. This
equipment helps insure that we don't get hurt while walking in more hazardous
areas of the boat. Also, once a week we have a fire drill, where we wear full
PPE plus a lifejacket. During the drill we gather (muster) at our muster
stations near the lifeboats, like we might do in a real emergency.Thanks for asking! Q: Can you use your cell phone to contact your family? Name of answerer: Matt Knuth are actually too far from shore for cell phones to work. Even if we were closer, most of us don't have phones that would work in . However, the ship does have a constant satellite uplink. That gives us basic internet, a few satellite TV channels, and also lets us place phone calls. The people setting up the expedition were kind enough to provide a line for the scientists to use on board. It is really nice to be able to talk to my family, particularly on Christmas and New Year's Eve. Kyah Name of answerer: Arito Sakaguchi We each have our own cabin. It is not large, but very comfortable. There is a bed, a desk, a bathroom, and storage cabinets.
--------------------------------- Q: Do you ever get lonely and miss your family while away in
the ocean for so
long?
Name of answerer: Xin Su
Yes.
Noah and Grace
One of our goals is that Chikyu must operate in a way that is friendly to the environment. We usually keep all garbage on board and off-load it either to a smaller boat every few days or when we reach port. It is our policy to minimize environmental impact. ----- Q: Do you go fishing for your food ? Do you have a freezer to keep it (the fish) in?
Thomas Nope, we don't fish for our food. In fact, there is no fishing allowed on Chikyu, since the fishing lures and line could get caught up in the giant thrusters underneath the boat that help Chikyu stay in position during drilling. As an avid fisherman, I was a bit disappointed to learn this, especially after I saw mahi mahi swimming alongside the boat! However, we have plenty of fresh seafood and vegetables every day for lunch and dinner, since we are close enough to land that we are regularly resupplied via a supply boat (see picture). In fact, we are close enough to Japan to see the coastline on a clear day. Thanks for asking! Another answerer: Rob Harris While it would be great fun to spend time fishing there are several reasons we don’t. The most important is that the lines might interfere with the ship’s equipment. Also, the freeboard of the ship (the distance between the water and the deck) is so large it would be tough to get a fish up, and finally we don’t have a lot of free time. Fortunately we have excellent cooks on board so we don’t have to worry about food, and they serve fish quite often. I suppose though that if you did show up at a meal with a fish, the cooks would prepare it for you. Q: What kind of food do you eat on board? How do you receive supplies? Name: Katie, Caroline Name of answerer: Uisdean Nicholson There is a whole mixture of food available, as the cooks come from all over the world. Obviously there are a lot of Japanese people on board, so once a week we get Sushi. But we also get curries, roast dinners, seafood, steaks, salad and plenty of ice cream. Fortunately they have a gym too. The food arrives about once a week on a supply boat from Japan.
----- Q: What is your favorite thing about being in the ocean on this expedition? What is the coolest part of being on the Chikyu?
My
favorite thing about the expedition is the excitement of drilling into
rocks that have never been seen before, including some active faults,
and getting to use some really sophisticated tools to analyze them. ------------------------------------- Q: What did you do during the Christmas holiday? Name of Answerer: France Elisabeth Girault --------------------------------------- Q: What is a typical day for you on board? What do
you miss most about being away from home? Name of answerer: Rob Harris
The things I miss most about being away from home are my family and riding my bicycle. | |
