Big Swells

Looking out to the horizon, the sea appears calm. There aren't waves per se, but what we have here are swells. I'm not perfectly sure of the science, but what I think of when I try to understand the action under the ship is that the moon, sun, storms, and other factors have a literal ripple effect on the water. When waves get to shore, they speed up, curl, and then break; the speed comes from a high volume of water moved into a progressively smaller container when the sea gets shallower.

So, out in the Pacific where we still have about 1800 nautical miles to travel before docking in Yokohama, Japan, there's a huge volume of ocean spread out into a very large, deep container. As the ocean gets closer to shore it will speed up and make waves, but out there that energy exists as ocean swells. The water rises and falls and moves very gradually towards shore.

Last night and into this morning, the seas got rough. The swells were about two meters, so looking out it doesn't seem so severe when gazing out the porthole when the water rises about a meter and then bottoms out another meter--a meter each way above and below the median point. Add them together and you get a swell of two meters from peak to valley.

As the ship drives forward, we catch swells several times over the length of the ship. These swells cause things to bob up and down, including the very heavy ship. When it does bob, the ship makes lots of creaky sounds, and sometimes it sounds like someone is tapping at our cabin door, so more than once we've answered and no one's there. Generally, it's a steady motion, but the occasional strong swell causes the ship to lurch, sliding plates on tables, knocking your computer off the dresser onto the floor, tossing Jasper out of bed.

We've got some perks on the MV Explorer that are pretty cool. It's great to hang around students all day, but as family of a faculty member—i.e., hanger-on to the ship's librarian—I can venture into the faculty lounge. It's something like I envisioned in elementary school: a place where the teachers hang out, drink coffee, and then after hours the bar opens up, just like in grade school. The faculty lounge is the only bar on the ship and it's got a great panoramic view of the forward motion at the front of the ship, about 50 feet above sea level.

Last night I lucked into a party the academic dean held to celebrate some event or other, not sure what, but there were slider burgers and free drinks. Score! I hadn't had a cheeseburger in weeks, so that was a treat, and even though I prefer quality microbrews I don't turn down a free Bud.

Oh, yeah—swells. Anywho, around midnight, the seas got rough and the ship was really moving. Through the glass surround of the lounge on deck 7, seawater sprayed up onto the deck as we hit some swells.

Here's a few pics of water, but I can't really capture the water coming up onto the deck until we hit some big water during daytime. Tonight, we'll be out on deck trying for a glimpse of stars in the middle of the Pacific if the clouds are sparse. The starwatching has been okay so far, but tonight may be a really clear night, and the ship's lights will be turned off, so I'm optimistic for a great view.

Thanks for reading.