Shiver me timbers! The RV Tangaroa has a poet on board, and he's makin' jingles at sea.
The mate is there up on the bridge, steering us south down the Ridge. It's blowing a lot when he gets to the spot, so he alters the course, just a smidge.The deckhands are standing about, so the bosun is starting to shout, "Quit all ya blabbing, these moorings need grabbing"- he's laid money on how many come out.
"Get to work," calls the bosun, "understand? I want all those deck winches manned!" But they all have to wait, cos the mooring guy's late........then he appears, transducer in hand.
Now the mooring guy's feeling a wreck. He's tired and he's got a stiff neck. He was caught unawares, then he tripped down the stairs, and wound up rear-end on the deck...
That's just an excerpt. The ship and crew spent a month sailing the Macquarie Ridge as part of the Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (CenSeam) project. They've posted about 25 daily logs at the website below. The R/V Nathaniel B. Palmer will conduct a second expedition to Antarctica that runs concurrently. They set sail just the other day. You can follow the expedition through daily logs here at the CenSeam website.

Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.




