The Trials and Tribulations of Science

It's the long anticipated, long put-off 2nd cruise post!

My second week on the cruise was miserable. We docked in Guaymas, Mexico and walked all day. It was incredibly hot, and we didn't have much water with us. Luckily we found a bar, Los Barcos, that opened when it saw like 10 people walking aimlessly around. We stayed in the bar for like 3 hours because they had tons of fans in there. And of course, everyone got drinks, even me (I got a local Mexican beer). The food was alright but unfortunately the conversation turned to politics. This wasn't a big deal at first, but the conversation stayed on politics for like 45 minutes. This got increasingly annoying, as I have discovered I am the only conservative in all of Rhode Island. Eventually I had to tune out the other end of the table, because I knew I wasn't going to hear anything I would like, and that it would only make me angry. Understand, I have no problem with liberals, everyone should be able to believe in whatever they want to. But up here I tend to get the impression that all conservatives are 1) Satan or 2) too stupid to realize they are wrong, and should be liberal instead. I'm probably making a big generalizaton about New England politics, but when you mix politics and alcohol, that's the impression this lone conservative is left with.

Anyways, none of us really spoke Spanish, but Rui is Portugese and apparently Portugese and Spanish are very similar, except for some of the pronunciation, so Rui was a big help. Guaymas is a big fishing port, so we went to buy some more squid jigs and other stuff. When the Mexican fishermen heard we were going to be diving with Humbolt squid, they just stared at us. They told us that those squid could bite a person's hand off, and that if you throw a dog into waters with Humbolt squid, the squid will eat the dog. That made me kinda glad I don't know how to scuba dive.

That night we went squid jigging for the first time. It was awesome! I really hope I can find some pictures to post here so you guys can see. It was great to see 15 people really excited about science, cheering each other on and admiring the squid everyone caught. Admittedly, we did get a little too excited, and caught a few more squid than we actually used, but it was the first night and we didn't do it again. Unfortunately, the rest of the week sucked. I spent an entire week setting up and calibrating equipment. Yes, I should have done a bit more work during those initial days when we were in transit to Mexico, but this was ridiculous. I had to change out almost every piece of my equipment, because something would always go wrong. Seriously, I once spent an entire day trying to get my oxygen electrode down to zero. I was pumping pure nitrogen into this little cuvette filled with water with the electrode inside it for hourse, and it still read that there was oxygen inside. I changed out tubing, switched the direction of flow, adjusted the cuvette closer and farther away from the magnetic stirrer (which controls a tiny magnetic stirrer I put in the water to help the gas mix with the liquid, the stirrer resembles a tic tac), adjusted the speed of the stirrer, etc. You get the idea. Since the cruise itself was only 2 weeks long, I started to get stressed and worried about getting enough data. All in all, it was a very frustrating week.

I'm leaving on Thursday to fly to Santa Barbara for Dave's wedding, but I'm hoping to squeeze in a few more posts before I go, I hate being so behind!