Somewhere upon the sea!!!!

Hey gang, its Monday 8:30 pm seatime.  Had an awesome day today. Finally made it to our first site.  We are going to attempt to replace a cork.  For you landlubbers, that means we are going to pull a long tube with scientific instruments from the seafloor and then replace it with newer instrumentation.  The cork has been down there for about 16 years.  Here is what you would have to do to simulate this mission.   Your job, should you decide to accept, would be to go to the top of  the Empire state building with a whole lot of drinking straws and a piece of gum.  You would put those straws together and with bubble gum on the bottom of that chain of straws try to pick up a penny that has been placed the ground 112 floors below you.  Mission impossible, right?  WRONG!!!!
These people on the JOIDES Resolution research ship are about to do that tonight.  Once they hook up to the cork on the seafloor it will take about 2 hours to pull it up.  We are on a mission of "firsts!"  They are using a new camera system that has never been used before tonight.  Also the second "first" is the employment of the SCIMPI rig.  It is a brand new, state of the art, cutting edge technology that will be placed beneath the ocean floor.  From its position it will send back data about what is going on done there.  And I am here for all of it.  WOW!!!!

As you can tell I am in ADHD heaven.  There is so much stuff going on here it blows my mind.  I will be in touch again tomorrow.

Until then keep your toes in the sand and your eyes on the sea.