Ship o'clock

March 12

I am still quite proud of my newly invented term "ship lag". This leg (from Punta Arenas to Cape Town) we only had a few time zones to change and it is much much easier than the previous leg (Hobart to Punta Arenas). However, every time we do change clocks is still quite confusing and disorienting.

For my phone, instead of changing the clock, I decided to switch pre-defined time zones:

Our journey across all longitudes turned out to be a journey all over the world as sometimes there were no "nearby" cities to use and I referred to remote ones. This is how we ended up going to Petropavlosk Kamchatskiy in the between Australian and New Zealand time zones. We did not stay there for very long. Some time zones, like San Francisco (pacific US) and New York (eastern US) we spent less than 24 hours in. Some time zones we stayed for longer - going due south from Hobart to Mertz glacier we remained in one time zone for more than a week.

As I write this, we have one more time change in the week left till we reach Cape Town. Things are becoming even more hectic and we are thinking about packing up. It will probably be a big mess once again... I am not sure if there is a way to make it better, considering how little improvement has been made in managing any organizational part of our expedition. I just need to accept things I can't change and keep forwarding the clocks I guess ;)

PS.

Talking about forwarding the clocks - my parents gave me the best Christmas gift this year - a watch for time zones. I have to say this watch has kept me sane! No matter what time zone the ship is - I always have UTC time on the left side. And I keep adjusting the right side when needed.

Ship lag

Idea from February 9, finally written and sent out on February 11

We have been traveling in high latitudes for several days now. I have to say the nature of ACE cruise is different to other science cruises I have been to before – we are stopping at many ports and islands on the way. This effectively means we need to keep up with the local time zone to arrive in port/island on local time. And as I said we have been traveling at high latitudes lately, covering many degrees of longitude in one day. So, we are advancing our ship clocks by one hour every other day. And sometimes every day, cause every two days is not enough. All these changes result in a very weird “ship lag” – a kind of jet lag that creeps up on you gradually. Adjusting by one hour seems trivial, but we have adjusted for three hours in four days and combined with a lot of work these adjustments eat up all our sleep time…
I have measurements I take every three hours on ship time, 3am and 6am ones being the most painful ones. I delegated most of the 6 am ones, but even staying up for 3am and having another hour eaten by the “clock change” made me into a sleeping zombie.
Luckily I have amazing people around me, who are willing to help! My roommate took my 3am shift the other day so I can sleep one night. How awesome is that?

And please don’t think that this is a whiny post, here’s an illustration for you. Yesterday I was launching an XBT in the morning thinking that I would rather still be sleeping, but then I finally opened my eyes, saw all these amazing icebergs we were passing by and realized that of all places on Earth, I would rather be here – admiring all this amazing scenery despite the lack of sleep. I wish someone else was awake at that ungodly hour to take a picture of me launching an XBT with an iceberg background ;). Oh well. You just have to imagine how awesome it looked.

Another perk of traveling at high latitudes in this time of year – we almost have a polar day. Yesterday the sun set and basically rose back up again. So here’s a picture I took at sunset:

There’s an iceberg and a “virga” cloud – a special kind of precipitation usually in the form of ice that never reaches the surface.

I also have rather sporadic internet coverage now, so pardon me for not updating my blog that much. I’m doing well and you can always email me at the ACE expedition email.

Thanks for reading,
Masha