Infinite Fetch, and other things

About a week ago, I traveled to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla (San Diego), along with Pien and Cassandra. While there, we met with some of the chief scientists and trip organizers for I8S. Jim Swift, Lynne Talley, Joe Reid, etc etc the list of oceanographic rockstars goes on and on, but I'm no name-dropper. Andrew Dickson, Steve Diggs. Etc. These men and women are giants in the field, sure, but that's not a big deal. What's more important is that they cared about me. Worried, even. See here:

Things they said to me:
"There is no safe place on the boat. At any time, a cable could snap and you'd be sliced in two. This one time, I thought I was standing in a safe place, but I almost got sliced in two."

"We're dealing with equipment... it's like a Volkswagen hanging on a string."

"We're going to be at least 7 days from the nearest hospital at any given time. One time a guy had a detached retina, and although we immediately recognized the symptoms and turned around, he still lost his vision."

"There was this one girl who never got over her seasickness... I'd look in on her every day just to check for vital signs."

"If you fall overboard, we only have a few seconds to try and locate your body. No, there's not much of a chance of living if you fall overboard, but it's nice when we can recover the body."

"There's a famous saying... 'The worst thing about seasickness is that you don't die.'"

"There was one scientist who wore those seasickness ear patches every day. You're only supposed to wear them for 4 to 6 days, but he wore them for weeks. He was never the same again."

"One guy did die of seasickness... he starved."

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Another thing I learned about is fetch. Fetch, in oceanographic terms, is the length of water over which a wind can blow. Fetch, along with wind speed, determine wave size. For example, on a lake, the length of the lake is the fetch, and that is not very large compared to, say, the Atlantic Ocean, and as such, the waves produced on a lake are smaller than those in the ocean.

In the Southern Ocean, winds circle west-to-east in an uninterrupted loop around and around Antarctica. It is the only place in the world with infinite fetch. That's where you get "thirty-foot seas" and some of the roughest waters in the world.

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All of this stuff I learned prompted me to start making preparations... just in case. I will present my last Will and Testament shortly.