Guest Blogger Cassandra

Introducing... Guest Blogger Cassandra! Here we go:


The removal of hazardous materials
Yesterday we had a nearly indecent proposal. Not the fun kind, however. Because of our low position on board, several people thought it would be a great idea to have us clean two fridges contaminated with tritium. For those of you that haven’t encountered this substance before, it is radioactive. The person in charge of the clean up and disposal of hazardous materials, Sandy, must have seen the concerned look that crossed our faces, because she readily assured us that at the low levels we were encountering, it was almost not worth mentioning. Geochemists seem to be the only ones who might notice tritium at these levels, since they often measure the amount of ambient tritium in seawater. Therefore, it was vital that we scrub the fridges to remove these miniscule amounts of tritium. Of course, in order to do this, we needed special disposal bags, dozens of paper towels, sponges, and lots of special cleaning solution, as well as gloves and special instructions.
Before beginning this tedious task, we gave Dan the honor of being the dirty person, while Pien and I stayed clean by handing him his supplies and holding the contamination bag. Things were going quite smoothly until Dan disgraced our good name by dropping a dirty paper towel on the ground, possibly spreading the radioactive tritium to the ground, and then dropping the towel in our clean bucket of solution. Of course, this happened to be the only bucket available on the ship for this purpose, and of course the bucket was now contaminated. Sandy suspected we might mess up and wasn’t mad-- apparently students are often careless when cleaning up hazardous materials. We labored on, demoting Dan to errand runner and fridge door holder while we completed the rest of the fridge ourselves. Today, at least, we earned our lunch on board the ship.

Ship food
Gone are the days when seafaring people had to rely on dried biscuits and other food-like substances while at sea. These days, at least on the two research ships I’ve had the pleasure of eating on, meals are a gourmet affair, at least until the fresh produce runs out. At breakfast, the offerings range from fresh fruit and bacon and sausage to fried and scrambled eggs. At lunch, there are often several choices, from salad and soup to seafood dishes. The chefs are so good you might wonder why they choose to work on a research vessel instead of applying their skills elsewhere. As one veteran of the ship put it, one former cook on another vessel was asked that very question. He responded that he had a wife in California and another in Louisiana, and he needed the time to himself! The chefs on board, at least, have the honor of being the most popular members on board for good reason. We plan on doing a cooking show on the ship with the star chef-- I’m sure it will premier on the food network following Giada’s Everyday Italian-- these chefs can hold their own against her.