Parissa and Yvonne finally enacted the long-thoughtout scheme to entertain the winch drivers. Throughout the cruise there has been much discussion about how everyone says "Roger." People think I say it with a southern accent. Yvonne's "Roger" was initially a little weak (squeaky) and often punctuated by her own laughter; it has gotten much better through practice. The plan was to record the winch drivers' "Rogers" over the squawkbox and then play their own voices back for them. The recording process was difficult and slow what with the deletion of vital sound files and the breaking of USB keys. In the end it was a little anticlimactic, at least for me, because I was dutifully out in the hanger when Lorna came down to the lab. She didn't say anything over the squawkbox and I missed her reaction in the lab. She hadn't recognized her own voice; she thought it was someone in the engine room screwing with her. I guess it was too loud in the winch booth.
We're back to the full rosette these days. It's nice to have water samples once again. Other than that, there isn't much to note about this station. Our station spacing is still huge because we have to be sure to have time to complete the coastal stations. We only have one day left. Here Scott, Dan, and David recover the rosette.
We're getting close to the coast, so we've seen a lot more birds. At night they're attracted to the ship's lights. One kept landing on the ship (more like crashing) and trying to walk in to the CTD hanger. We'd throw it back over the water, but it invariably tried to land again. On the third attempt it bloodied itself, so we let it sit outside on the deck.
