Message-Id: <9703202130.AA29436@squeteague.MIT.EDU>
To: seadiary@MIT.EDU
Subject: Home!
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 16:30:06 EST
From: Jason C Goodman <goodmanj@MIT.EDU>
Content-Length: 3162

  After staying up last night till 3 a.m. (I'm having trouble getting off the
late shift) watching movies ("Real Genius" and "The Network", both of which are
way cool) and writing my paper (which is going _very_ well all of a sudden:
John, I'll try to give you the paper on Monday.), I woke up at about 9 a.m. and
started helping people pack stuff up.  (we've been packing for the whole cruise
home.)  I walked outside; the hangar doors were open, the sea was calm, and Cape
Cod was to starboard and Martha's Vineyard was coming over the horizon on the
port bow.  Hooray!  The ship was going at a speed best described as
'moseying'... as I mentioned, one of the stern thrusters went out, so we were
steaming on one aft thruster and the bow thruster.  I helped pack some, but
mostly the science party stood on deck and watched the land go by: Hyannis,
Chappaquidick, the East and West chops of the Vineyard, Falmouth, and then
Nobska Light, the entrance to Woods Hole's harbor.  Part of the reason we were
going so slow was to wait for slack tide: the harbor channel is so shallow that
we had to retract the bow thruster (which sticks out below the ship), and the
ship can go maybe 7 knots on one thruster.  Since the ebb-tide current out of
the channel can reach 6-7 knots, this would make docking rather difficult.
  Anyway, we sailed in, and saw tons and tons of WHOI people waiting for us at
the dock: families and friends of the crew and science party, and just random
WHOI employees on their lunch breaks.  The docking went very easily, except that
the crew who threw the heaving lines to shore got overexuberant, and threw the
lines (which have a big heavy knot on the end) right into the crowd, which
scattered.  After which, everyone lined up on the rail and chatted with people
on the dock -- the ship hadn't been cleared by Customs yet, so we couldn't go
ashore, which was frustrating.  The customs and immigration procedures took an
hour and a half, and then they finally let us on shore.
  The cranes started working, the semi-trailers drove up next to the ship, the
bosun started shouting orders; suddenly it looked like a construction site. 
They put the gangplank up, and after helping a bit I left the ship, to stand on
dry land after 7 weeks.  I walked down Woods Hole's main street and into the
pharmacy, where I bought the bare essentials: the Boston Globe, a Scientific
American, and a big bottle of Ocean Spray juice.  (the fresh juice supplies were
getting pretty meager toward the end, there.)
  I helped unload a bit more, then headed out to Clark Lab, which houses the
physical oceanography department, where I now sit, with a message saying "444
unread mail messages."  About a hundred of 'em are my own seadiary messages, so
it's not so bad.
  Needless to say, you shouldn't write to sci5@knorr.whoi.edu anymore.   Thanks
to all of you who wrote me during the cruise: e-mail time was one of the best
parts of my days at sea, and I appreciate being kept up-to-date with the news
(and gossip, too!)  But man, it's good to be home, and I look forward to seeing
all of you in the near (or more distant, in some cases) future.

						Jason