Location: Fairway Bank

And before I know it.. it is the last day of the cruise... in fact, as I type, the last trawl (or possibly the 2nd last) is on the seabed this very moment, scraping the seabed 800m 1200m below.

Not much as happened in the intervening period, and I still have dirt under all my nails except I have 19 nails now... the smallest one on my left foot got ripped out during a careless moment. It didn't exactly come out all at one go.. for a couple of days, it was flapping on one edge and I didn't want to yank it out for fear that it might hurt. But it had to go in the end. It was getting unnerving. I kept getting it snagged on my blanket.

The last week has seen extremely good weather. In fact, on friday, the sea was flat. Flat like a lake! Imagine that! Have some nice pictures and movies to show for it. In fact, Bertrand made a remark that in his 20 years of seafaring expeditions, he has never seen the sea like that before. I'm pretty lucky. :D

So tonight, we wrap up operations and speed back to Noumea, a journey that will take us 24 hours. I am so not looking forward to the journey. I know it already. I will be sick tonight. :(

But before we head back, we will be making a stop in a spot two hours away from Noumea for a special pick-up. Sperm whale bones! At least I hope it will be bones only and not a half rotten carcass. A geologist at IRD had alerted Bertrand to the presence of this find and said it was a whale that had stranded itself on some low lying reef at least two months ago. Two months ago... is that enough for complete decomposition? I hope so! Don't want to smell it before I see it. Wish me luck!

tra la la laa!!!

Haven't been getting the 'net connection to work yesterday..

Thanks to everyone who wished me well today... just another day working on deck though... and as a special treat for my er... 'loyal' readers, I have uploaded another collage without a picture of me in it!!!

Taken two of the Chesterfields group of Islands when I went on shore on Sunday... amazing sight of seabirds nesting and gliding all over the pale blue sky, but it was't too crowded and there were no guano dodging (alas).. I was trying to channel Niko Tinbergen, but gave up soon after :D ... none of the pictures are photoshopped... I swear!!!

Enjoy! :D

A really good day today... we have got shore leave!!! Took loads of pictures, but that will come up later.. am still catching up with the diary... one more pic on flickr..

*************************

8 October (Location: Banc de Kelso)

9.30 am So far so good.. I seem to have slept off the sickness of yesterday.

The catch of the day so far is a Hypothalassia armata. Big one!

Things I would kill for now… hong yu. Salonpas. Marks and Sparks Chocolate chip cookies…


********************************
9th October (Banc de Nova)

I'm ok today.. just psyching myself up. This is not as bad as some situations.. say Andy McNab captured behind enemy lines in Iraq (Those of you who have read Bravo Two Zero will know the story..). After all, I don't get beaten up, I get fed good food everyday, and at least I know when this will end. hahaha.. I’m kidding. It is not sooo bad. After all, its an experience of a lifetime. Especially for a junior scientist like me, it is a rare learning experience, no doubts about it.

I’m having fun of course, despite the whinging. Not much to write about if not for the sickness. I’m having about as much fun as you can get on a small boat sailing the choppy high seas. It's a geeky sort of fun I suppose. Gets a bit monotonous, since we do about eight to ten trawls a day, so there is quite a bit of waiting followed by the load coming in. The waiting gives me headaches - it is by being busy that you’ve got no time to reflect on the misery of being seasick.

Once the bag comes in, there is a flurry of activity in which the sediments get fractionally sieved into smaller and smaller sizes, and then organisms of interest are picked and sorted into their different groups, corals, echinoderms, molluscs, crustaceans, polychaetes. Sometimes interesting stuff turns up, like manganese oxide nodules (characteristic of the deep seas), shark’s teeth, and even better, Megalodon teeth. Ooh, they will make such nice gifts. But its not quite so much fun sorting on deck under the sun with the waves crashing around you, especially the while sorting the finer fragments.

Now I appreciate specimens sitting in museums a lot more, especially those obtained from expeditions such as these. Poking through the bycatch pile in Phuket or beach combing is nothing compared with this! At least in Phuket, I get to stand on land, and get to go out at night in Patong after washing the fish juice off my wellies.

Man has been going for such sea faring expeditions way before anyone set foot on the moon, but look at how it is now. Nowadays probes, manned space missions are fired off with greater and better sophistication. We know now what's beyond Pluto, flight paths are planned with greater precision. Look at the exploration of the seas. It is ‘pathetic’ in comparison. Not very sophisticated, dredging and trawling. What we are doing now is not much different from HMS Challenger. Dropping a dredge or trawl into the sea, and scraping the top bit (1000 -5000 square metres at a time). Hoping that something interesting will turn up. Ok.. so these days we have echo-sounders, better mapping technologies and hydraulic winches which weren't invented back then, but that's about that.

And to think I was complaining about how come there were only ONE specimen of Calappa acutispina from Madagascar. I take it all back now!!!

******************

11 Oct (Location: Bellona Plateau)

Late start to the day. When I emerged from my cabin onto the deck, I was surprised to see both dredge and trawl still on the deck. It was already past 7am. Usually the first dredge would have come in by now. Why?

"Oh.. ze bottom zis a bit complicated" Pierre told me, accompanied by undulating motions of the hand and a shrug. Ah, I understand now…the seabed was uneven, which made it tricky to dredge. The captain had to map the bottom first, to figure out where was a good place to trawl.

The first dredge finally went down at 8.30 a.m. We were going deep, about 700-800 metres. The site of choice was a channel between Bellona Plateau and Coriolis Bank. In fact, Coriolis Bank was discovered and named by Bertrand and Philip from one of the earlier Musorstom cruises! Fancy that!

The first few trawls didn't bring in anything spectacular. Just lots and lots of rocks. I can almost imagine what an inhospitable place that is. Fast flowing currents, barren sandy bottom. Not a good place to live, if you were sponge or crinoid. Can’t get a toehold anywhere.

After lunch, things started to heat up, in all senses of the word. The sun was blazing hot. And then we had a couple of killer loads from the dredge.. lots and lots of sediments, especially tiny little flakes of Halimeda. And that completely sapped my energy for the rest of the day.

At about 6p.m, I thought I caught a whiff of Bryani in the evening breeze. My goodness.. I am hallucinating - Indian food! And I miss my chili padis. The food on board is good. Jacques and Marcel even served spring rolls for dinner last night. And the other day we had rum and raisin ice cream for dessert. But nothing is spicy. The bottle of chili sauce I had brought is almost gone. Everyone liked it. And considering the relative ease I brought it into New Caledonia. I should have taken an armload of sambal belachan and chili flakes.

Dessert was what Herve, the captain, dubbed 'Christian Choker Number Three'. It was a really dense banana tart. Really nice, and all the better if there were some chocolate sauce on it (but all I got was some jam to go with it.  ). But he was right. It was quite a bit of a choker, no matter your personal belief. I shall wait with trepidation what Christian Choker Number Two and One are.

To be continued…

Am suffering from severe spice withdrawal... Reuben.. I am sooo going to stuff my face with bryani at your grandma's place this Deepavali.

***********************

5th October. (Location: Unknown Seamount)

If anyone is going to make any remarks about my 'holiday'. I will smack them. Day two and I look like a tramp. Dirt under all 20 nails. Dirt in the creases of my hand. Disheveled hair. Dried salt on my skin. Looking half asleep when there's not much going on. Working on the computer for only limited periods of time cos looking down makes me sick. Why would any sane person want to do this? Come to think of it. Was I in sound mind and had all faculties intact when I said yes? Was I only thinking about swanning around the deck, cooling sea breezes, gorgeous sunsets and the romantic south Pacific? Well.. this is a bloody good wake up call.

The reality... I am dark, sun burnt, scruffy, spotty cos of the $$%#ing sun block and dirty. And more then a breeze in my hair. More like a perpetual gail. Actually, I don't give a toss how I look now. Work is work. But I do want to look presentable when I get back on land. After all, I still remember Mingko's missive (ha!). How to accomplish that if I look mangy!!

Enough of this whinging. I know that every Musortorm cruise is of extreme importance (in a natural historical sense of course). This one is codenamed 'Ebisco' short for Exploration de la Biodiversité et Isolement en mer du Corail.

We are on a quest to sample various habitats around the seamounts of the Coral Seas, Southwest of New Caledonia. Seamounts are underwater (extinct) volcanoes that rise thousands of metres above the surrounding seabed. Most of the time, they never peak above the water surface, and in some instances, the more ambitious ones do. An example is the chain of seamounts known to most as ‘Hawaii’. These seamounts have been shown to be very special habitats. The open ocean is usually an inhospitable place, nutrient poor and harsh. After all, it is devoid of any nurturing input from landmass. Continental shelf waters are often richer and more productive because of run-offs from land. Recall: Secondary school geography. But seamounts are curiously productive environments and are home to an unusually diverse invertebrate and fish communities. Think oases smack in the middle of a desert. They are also underwater 'islands', hotspots of high levels of endemism. Most populations of invertebrates on seamounts tend to be isolated so they are good models for the study of evolution and speciation.

So... I shouldn't be complaining. It kind of connects me to the voyage of H.M.S Challenger (albeit in a tangential way). H.M.S Challenger was a three and a half year voyage circumnavigating the world that singularly pioneered the field of Oceanography. From 1874, the crew dredged, trawled, measured, counted anything that was relevant. Conditions were so dreary that more than half of the original crew went mad, died in freak accidents or from exotic tropical diseases, or deserted the ship. Even the ship's dog got pecked to death by penguins. So I guess, I'm having a walk in the park in comparison. I have Internet access, hot showers, hot food. What else can I ask for?

I am wondering if I am going to be the first Singaporean to visit the Chesterfields? Surely the Singapore Armada has passed by already.. first woman maybe? (They should put my mug up on campus banners instead of the Mount Everest Team.. kidding! :D) According to Pierre, there are many seabird rookeries on Chesterfields Island itself. Maybe I can go on shore (terra firma!) while I'm there for a good look around. Dodge bird shit and take some cool pictures. Crossing my fingers it is in the plan.

From the last trawl of the day, ladies and gentleman, A Neoglyphea sp. nov.! In case the implication is lost on some, it is the invertebrate equilvalent of a Latimeria. Ok.. Coelocanth! Wow. And Bertrand shall hereby go down in history as the first man ever to be attacked by a Neoglyphea. It is probably an honour.

*Gasp*

Could it be???

The tide has finally turned for the 'legendary' Joelle effect?!??!

It is early days yet...

********************************

7 October (Location: Banc de Capel)

NOT. A. GOOD. DAY.

This is the first time since the beginning of the cruise that the seas were rough. The waves were sloshing all over the deck! Tried to eat breakfast but that soon came out soon after. Had to do a merlion. That was an ominous sign for things to come. All in all, I was sick eight times in 11 hours. One for every trawl!

At the beginning, I was trying to write it off the first few times, and every-time food came out, I ate again. Better to barf food out then just bile(!). Retching on an empty stomach is not good. For the rest of the day, I would go out to deck whenever there was sorting to be done. Once in the wet lab, I'd run to the loo, do a merlion with ease, and then go back out again packing. Standing on the deck looking at the horizon doesn't help at all. The waves were so rough that the boat bobbed so violently it was impossible to stand in one spot. And what if I fell over? I was already weak kneed from the light-headedness and retching. Last thing I need is drama from falling over board.

For lunch... I only managed two fries, some orange cordial - even that came out soon after too. There was no place on the boat I could be comfortable. Deck - no. Lab - no. The only alternative - I took to curling up in my bunk in between trawls. It didn't work so great. I was still sick but it made the waiting in between trawls all the more bearable.

For dinner, while everyone else was tucking in to something scrumptious (steak and spaghetti), I had three tablespoons of minestrone soup, half a can of coke and a sea sick pill. That knocked me out for 12 hours.

A wretched day..where I wish I were dead. A holiday, I hear you say, Alan? Come try it lah! Then tell me if you'd want to spend your holiday like me!


To be continued....

I thought I’d post this up now...snippets of my little adventure. No pictures though.. the wait will kill me. I am clearly talking less than I usually do, since language is a slight (to say the least) barrier. So I have taken to talking to my computer.

********************************

4 October 2004 12.30pm
What’s the best way to overcome seasickness? It is to lie down on a horizontal plane. Then, the rocking and rolling of a ship on choppy seas suddenly become lulling and comforting. It takes me back to a time where I used to take naps in a sarong, rocked to Zzz land by the steady rhythmic hand of ma.

And so it was how I came to spend the last 18 hours - in bed. To be fair, maybe it was also partly due to my physical state prior to arrival in New Caledonia that caused it.

Flashback to Saturday 1st October - my flight was at 8pm, which means 6pm at the airport. Where was I at 4pm? Still in the lab! Handing over stuff... marking scripts... sorting out last minute bits and bobs. Took a cab home (Reuben had helped me with my barang down Sci Dr 4, hailed a cab and ceremoniously told me to fuck off), had lunch with my mum and aunt. 5.30 p.m... took a shower and only left for the airport at 6pm. The flight to Sydney was chock full, and I had some time wandering around duty free and picking up a Chick Lit (Marian Keyes no less!!) book before getting on the plane. I didn’t get a window seat for both legs of the journey! It must be that dour check-in girl. Luckily i was just the right weight. 19.8kg (I'm getting good at this packing shite). I'm fairly sure the girl would have seized the opportunity to charge me for overweight baggage. With pleasure.

Dinner on board (Monster-in-Law), movie, some polite conversation with my neighbour (Singaporean doing his MSc. Eng. speaks with a bastardized Aussie/Singlish slang that trails off to an unexpected pitch at the end of every other sentence) and much fidgeting in my seat later, I touched down in a deserted Sydney airport (time:5.35am). There was nothing else to do except go to the toilet, freshen up and check my email on the computer terminal. And do some blogging (last post before I disappear into the Bermuda Triangle, I thought gloomily) The flight to Noumea was full too. At the waiting lounge were loads and loads of tanned, orange Europeans. Speaking French and, I suspect, named Jacques, Xavier, Benoit, Pierre.. ok. so I made that up. There would have been no way for me to find that out. But I shouldn't be too far off the mark.

Landing in Noumea, because I had the @#%^^ aisle seat, I missed a terrific view of the Great Barrier Reef. Darn. Must flash dazzling smile at MALE check in counter staff when I leave New Caledonia to secure my seat with a view.

The Big Boss was taking the same flight as I was, having flown in from Manila the night before. Luckily he was around, or I would have missed the arranged transport that was to bring me to IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement) . The journey to to Noumea itself was pleasant. Rolling hills, bright sunshine, bill boards and little Peugeots zipping about along the landscape - they even drive on the right side of the road. The dry mountains on the west coast looks terrific. According to BB, it had a high level of endemism of plants. Not the same story with regards to fauna though... no large mammals in New Caledonia, pitiful bird count. The only exception was perhaps its reptile fauna. New Caledonia has some big ass geckos, or so BB tells me. One thing that struck me about Noumea.. it is tropical France. Everything here seems French. Shop windows, advertisements, and everyone speaks french. They even play boules by the sea! How french can that get?! If you blindfolded me, dropped me in the middle of downtown Noumea without giving me a clue, i would have said we were in France. Except there is no tropical France. The closest is Mediterranean France. But this is much more laid back. Think French men in surf shorts.. mmmm. Australians with more finesse?

The Alis set sail eventually at 4 p.m on the 3rd of October, seven hours later than the projected 9 a.m. It would take us one and half hours to leave the lagoon of noumea, pass the barrier reef and another 40 hours to reach our first ‘port of call’ a series of uncharted sea mounts to the south west of New Caledonia. We were to conduct a series of bathymetric studies as well as dredge there. This is literally uncharted territory. No one had done it before. Ever. Suddenly I feel like David Attenborough. Yay! An explorer!

One hour into the journey... sea sickness began to creep on me. I had to go lie down. From previous experiences, 40 winks usually solves everything. I hadn’t been sick in any of the previous cruises before. Just have to take it easy for a while. My body will adjust. That canicular fluid in my ears
6.30pm. The cook knocked on my door and announced that it was dinner time. Oh good.. The dining room had a convivial atmosphere, very cosy and the table top was laid with a durable and tough anti-slip mat. Must look alive. Don’t look too green around the gills , I told myself. Managed to down some chicken noodle soup. The trick is to take in food slowly...don’t gulp down your food and introduce unwanted air in your digestive tract. That is a sure fire way to feel queasy.

I was doing rather well, I thought, but I thought too soon. Main course was served - hamburger and mash. Oh boy.. it smelt really good while i was lying in bed (my cabin is two doors away from the kitchen) but when it was brought into the dining cabin, all i wanted to do was to get out screaming, but that would be really bad manners. So I skipped the meat and allowed myself a small dollop of mash. It was delicious. Celine was right. Jacques and Marcel were excellent cooks. It was my delicate state that let me down. I managed to take in my mash and excused myself from the dinner table. Decided to go to the loo before dropping dead into bed. BAD mistake. Everything came out. Lunch, dinner. With a light stomach, I staggered into my cabin and put myself to bed and was knocked out from 9 p.m to 7.30 a.m.

I woke up feeling fine this morning. “Great! The worst is over! I’m acclimatized to the rocking motion of the boat now!” and gleefully jumped out of bed feeling all smug and ready to start the day. But like boss says, famous last words. Twenty minutes knocking about in the shower and I was back to square one. I decided to skip breakfast, and after an hour of loafing about the deck, and trying to read pdfs on the computer, decided to go back to bed. It was so much more comfortable to be in a horizontal position. it was only 8.30am.

sigh.. looong day ahead.

To be continued...
g

And so now I'm pushing my luck with the internet connection. It must be terribly expensive to be able to have satellite connection from the middle of nowhere. I stand corrected in my previous post. Reported that ALIS is 300 KM SW of New Caledonia. I'm off. We are in fact bobbing along 640km away in the open ocean, as told to be by Jean-Francoise the 2nd Captain this morning. That's a long way to swim, if you ask me.

I have a special treat for you 'loyal' readers of this blog... yes you 2 who commented :P . Maybe Mingko is still lurking. say hi will ya? Anyone?!?? Its getting lonely here. :( Did up a little collage and posted it on Flickr. Go take a look. :D

And SS if you read this.. could you please send the link to NNK? She'll show Boss I guess.

Ok signing out now...

XXX

Reporting LIVE!!! from the Chesterfields!

wow.. the wonders of modern technology... here I am sitting on the N/O ALIS, "àà km southwest of New Caledonia atop a sea mount known as Nova Banc... and I have internet connection! It's been a long way since the times of HMS Challenger and Beagle, baby.

LOL. Here's a spot check to find out who's been reading my blog! Even when I'm gone!
The connection has been painfully slow, so I try not to get online except to check me emails and such. So.. has anything been happening in Sunny Singapore lately?

A short update... its been a week of dredging, trawling and more dredging here. Interesting experience for me. My first expedition on such a tiny boat (ALIS is only 28m) but my longest ever at 3 weeks. Didn,t quite get used to the rough waves of the chesterfields and at one point was sick 8 times in 12 hours! That is a persoanl record which I shall regale to my grandkids. We've been getting some interesting new species, and to date has lost a dredge.

Ok;; that,s it from me for now.. in case the net connection times out. and I'm typing slozly... using a french AZERTY keyboard.

till next time!

Sunny Sydney

Hello from Sydney!

Managed to get hold of a free internet access point and am dropping by to say hi. For some reason, i can't seem to download mails or surf on my powerbook despite the presence of 4 free wifi networks. Maybe the computer is still in shock.

Well... flight was uneventful and landed in a eeriely quiet Sydney airport where I spent the good part of 5 am wandering down the various departure terminals, and peering through the glass into closed duty free shops. Just as well... I'm in a vulnerable state now.. am not sure if I really need anything, coke at AUD3.20!!! Thanks very much, but I'll pass. Also managed to bring in my sng buay and other pickled fruits cos I'm not entering Oz per se. The thought of having to dump my sng buay upon entry to Oz kept me awake for most part of the journey. I need it on the boat!

Oh wait... I spy with my little eye.. some shops opening! Maybe a postcard or two? hmmm

Till later!

At least one of us is happy

Less than 24 hours before I take off. And I'm still not sorted out with various things. This is not a blog post per se, but a reminder of what I have to square away before I head off

Admin
1. Email Shane about my crabs
2. Email Simon about my crabs
3. Email Rafael about sending the new species of mine that is supposedly sitting on his table. I don't have his email addy though, so will have to draft out the email and send it out via NNK
4. Data entry (assignment 3 marks), and email Prof Seow
5. Complete introduction and draft for module and send it out to Peter
6. Email NUS bursary about the fuckup with my school fees deduction
7. Submit grades for BL1103 CA to NNK.
8. Back up computer
9. Pack nets, gear, tissue kit, fins, mask, snorkel, wet suit. Should I bring my regulator? hmmm...

Personal
1. Take my aunt, who is in town out for dim sum tomorrow, before she leaves for Hong Kong
2. See my sister and nephew, mum, dad... I haven't been home the last week.
3. Sort out finances for the trip. To say the least, there has been a total screw up with regards to Admin point 6 which has left me penniless.
4. collect my shoes from the laundromat, but to complete that, I have to find my receipt first.
5. Stock up on dramamine!!! This one is very important. Can someone text me at 6pm Saturday evening to check with me on this one?

To top it all up, I'm not feeling so good. Been down with the sniffles the last couple of days. Suspect this is due to late nights in a cold lab. To top it off, I went out to Changi beach for a class today. In the water and out, and back in and out again.. on a light note, the little figurine of Colonel Sanders was collected in one of the seines. It's now sitting on Reuben's table. Quite cute, he is. All happy and smug, listening to his mp3 player ( it doesn't look like an iPod to me!), surrounded by my plastic turtle collection, with a Calappa lophos trying to muscle in on the orgy

******

Somehow, I have a feeling that I might not be back. Of course, this is silly. I always have that feeling everytime I go away for a long time. A chat with Zee and Applecow revealed that they also have the same thoughts whenever they go off for a trip. That's why I always try to take my parents out for a nice meal before leave. Maybe tomorrow. I will try to take some time out. I don't want to go without saying good bye. Just in case...

** Update

Well... it's 3.21pm, I have to be at teh airport in 2.5 hours. Not packed yet. But that's field trip my style.

All things handed over, I should be gone for a month... maybe intermittend updates if I can find a handphone signal to send mms pictures to otterman.

Will try not to get thrown overboard. And yes mingko. I hear ya! ;)

I'm outta here!