{"id":461,"date":"2011-02-25T14:45:18","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T18:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/?p=461"},"modified":"2018-08-06T13:38:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-06T17:38:31","slug":"hello-and-goodbye-from-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/2011\/02\/25\/hello-and-goodbye-from-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello and Goodbye from Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/282555605\" width=\"640\" height=\"362\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It is tuesday, February 22nd, and I am sitting in the Cape Town airport getting ready for my twenty-hour flight back to Boston.&nbsp;&nbsp; It is hard to believe that a week ago the Melville was steaming at five knots, sixty miles west of Cape Town on a course to time our arrival in the wind shadow of Table Mountain at exactly 0700.&nbsp; The Captain does not like to arrive late to port after being at sea for 37 days.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday morning the entire ship was awake early in anticipation of our arrival.&nbsp;&nbsp; Even before I got to the deck I knew we were near land.&nbsp;&nbsp; Everything smelled differently.&nbsp;&nbsp; The air had a smell of decomposing kelp and other things organic, a big change from the smell of sea spray mixed with a hint of diesel fuel.<!--more--><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_467\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/100_0029.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-467\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-467\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/100_0029-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/100_0029-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/100_0029-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/100_0029.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-467\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cape Town<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At 0730, the pilot boat, Petrel, came alongside to drop off the Cape Town Pilot.&nbsp; Her job was to guide the ship into the port and to our dock.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Captain is still responsible for navigating the ship, but the pilot provides the local knowledge of the harbor.&nbsp; Meeting us at the harbor entrance were two tugs in case we needed a little help maneuvering.&nbsp;&nbsp; As you know from my previous post, the Melville has three rudder propellers that can move the ship forward, backward, or sideways.&nbsp;&nbsp; After turning within a boat length as we neared Quay Four, the ship simply moved sideways the last 60 meters to the dock.&nbsp; The crew told me that tugs tend to break things and the Melville navigates on its own power if at all possible.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_470\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/table-mtn.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-470\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-470 \" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/table-mtn-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/table-mtn-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/table-mtn-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-470\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Table Mountain<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By 0830 we had arrived at the dock, the lines were pulled in place, the gangplank was installed, and our port agent had arrived.&nbsp; Standing two meters from South Africa we all began to wait.&nbsp; We needed to clear South African immigration before we could \u201cofficially\u201d enter the country. &nbsp; Ironically, to do this we all walked off the ship, loaded into passenger vans, and drove five miles to the port immigration office.&nbsp;&nbsp; As we waited in the hall outside the immigration office, our passports were stamped, visas installed, and we had arrived in South Africa.&nbsp; I don\u2019t think they where worried about the passengers on the Melville sneaking into South Africa.&nbsp; As an interesting aside, the reverse is not true.&nbsp; Another Scripps ship, the Revelle, had a stowaway the last time they were in Cape Town.&nbsp;&nbsp; Before the Melville leaves Cape Town on this trip, it will be searched from stem to stern by port security with trained dogs.<\/p>\n<p>By noon we were free to explore Cape Town.&nbsp;&nbsp; We had a lot of unpacking to do, but for the next few hours many of us explored the city to find the establishments with the best beer.&nbsp; We were successful.<\/p>\n<p>The video attached above shows our progress into the port and unloading.&nbsp;&nbsp; All the gear that took so long to arrive in Punta Arenas had to be repacked for shipment back to the United States.&nbsp; All of the WHOI, Bigelow, and Colby gear was packed into a 10&#215;40 foot cargo container.&nbsp; While we fly home, our instruments are going back to sea on a cargo ship for the trip to the port of New York.&nbsp; From New York, the container will be trucked to Maine via WHOI.&nbsp; If all goes smoothly, we should see our instruments some time in late March.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/robbin-Island.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-469 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/robbin-Island-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/robbin-Island-300x168.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/files\/2011\/02\/robbin-Island-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Quick work in the port meant that I had a few days to explore Cape Town before flying home.&nbsp; After being confined to the ship for five weeks I took the opportunity to climb all the mountains around the port city.&nbsp; The views were spectacular, but my cardiovascular conditioning was not. &nbsp;It is going to take me a few weeks to get back into shape for squash and winter activities in Maine.&nbsp; I also took the half-day tour of Robben Island, South Africa\u2019s infamous prison island located 5 miles northeast of the docks in Cape Town.&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robben-island.org.za\/\">Robben Island<\/a> has over 300 years of history as a prison, leper colony, and military base.&nbsp; The world knows about Robben Island because it was the apartheid-era prison of Nelson Mandela, Robert Sobukwe, and over 1500 other political prisoners from 1961 to 1991.&nbsp; A tour of the island should be on the top of the list of any visitor\u2019s itinerary for Cape Town.<\/p>\n<p>So now I am heading home 49 days after leaving Maine in early January.&nbsp; I hope readers have enjoyed reading this blog and learning something about the research, the scientists, and life on the oceanographic ship the Melville. &nbsp;It was a great trip, made successful by the capable Captain and Crew of the Melville, and a great group of scientists lead by Barney Balch from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Whitney<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is tuesday, February 22nd, and I am sitting in the Cape Town airport getting ready for my twenty-hour flight back to Boston.&nbsp;&nbsp; It is hard to believe that a week ago the Melville was steaming at five knots, sixty &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/2011\/02\/25\/hello-and-goodbye-from-africa\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":184,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17554,17550,17553,17552],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1990,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions\/1990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/colbyatsea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}