Day Two - BOAT

Don't let the title fool you, nothing exciting is happening.

I stopped by the ship today while it's in port to chat with some of the scientists, figure out logistics, and start organizing the wet lab. Not too much to report on that front, but here's your first look at the old lady:

The wet lab is where I'll be doing all of the sample data management work. You'll be seeing much more of it over the next month, but here's a teaser:

So for the time being, I don't have much to do. I bopped around the island on my bike and tried to find some dinner. I settled on a jar of peanut butter because today is the Sabbath and nothing is open. I didn't anticipate that being a problem, but here we are.

As there's not a lot to blog about today, I'll give a couple of disjointed thoughts about life:

1. It's so hard to get here. There's one flight per week from Honolulu on Alaska, so if you miss it you're so fucked. This became a real problem when my first flight from Denver to Seattle was postponed five hours, which would have resulted in missing this ONCE WEEKLY FLIGHT. The crisis was avoided by getting a different flight on United, but it was an inauspicious start to the journey. All in all, it was about 27 hours of straight travel to get here. You have to really want it.

2. They have ENORMOUS spiders. Some readers may have already seen a video I sent that absolutely did not do it justice. Readers may also know that I do not do so good with spiders, so when I saw it outside my door I figured I just am never leaving. After working up the courage to google spiders, I found a website explaining that they are very spooky but are completely harmless. Okay, so I can be brave and walk past it. After working up even more courage for two hours, I finally open my door only to realize that the spider was dead the whole time. There's probably a lesson about panicking without enough information, but when it comes to spiders I refuse to learn anything.

3. I probably should have known that the spiders weren't dangerous, because my Airbnb host warned me that the most dangerous thing on this island is falling coconuts.

4. It's so hot, even though it's winter here (shoutout Southern Hemisphere). My hair is so poofy.

5. I am not very good at riding my bike and my house is up a big hill. Next time I'm here (unlikely but you never know), I need Calvin to come so we can rent a scooter and he can drive.