We boarded Iskatel IV today and are headed out into the Sea of Okhotsk. However, we are apparently heading into a storm that is supposed to have waves that are rated at Six Balls. The unsettling thing is that nobody can tell us how big that really is! It is apparently a Russian scaling system for rating how bad a storm, and the associated waves, might be. The only insight I've been able to get is that Six Balls will be "pretty rough" and that Nine Balls is unbearable. But I don't know if Six Balls is 5 meter waves (top of crest to bottom of trough), or if it is 10 meter waves. I just don't know. And not knowing is a bit unnerving! I've actually been in 10 meter waves before, and it was pretty nasty. But I actually have a worse time with sea sickness in waves 2-4 meters high-especially if the ship is quartering into or out of the waves (i.e., hitting the waves at an angle).
I guess we'll just have to wait and see how bad Six Balls really is-we are due to hit them around 1 am.
So how did we get here?
Well, we received word that there would be an "all hands" meeting at the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics (IMGG) at 9:30 this morning.
Then we heard that it was really only going to be a "chiefs" meeting, and the rest of the American crew was going to load our gear onto the large bus and start heading south to Korsakov, which is the port where we were boarding Iskatel IV.
So we scurried around the apartment all morning packing and shuffling things down to the entryway of the apartment. Then Jody and I walked over to IMGG for this meeting. Well, it turned out that that it was an "all hands" meeting only for the team from IMGG, and was essentially a pep-talk and safety reminder for the IMGG scientists and students from Boris Levin, the director of IMGG.
Oh, well-no big deal. You can't have too much emphasis on safety and encouragement, right?
Anyway, after that, Jody and I piled into the large bus where the rest of the American team was waiting and we headed south to Korsakov, which is about a 45 minute drive from Y-S. In classic not-quite-optimally-planned fashion, we arrived to Korsakov at 12:10, and the border patrol office had just closed for lunch (12-1). So we hiked into town to a "Magazin" (Russian version of a convenience store) and bought some things for lunch. By 1:10, the folks in the border patrol office determined that we were missing some crucial paperwork. So we passed the time in various ways, including a rousing round of hackey-sack in front of the border patrol office (which generated quite a lot of interest to passersby!).
Some of the field team members spend some free time hackey sacking in front of the Russian Border Patrol office in Korsakov. Left to Right: Laada Bilaniuk, Natasha Slobodina, Erik Gjesfeld, Andy Ritchie, Laska Fitzhugh.
Finally, at 3:20, our paperwork showed up and we were admitted onto the wharf and Iskatel!
And the extended wait was not without good news-while we were waiting on one side of the border patrol turnstiles, our Russian colleagues had already moved all of the busloads of equipment onto ship!
Once we got on board Iskatel, we spent some time shuffling equipment around to the various sub-piles (i.e., vulcanology group, tsunami group, archaeology group). And by 7:35 pm, the ship's crew released the mooring lines, and we headed out into Aniva Bay and on to the Sea of Okhotsk!
Time to tuck in for some sleep. Hopefully the Six Ball storm won't knock me out of my bunk!
--Dr. E