Art at Sea

23 Jan 2014

Last night we left the 'roaring 40s' and entered the 'furious 50s'. This momentous event was marked, or rather not marked, by sampling in calm waters. However, this lull in the wind had resulted in two days in impenetrable fog, and was accompanied by three blasts of the ship's fog horn every two minutes. Now remember, this is a noise that is designed to be heard and heeded as a warning to our presence to approaching vessels (that for some reason have missed our 92 m/274 ft. presence on their radar!), so it can be heard from all points aboard our vessel too - and the higher up the ship our cabin/state room is the louder it is - try sleeping through that! I think it's fair to say that there are a fair few on board the RV Ronald H. Brown that are more than a little happy that the wind has whipped up to about 35 knots again, and blown the fog away.

In the last blog entry Jon Christophersen mentioned that when you're working 12 hour shifts you need to keep yourself occupied to stop the boredom kicking in during lulls in the work schedule. Another consideration is that if you're working for 12 hours, there are another 12 in every day when you are not working. Take 8, or so, away for sleep and that still leaves 4 hours in which to amuse yourself. Ocean line cruise ship this ain't! but that's not to say there's not things to do in your down time. A movie is shown every evening in the lounge. There's a gym. We have internet, albeit a little on the slow side. Card games are ever popular, and tonight is bingo night - tonight with the British bingo names (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_bingo_nicknames)!

Other people choose to amuse themselves with art. I think it's fair to say that one of the most creative characters aboard is the chief boatswain, Bruce Cowden. Early in the voyage Bruce and two deck hands (Mike and TR) built a picnic table, which Bruce then decorated with the names of all aboard. Bruce took the following pictures of the table (obviously except for the first one, which I took) - which is also the main star in a story book that he is writing and illustrating for his grandson!

Bruce working on the table

 

 

Perhaps the most unusual medium that Bruce works with is Styrofoam mannequin heads, which he shrinks on the CTD rosette when it goes down to 4,000+ m deep. Rather than try to do his work justice with words, I've attached a video that he shot of one of his heads - before and after shrinking. These unusual pieces of work are simply awesome - beautiful, creative and unique.