After approximately 35 hours of travel, we arrived in Tauranga, NZ at noon on Saturday January 9th…quite tired, but excited for the adventure to begin. The flight was relatively uneventful and we passed through customs with our equipment in tow. We arrived at our hotel (Oceanside Resort) and met up with the remaining US contingency of the scientific crew. Unfortunately, the R/V Revelle was still going through sea trials, so there would be no accessing the ship until Sunday. With some time on our hands, we decided to take a quick dip in the ocean (JP and I can’t seem to go near a large body of water without going for a swim) and planned to climb Mt. Maunganui in the evening (hoping to catch the R/V Revelle heading through the channel back to port). The swim was cooler than expected, but that didn’t stop us from body surfing for 30 minutes or so. We grabbed lunch, picked up some rations at the store, and worked in our room for a couple hours…yes, that’s right WORKED, this isn’t a vacation after all! Around 1700, we all started heading up the trail (mostly made of steps) to the peak of Mt. Maunganui. We brought a few bottles of local wine along to toast the beginning of the cruise…or at least the beginning of preparing to get on the ship. Afterwards, we trekked back down the mountain, grabbed dinner at a nice Mediterranean restaurant and went a grabbed some much needed shut-eye. I think we are all in bed fast asleep by 2230.
Sunday January 10, 2010
Everyone was up early…not sure if that is because the sun was well into the sky by 0600 or that it was noon on our bio-clocks. In any event, we were up and moving…at least after we all had our first cup of jo. The ship did not make it back into port last night…clearly the word “trial” in sea trial has had its impact. They have been delayed, but the communication I got from the ship stated that they should be back to port around mid-day. That is giving us a bit more time to plan, track down our gear, and obviously write this update to the Blog. Things will begin to get pretty busy in the next several hours…plan to have a science meeting with the group that has assembled so far and head to the ship to begin constructing the tripods.
We took a couple of videos as well…check them out: http://www.youtube.com/user/papaswami2005
For those who are trying to keep up with our travels, NZ time is 18 hours AHEAD of US Eastern Standard Time. (FYI…time stamps on the photos are based on Eastern Standard Time)
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