We are Underway!

Three Saints Bay, Alaska

This is what the window in my stateroom looks out to. It's a waterfall!

After being in Alaska since Friday June 10th, our ship has finally set sail!  The last of the crew and science team arrived this evening, and we immediately left port.  Our first stop is a calm bay so we can calibrate the acoustic equipment to establish some baseline data.  Once we got underway, we had a meeting with the science team, and I found out that I'd be working the 4 a.m. - 4 p.m. shift.  I'll take that over the night shift any time!  I don't have much to do for the next day or two, since we will not be trawling for fish yet, so I'm doing a lot of reading and napping.  Rough work.  I know the easy life will be over soon enough, so I have to take advantage while I can!

My goal as we're making way to our first sampling station is to not get seasick.  I've been out on two other research cruises, but they were on much smaller ships (R/V Bellows and R/V Suncoaster), and I was fine on those trips, so hopefully the same can be said for this excursion.  However, the Gulf of Alaska is a little more foreboding than the Atlantic Ocean between Florida and the Bahamas, so that's definitely something to consider!  I just took one of my pills and put on some special wristbands that are supposed to help.  I have no idea what these wristbands actually do- my guess is that it's all psychological and I just paid $10 for a placebo :)
I almost forgot to mention- my bags are here!  The science team checked them when they finally got their flight over to Kodiak from Anchorage.  It will be so nice to have real clean clothes- not new from the store clothes- to change into!

QUESTION OF THE DAY:
Penguins and alcids (a group of birds that includes auks, murres, and puffins) live in similar habitats and ecological conditions, but are found in two completely separate geographic areas.  Both groups of birds evolved to have similar characteristics.  What is this phenomenon called?

I'm asking because I saw some murres today...but didn't get any good pictures :(

We've been anchored here all day Tuesday 6/14/11.

Marine 2 people, you should know this!!