Our Drinking Water
27 hours until we get to our first sampling spot. I started seeing my breath on deck 2 days ago. It’s snowing right now. Apparently some people saw penguins swim by this morning (love that for them. Will hate them until I see penguins for myself).
Your question: "Do you make your own fresh water for drinking and cooking? And do you wash in fresh water?" Yes and yes. The ship sucks up seawater- it can do this even while we're on the move. Then a machine uses extra heat from the engine to evaporate the water and collect the steam, which leaves the salt behind. The dripped and collected steam is filtered and stored in a few big tanks, one of which is kept hot by more extra heat from the engine. So we're allowed to take long hot showers- a luxury compared to some ships!
The ship can't make freshwater in port, though, because the engines are off- there's no extra heat to run the system! They had to buy water from the port through a hose twice during the 2 weeks they were waiting for us to board.
There's a second water sucking system that brings raw seawater onboard for science purposes. They have to filter it so little animals like krill don't gum up the system. Today was a filter cleaning day and one of the labs took the animals stuck in the filters and did their science thing with them, looking at them under the scope.
I really, really appreciate the emails and messages I'm getting from y'all- thank you so much for sending them! I wish that I could protect the privacy of your phone numbers while opening up this group for comments and reactions. Your messages let me know I'm not talking to a wall. I have so many things stacked up to tell you and we haven’t even started doing science yet- I’m so glad y’all are along for this ride.
❤ Virginia
Work out with me! I tried running on the treadmill a few days ago and my shoulders got sore from holding myself on the belt. Yoga is silly to attempt while we’re in transit. But just look at the sunshine out on deck. This is definitely the best workout for miles.