Fall 2000 SEAmester Journal
Sent weekly from sea by on-board SEAmester coordinator and professor Chris Hamilton ...
SEAmester Log, Part 4 November 5, 2000
Gulf Stream, between GA and Bahamas
I'm happy to start this entry of the seamester log with the fishing report! After leaving Beaufort last week we caught two small tuna (little tunny). They weighed about 6 and 9 lbs. and were mostly eaten raw, sashimi style, with wasabi and soy sauce on deck.The passage from Beaufort to St. Mary's was quick, relatively smooth and full of classes. We arrived in St. Mary's on Halloween afternoon, just in time for us to get ready for a local costume party that night which our students won with their costume of the "Sails of the Harvey Gamage." The next morning we woke at 5:45 to get to the Okeefenokee White Cedar Swamp, where we canoed amongst alligators, turtles, fish and large birds (including egrets, Florida sand cranes, ibises and several birds of prey). The following day was our last in American civilization, so the students took care of last-minute details.
During breakfast on Nov. 3rd, we motored to Cumberland Island where we went ashore for a day of science and history. This beautiful barrier island boasts a healthy live oak forest (covered in Spanish moss, with a dense understory of saw palmettos), dune field and beach systems and the Dungeness Mansion, former playground of the Carnegies now in ruins. We stayed on the island that evening for a BBQ and shrimp boil then went to bed early for the next day's island hike (i.e. THE DEATH MARCH).
After the hike, completed in record time (16 miles in 6 hours), we set sail, leaving the United States behind us. In the early morning we recorded an increase in water temperature of almost 10 deg. F. In the morning light, the ocean took on a distinct cobalt blue hue, indicating tropical (and thus nutrient and plankton-free) waters. Spirits are high, smiles are wide, and even those who are seasick are glad to be underway to foreign lands with different cultures, unique ecologies and tropical breezes.
Stay tuned...
Fair winds and red sunsets,
Chris Hamilton
