Soon after dawn each day one of the crew washes the decks. And it seems
only a short time later that Willie, the German mess boy calls “Hallf
pass seex.” I jump out of my cot on the upper deck, put on shorts,
shirt and sneakers and beat it for breakfast at seven o’clock.
Just after breakfast or just before, the temperatures are taken and
samples of water brought up from the different depths of the ocean.
When that is finished, the depth of the ocean is measured. This is
called “sounding.” A heavy lead weighing seventy-five pounds is let
over on a piano wire till bottom is reached. Of course the ship’s
engines have to be stopped while this is going on. The sounding machine
has a contraption for bringing up samples of the sea bottom, so that
one knows if there is sand or mud or rock below. Our soundings have
varied from 746 fathoms to 2070 fathoms. A fathom is six feet.
It is fun to feel the icy cold water brought up, sometimes just above
freezing although we at the surface are broiling with heat if we get
out of the breeze.
The nets are put down 600 fathoms or more. There are three or four nets
let out on the same cable, 150 to 200 fathoms apart. The net goes out
for two hours, then begins hauling in. And of course there is
excitement when it comes up for everybody wants to see, first if the
nets are still on, and then what has been brought up in them. In it are
tiny fish, pieces of strange unknown fish, once a black octopus with a
queer umbrella-like arrangement over his mouth and head. Early in the
voyage several nets were lost because they twisted off from the cable.
And one was cut off by the propellers.
Next we feed the animals. The mocking birds have crumbs, the lizards
are forcibly fed with bits of bread and water, the two very lovely
albatrosses eat fish which is kept on the ice for them. These are now
at the New York Zoological Park in the Bronx. I hope they like it
there. And the little fish in the aquarium are given the “crumbs” from
the nightly plankton nets. The nice little penguin died although for
days he came out and had a swim, then gobbled up fish.
Then we have lunch. One day, the ship was stopped for half an hour, the
gangway let down and we went swimming right in the ocean. It was over a
mile and a half deep too. And beautifully clear water. If you even let
yourself sink a few feet below the surface you could see right under
our ship with the sunlight showing on the opposite side.
For an hour or two in the afternoon we seemed to be in a lot of
drifting stuff. We saw two turtles, some big logs with birds resting on
them and hundreds of tiny fish swimming round in the shadow underneath,
and two poisonous sea snakes all brown and bright yellow. We caught a
small dolphin fish on a line and while pulling it in three sharks
followed.
All the nets were in before five o’clock for we have supper at that
time. It is nice to sit up on the roof of the laboratory to watch the
sunset and the moonlight later. And at eight o’clock the plankton net
goes out for a short while. Plankton is very small sea life like bugs,
queer fish that can’t move themselves. And then to bed for another day
just like it tomorrow.