OCEAN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Feb.1 (Sat) through 5, (Wed) : Started with rough weather but it improved. Analyzed records and played chess, gradually getting better and beating Bout, Terry and Tatum. Made some drift buoys, of which one floated completely around the ship, touching the Ekman current meter! On Monday, we did 5 Ekman current measurement stations at several depths each. Received radio message from Captain Cook on the "Rockeater" which is approaching Walvis Bay on their Long Beach - Panama Canal - Cape Town journey. On Tuesday we fabricated inner tube - bamboo staff drifters for a depth of 200 feet and tracked them for three hours.. On Wednesday, we finished the last line in the Northern Concession. I worked out the current measurements and did my correspondence. "Rockeater" arrived in Walvis Bay!

Feb.6, Thur: We completed our work, locked up the records for "fear" of the Collin's geologist on board, and shaved and packed up.

At 14:30, we moored in Luderitz - which reminded me not only of Coleridge(Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top) and Hitchcock, what with the thousands of birds, penguins and cormorants, (photocredit Mark van Aardt in excellent Namibia guidebook)

but also of my story about the life of a cormorant named Phalacro written and illustrated when I was about 12, as well as my Paintbrush effort below of the mid-1990's : Phalacro cormorans cato

Went ashore and picked up two letters. Then walked around and had a haircut. At 17:00 I had to race back since we had to change to moor on a buoy. After dinner aboard, the whole crew took a sloop to the shore to have a beer in a bar where a German Siegfried talked about "Our Rockeater" . . . I walked around for another hour, enjoyed a fine sunset and looking at the small stone houses, the fish factory and all things German. The Anglo American "yacht" put into port, also, so we said goodbye to our shipmates Bout and Biesheuvel, who boarded their own vessel. 21:30 back on board for a continuous party. . .