Day Six

Greetings!

Today was a lovely day all around. It held lots of good food, good weather, fun sights, and a calm work schedule.

I woke up this morning to find that we were right off of Lincoln City, with some gorgeous views of Cascade Head, as well as the town of Lincoln city directly Starboard-side. We had a beautiful blue sky and the water was a really pretty shade of teal green.  Even some of the busiest folks on our ship took some time to sit out in the sunshine for a while.

Cascade Head

At lunch, we were served the tuna that was caught yesterday - we had albacore fish and chips, as well as fresh albacore sashimi, which was excellent. To make it even better, we also had mozzarella sticks and onion rings on the side.

We continued down the coast today, and reached Newport in the evening.  There was a beautiful red sunset, and then when it was finally dark I could see Yaquina Head lighthouse in the distance.  Ironically, the town of Newport was much more visible than the lighthouse, but it was still neat. Also, since we were so close to shore I was able to speak with my parents on the phone, which was nice after almost a week of not having cell service!

Sunset

At night I helped again with net tows, and Yvan was nice enough to take photos of me helping Jennifer deploy and retrieve nets.  The weather was nice again, which made it a bonus to be out on deck.  However, we didn't catch anything too exciting this time.  Oh well!

Retrieving the plankton net

So I guess that is about it!  I can't wait to get further down towards California and hopefully start seeing more marine mammals.  I received an email today that some blue whales were spotted off the coast of Southern Oregon, so maybe we will get lucky!  Did you know the blue whale is the largest animal to have ever lived on Earth?  That would be pretty cool to see.

I could really get used to this.

Shea


**Note: I am having issues posting photos, so if I can't get them to work tonight I promise to put them up tomorrow!