Leaving on a jet plane (or 3)

Saturday morning, I will be boarding a plane to fly from Sacramento to Portland, where I will board a different plane to Amsterdam, where I will then board a third plane to my final air destination: Cape Town.  I have three full days in Cape Town before having to be at the docks on the 9th (though we don't depart for the open ocean until the 11th).  As of now, my plan is to see the penguins and write postcards.  As long as I can do that, I'll be satisfied.

49 days at sea later, I'll be flying back to the states with a 24 hour layover in Amsterdam!

I'm told I'll have some internet access on the ship, so you can contact me via email while I'm offshore.  I will also try to update this blog as much as possible.

This will be the cruise's website (not currently up- if you go to the site right now it has information about a different research cruise): http://earthref.org/ERESE/projects/MV1203/  It will probably be more focused on the scientific aspect of the cruise.  There's also a page about the ship I'll be on (http://shipsked.ucsd.edu/Ships/Melville/ which has a link to a map with the ship's current location.