by 
Dear Reader,
Today (9/26/24) R/V Sally Ride lifted her mooring lines from port in Newport, Oregon for a transit expedition (SR2417) down the Eastern Pacific to her homeport of San Diego, California. As our last tether to land was heaved into the vessel, the ship’s horn gave a loud blare to mark our departure and official underway status. I was situated on one of the upper decks on the starboard side of the bow and peered as those on land gave us waves of enthusiasm. At that moment it dawned on me that for the very first time, I would be living in a vessel out at sea and I was given the new title of “shipmate”. The new title signifies that the comforts of land are replaced by new adventures at sea and the steady ground I had taken for granted all my life was replaced with ground that is variable, determined by the forces that govern the open sea.
I shivered in the mean bite of coastal Oregon’s morning windchill and as I peered past the glassy calm water under the Yaquina Bay Bridge and witnessed the rugged surf of the Oregon coastline past the breakwater. The waves broke in a manner that was equally as beautiful as it was ferocious with crests defined by turbulent white particles of seawater. The prospect of being at the mercy of those waves evoked conflicting feelings of excitement and apprehension which I also sensed on the faces of some of the other STEMSEAS participants.
My grip tightened around the cold metal of the deck railing as the vessel started to move, interacting with the waves we were once insulated from. Soon the protection of the breakwater was behind us and Sally Ride made way west and eventually southwards towards San Diego. We went inside to the main lab to learn about the vessel instruments and when I looked through the portside port hole I could only see the faint topography of the Oregon coastline and when we were out on deck, I was met with the blue abyss that is the grand Pacific.
– Rohan Vaswani
