by 
By: Legend Rotsart, Grossmont Community College and UC Santa Cruz
Hey everyone! This is Legend Rotsart giving you a rundown on day one of our STEMSEAS adventure. Starting at 8:30 am, a few participants and I grabbed coffee from Better Buzz. It was nice chatting and getting to know more about everyone.
At 10:00 am, we all met in the lobby of our hotel and took a van to the port where the Atlantis was located. When I first saw the research vessel, I was blown away. I have never been on a boat of this size nor traveled on a boat for as long as we will.
After we put all of our gear in our rooms, it was lunchtime. We had some amazing jerk chicken that was prepped by the kitchen crew, then it was straight into work. Slowly, as people finished their food, they made their way down to the Main Lab, where we helped the USGC team store all of their equipment. I was the first one down, so I led the team, sending the equipment where it needed to go and checking off every item. Everyone did a fantastic job, and we flew through everything that needed to be stored. At 1 pm, we had our first meeting of the day, where Ana broke down the ins and outs of the ship and everything we needed to know. She then took us on a tour of the ship, where we got to see everything from the laundry room to the bridge. Then we reconvened in the main lab, where we then had a safety briefing.
They taught us about what we needed to do in case of various emergencies, and tomorrow we’re doing some drills! Dinner time came shortly after that, and the mess staff once again prepared delicious food. At 6:30 pm we had our last meeting of the day where we talked about what the plan was for tomorrow and we finally did official introductions to everyone via a fun ice breaker game where you have an action (that matches the first letter of your name) then your name and everyone would copy your action and repeat your name. Then you go around the entire circle, introduce yourself, and then everyone goes down the line and does all the previous actions as well. To round it all off, a few of us watched the movie Surfs Up in the lounge. It was a fantastic first day, and I’m looking forward to many more fun days ahead!
