[khanaris]

So it occurred to me that I promised to post pictures. I have about 3,000 or so from the shared photo directory on the ship, so these are just a few I liked.




These are from Yokohama. It is really an awesome city. Everything is built in layers. It can be difficult to figure out what "street level" is.

[hr]



HUET training. Because we took a helicopter out to the ship, we needed to know how to get out in case of a ditching at sea. Because of the flotation bags on the struts, a helicopter will normally float if it crashes. But because they are on the bottom, helicopters tend to float best upside-down, meaning you need to get out of them when they are flooded and inverted. Not sure how realistic this simulator really is, but I thought it was pretty fun.

[hr]



Near where we had HUET training. I liked this one because it looked like a National Geographic shot.

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Waiting for the train near Yokohama. To my left and right are colleagues from Sweden and France, respectively. Those in the back are from China, France, and Australia. We were a very mixed bunch.

[hr]



You think you might understand how big Mt. Fuji is before you see it, but you really don't. It isn't a mountain. It is a cone-shaped apocalypse in mountainous form. The shear scale of it buries you. Pictures really don't do it justice.

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For comparison, my quarters on the ship vs. my hotel room in Yokohama. The only difference is that hotel room had a window and the stateroom was bigger. Space is something of a premium in Japan.

[hr]



This is the ship as we left it. It is an amazing vessel, and I didn't really have a clear sense of just how big it was until I could see it from land.

[hr]





Looking both ways from the top of the derrick and down through it to the auxiliary drilling station. This wasn't a good tour for those with a problem with heights.

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The derrick at night as seen from the helipad. One of my favorite places on the ship, the Helipad was really the only place to walk around outside where you didn't need a hard hat and overalls. The aft crane is picking something from the supply boat.

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That is the supply boat. I felt very sorry for them. The Chikyu is too large to feel much of the swell, but Kaiyu here got picked up and thrown around by just about anything. This picture was taken one of the other scientists.

[hr]



My lab space on the ship. A lot of us worked up here. Our job was to interpret cores after they were recovered and then split in half. Some people would record what they saw, and others would take samples and do tests of various properties. My job was to measure acoustic velocity, shear strength, and electrical conductivity.


Kind of hard to decide what to include. If people are interested, I would be happy to fish around for other pictures or to explain some of the things we were doing out there.

[GeekyGator]

I'd like to see pictures of these cores. And any gigantic badass machinery.

Looks awesome, lucky dog with a cool job like that.

[Daienden]

... What is your job?

Anyways, cool. I'd like to experience something like that.

[Praying Mantidae]

Pah, you had a freakin' Stateroom!

I have to live in a rack barely big enough for me to fit in when we're underway...

[Grandpa Ducky]

Looks like quite an exciting trip. More pictures would be pretty exciting, too, you know.

-Grandpa Ducky

Do you have any pictures of wildlife of the feminine part of Japan?

[khanaris]

Originally Posted by Lonely Tau

Do you have any pictures of wildlife of the feminine part of Japan?

Unfortunately, no. I was only in Japan for about two days before we set out for the ship. Believe it or not, I did manage to get a date accidentally out of a conversation with a Japanese girl doing some sort of petition for earthquake relief. My Japanese is pretty rusty, so I didn't realize exactly what was going on until about halfway through the conversation. Unfortunately I had to talk myself out of it again or miss the helicopter training. A shame, really. I need to set aside more time whenever I am over there next. : There actually weren't any female scientists from Japan on this cruise, although there were a few women among the technicians (and they were pretty cute). I'll see if I can find any of the group pictures.

[hr]

I have a bunch of core pictures, but they pretty much all look like grey-green mudrock if you aren't used to looking at marine sediment. We weren't deep enough to be into the volcanic rock, and won't be until a later stage of the project. I actually have a lot of good pictures of gubbinz around the ship as well, so I will see what I can dredge up of those. The ship actually has a good web page if anyone is interested. Just search for "chikyu". They have a lot of good pictures of areas that were off-limits during operation (like the drill floor).

[enderwiggin]

Originally Posted by Khanaris

So it occurred to me that I promised to post pictures. I have about 3,000 or so from the shared photo directory on the ship, so these are just a few I liked.



Waiting for the train near Yokohama. To my left and right are colleagues from Sweden and France, respectively. Those in the back are from China, France, and Australia. We were a very mixed bunch.

That guy on the far left looks like the Heroes villain Sylar.

All-in-all I'm amazed at the clarity of the shots. The angles seems like you guys were/are professionally taking them for a brochure or something! The Mt. Fuji and angles ships shots were the best to me, with your National Geographicish shot being a close third.

Do you have any other shots of unusual architecture or vehicles?

[Valar]

I think you're lucky to have a job that lets you journey around the world

[GeekyGator]

Considering you have any Japaneese skills at all is quite a feat. There's one half mexican half jap girl at our school who can speak it, its amazing.