I awoke at ten after five this afternoon and promptly went back to sleep. Knowing that I was hungry and I needed to get up to eat, I immediately woke up again and trunged out of bead to head towards the shower. After a nice easy paced morning of waking up and getting ready, I walked down a couple of decks to participate in the weekly "morale dinner". This is one meal of the week where certain groups get together in the kitchen and make the meal. Tonight was burgers, but I got down a little late so the only warm toppings they had left was bacon and rings of pineapple. Guess what I had put on my burger? Yep, bacon and pineapple rings. Some of the cold toppings was missing too so I had to settle for guacamole dip smeared on a bun with some pepperjack cheese and onions. I just wanted to say that it was one delicious burger. You should try it, you'll be hooked.

Anyway, enough of the food reviews. We recently sailed back to St. Paul island to switch out one of the crew members, who was pregnant, for another one who wasn't and at the same time, we took aboard a new optics machine. I don't know if the optics people are happy or not, I haven't asked them, but I would imagine that they are. Their old unit still sits on the sea floor, but perhaps this one will suffice. We had one monster of a station this morning at 2:30. Basically every instrument we had was being deployed one after the other over the course of about three to four hours. Luckily the bongo nets and the MOCNESS were done within the first three instrument casts so there wasn't much waiting. I spent a couple of hours before then working on my presentation going nowhere. You all know how that feeling is. I need some consultation and I'll get it tomorrow so I get this train moving again. We pulled up the same old, same old, including the seafood gumbo-gruel. It was a bit warmer out this morning than it had been with a little more wind around 3:30. I think this helped blow away the fog because, surprise, surprise, there was none when the sun rose. We actually saw that elusive glowing ball in the sky along with the moon, which looks a little rotated from my customary view back home. All in all, it was a busy night, because right when I finished with the MOCNESS and went inside, there was filtering to be done for the krill growth experiments! Hoo-ray. That took a little bit of time, almost right up til breakfast so there was only a little waiting around while we waited to eat. Since I'm a trifle pooped, I'm going to relax back in my quarters now so peace out, you groovy, blog reading cats. Check in next time for more exciting Bering Sea adventures.