The day began with lots of high energy. Here we were able to watch the ship cast off and leave port with the traditional tugboat escort. The weather has been just perfect, clear and pleasant temperatures. In this picture, notice the white railing. This is on our ship, the USNS Bruce Heezen.
Tugboats escort ships in and out of the port of Jacksonville, Florida.
We were assigned to groups for learning and we were assigned partners for preparing a group presentation. Our first group study today was with Bruce Leybourne, a marine geologist. The whole Sea Scholars group mustered on the fantail of the ship. We prepared a 2,000 pound gadget to be dropped overboard by winch to collect core samples from the ocean bottom. We collected 2 different tubes of samples.