The voyage of the Dawn Treader
"Adventures are never fun while you're having them."
- C.S. Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Carl pushed forward on the throttle and kicked the engine into turbo mode. Instantly, black smoke started billowing out of the exhaust pipe behind us. We let it go for a few seconds, watching the dark plume stretch behind us as we skimmed over the top of the water. The black cloud slowly lightened until it turned to white, then darkened again to gray. We looked at each other, confused.
Friends, I write this blog to show you the ups and downs of science, and today happened to be one of the less-successful days. I'm not quite ready to call it a "down," because it was still overall a great day, but we were unable to reach our dive site because of mechanical issues. Sometimes, that's just how it goes.
I'm training for a project this summer that involves diving at shipwrecks around Massachusetts, and I'm getting pretty far along in the process. I'm now at the point that it's time for me to start diving on some actual wrecks. Carl and I decided to use our long weekend for dive training, so we approached a friend and got permission to borrow his boat, the Dawn Treader (yes, that is a C.S. Lewis reference). Another two divers joined us and two friends came along as surface support, so we packed our gear and headed out. Our goal was a wreck in Buzzards Bay, the Corwin, but unfortunately, we never reached the site. The Dawn Treader started blowing black smoke, and the simple things we were able to fix at sea didn't help. C'est la vie.
Dive or not, it was still valuable for me to get out on the boat. I'll be using the Dawn Treader for my project, so it's good for me to get familiar with her - how the boat moves, how the space is arranged, and such. I'm still calling this day a win.
- C.S. Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Carl pushed forward on the throttle and kicked the engine into turbo mode. Instantly, black smoke started billowing out of the exhaust pipe behind us. We let it go for a few seconds, watching the dark plume stretch behind us as we skimmed over the top of the water. The black cloud slowly lightened until it turned to white, then darkened again to gray. We looked at each other, confused.
Friends, I write this blog to show you the ups and downs of science, and today happened to be one of the less-successful days. I'm not quite ready to call it a "down," because it was still overall a great day, but we were unable to reach our dive site because of mechanical issues. Sometimes, that's just how it goes.
I'm training for a project this summer that involves diving at shipwrecks around Massachusetts, and I'm getting pretty far along in the process. I'm now at the point that it's time for me to start diving on some actual wrecks. Carl and I decided to use our long weekend for dive training, so we approached a friend and got permission to borrow his boat, the Dawn Treader (yes, that is a C.S. Lewis reference). Another two divers joined us and two friends came along as surface support, so we packed our gear and headed out. Our goal was a wreck in Buzzards Bay, the Corwin, but unfortunately, we never reached the site. The Dawn Treader started blowing black smoke, and the simple things we were able to fix at sea didn't help. C'est la vie.
Dive or not, it was still valuable for me to get out on the boat. I'll be using the Dawn Treader for my project, so it's good for me to get familiar with her - how the boat moves, how the space is arranged, and such. I'm still calling this day a win.
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| My company on the boat for the day |
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