By the numbers, there are about 40 of us onboard this little bluewater ark, bobbing and swirling our way north to Alaska. 18 officers, ABs and engineers, I think, and 22 of us tech nerds. The latter group is vaguely split into instructors and students, though I expect everyone’s going to learn a bunch before we make landfall at Seward.

This whole trip was the brainchild of Sikuliaq’s IT manager, an old friend from my Antarctic days. The ship had been in Hawaii for a spell this winter, effectively on loan to UHawai’i while their usual ride was in dry dock. I guess they’re done with it (or Alaska decided they needed their boat back), but there weren’t any scientists pounding on the door to ride along for the 2700 mile slog north. So Julian saw an opportunity: invite a bunch of young and aspiring techs to come along and learn about shipboard cyberinfrastructure from some of us who were a little longer in the tooth. And give us elders a bit of a refresher, and an introduction to things that aren’t in our usual wheel houses.

The curriculum is a bit loose and flexible, but it’s working out well so far. Yesterday’s exercise was an electronic version of “build it”: Julian and Joseph had piled a mess of firewall boxes, switches, power supplies and ethernet cables on the table and instructed us to dive into the documentation and set up our own little mini-networks. With that work done, I believe I’m on tomorrow, to guide everyone through setting up my software on virtual machines inside those networks.

Weather has been decent, except when it hasn’t. We’re mid-Pacific, still closer to Hawaii than Alaska, so it’s all shirtsleeves when out on deck. The biggest annoyance has been a persistent quartering wind that’s been making the ship Dutch roll its way forward. But the wind has let up this morning, and the seasickness meds seem to be working nicely, so it’s all good.