A Mexican Party

What day is it?
Routine and a lack of change in the surroundings have blurred all
higher order of time. Only the arbitrary relativity to the shifts
start and end points has any meaning. Asking what day it is might just
be left unanswered.
Who knew ?! Coffee also comes in teabags, or should I say coffee bags.
I found these little sacks of coffee in a can in the galley."Mocha
Kenya style", each with its own multicolour string and cardboard for
dunking, KGB interrogation style, in and out of boiling water. For
easy use and disposal, no mess - no stress. Ahhh.. the little things
in life.
Most of the magnetic analysis and mapping is done using a UNIX
open-source prompt line programming language called GMT. Very
powerful, but as a wise man expressed to me before the cruise:" 
welcome to a world of pain". I can safely say that he was right - but
hey, no pain no gain! Following 3 consecutive red-eyed nights, I have
mastered the basics and even produced some pretty good plots.
After swathing Dirk Hartog ridge two days ago, it was decided that
dredging the site would be postponed by a week, for our way back to
Freemantle. Instead, we headed west to Gulden Draak seamound to carry
out the same ritual. Remember that the point of our dredging
shenanigans is to hopefully recover some specimens that will clearly
explain the origin of the seamounts. Its always a gamble, albeit a
educated one.
Hours of watching cable tension figures as the dredge net is being
reeled in can be nerve wracking (for the geochem team). Only the
highly experienced can decipher this series of numbers. Is the sack
empty? Has it spilled? As the bulging nets gaping metal mouth rises
above the waterline, sighs of relief are released all round. Best
dredge ever!
We spoke too soon. Twenty minutes later the net was still full,
hanging like a Mexican piñata above the weather deck, swaying to and
fro - nearly decapitating a few heads. Don, our CSIRO liaison officer,
and "The Winchman" were taking turns swinging 5kg sledge-hammers.
Matters were worsened by the second mate, Tom, screeching from the
dog-house to "Give it to her" and doubling over with laughter. We
would have laughed too, had the back gates been closed, but they were
open and the thought of the guys swinging the wrong way and sliding
down the ramp like dead whale blubber did cross a few minds.
Eventually the piñata broke, releasing all its goodies. Metamorphic,
sedimentary and perhaps even igneous rocks fell everywhere. Even two
large rounded pebbles rolled about. This means months of painstaking
microscope work with the slides, but possibly good things for science.