Thanksgiving Day

The entry tonight is the one I wrote for the ship's website (with a few edits). Since its been a long day, and I'm tired, I didn't really feel like writing two separate posts for two different websites for tonight. I hope you enjoy it and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day!

Sea Team


Land Team




Today was Thanksgiving Day. That great US holiday where we stuff ourselves with mashed potatoes, turkey and pumpkin pie. The football game is turned on and people relax in a comfy spot and let the day just go by. But when you are on a research vessel, doing vital scientific work and have deadlines to meet, the holiday relaxation doesn’t happen. We were very lucky that our kitchen staff made fabulous mashed potatoes (yeah, more potatoes), turkey and yes, even pumpkin pie for dinner. But there was no time for football, fun and relaxation. Yet today, sixteen of us out here also took time for a very special event that was taking place in two locations for one cause.

Each year I participate in the annual Thanksgiving Day Run/Walk for Multiple Sclerosis. I also serve as the Team Captain for a team for the annual MS Walk earlier in the year. But the Thanksgiving Day walk was just me, it was my private time to walk for my friend Ms B. Ms B. and I have been friends for countless years, and for much of this time I had known she had MS, but had never seen the full effects. One winter holiday I went to stay with her and her husband for a few weeks. It was during that time that I saw Ms. B get pretty sick. It was painful to watch, and even worse, I felt utterly useless and helpless to stop the pain she was experiencing. When I got back to Delaware, I searched for something, someway to make me feel like I could help. That's when I started participating in the walks. I’ve now been doing this for over five years, every year.

But this year's Thanksgiving Day walk was going to be a big problem for me. Since I was scheduled to embark on the cruise during November this year, no Thanksgiving Day walk was going to be possible for me. During a conversation with Jeboleth, he simply said, "Why don't you just walk on the ship?" And that's when things began to come together. I really wanted to do this so I called the local chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and asked if they minded if I walked out here instead. They were quite thrilled with the idea and I decided to go ahead and form up the team again. I even got one of my former team members (and former cruise participant) Dirt Doc to design our t-shirt backs. We divided up the team into the Land Team and the Sea Team. We had three official members on Land and four official members on the Sea Team. We were ready!

Once I got to the ship, I thought I’d ask if anyone would like to join us for the walk day. It would be difficult since science is the priority out here and it would require a bit of time away from that work. I put out the request that anyone who wanted to walk with us show up at the bow of the ship one night for our team/group photo. I was so touched, and really moved when I saw not just my little team of four people on the bow, but 16 people, all willing to sacrifice some of their day to help me in this walk event. I was truly moved and am thankful to each one of them.

And so today, Thanksgiving Day, my Land Team stepped off and walked in cold and dreary temperatures while here on the ship, the Sea Team stepped off next to the Alvin hanger in a crispy and sunny day. We walked up stairs, around exhaust fans, up more stairs, around a paint locker, and up even more stairs. We navigated around chains, around people working, around the zodiac boat and back around to do it all again. We walked around the steel decks of the ship, 4 decks, 15 times for a total time of 1 hour and 6 minutes. I know that typically it takes about 1 hour to walk a 5K, so that’s what I decided to do since we didn’t have a pedometer or measuring tape, and that we did.

It was a very good day, the sun was shinning, it was cool, the water was calm and very blue. Some people jumped into the walk part way, others had to duck out due to work obligations. But we still walked, and kept it going for the whole time. One walker told me that she had only planned on walking for about 3 laps, but was so getting into it that she decided to keep going with me. She even did a 16th lap with me to go collect and remove all of my arrows for the walk path. You have no idea how much that meant to me.

When we finished our final lap and came to the end at the Alvin hanger there were several crew, and scientists standing around. They were actually waiting for Alvin to come on deck with their samples, but when they saw us completing the walk, they cheered and clapped for us. Making it feel like an appreciated end to the walk.

So what do I hope to have gained from all this? My biggest hope from all of this is to spread awareness about Multiple Sclerosis. I’m always surprised by the number of people I speak with who know someone or have a family member with MS. It is my prime goal to have as many people know and become aware of MS, and of course raise donations to help the research efforts to find a cure.

Thank you all for any and all support, you made Thanksgiving Day one of more thanks than you could have thought possible for many, many people.