E-Mail From the BALDRIGE....

Subject: Fourth Grade Questions/Answers
From: Craig S Nelson
To: JD86@MARISTB.MARIST.EDU

Dear Mrs. Curtin and all of the fourth grade students at Noxon Road Elementary School,

I apologize for the delay in responding to your questions, but we have been quite busy aboard ship recently, completing our previous GLOBEC cruise, exchanging personnel and resupplying the ship in Muscat, Oman, and now beginning our first few days of the WOCE cruise that will keep us occupied until the end of June. I hope that my message reaches you before the end of your school year.

Actually, I'm quite envious of you all, because you got to take a ride on the CLEARWATER on the Hudson River. That's a trip that I'd like to take someday, but I never seem to have the time or opportunity to do it. As I recall, the folk singer Pete Seeger is, or at least was somehow connected to the CLEARWATER Association. If you don't know who Pete Seeger is, ask your teacher. I'm sure she knows who he is.

If I had my choice, I would go to sea on nothing but sailing ships. Unfortunately, the day of sailing oceanographic research vessels is pretty much gone. There are a few smaller sailing vessels that do conduct oceanographic research, but for the open ocean, blue water type work that we do, almost all of the world's large oceanographic research vessels are powered by diesel engines, not by sails anymore. Alas, some of the romance of going to sea has gone, but none of the adventure.

I am glad to learn that you and your students have been taking an active interest in our travels and our work by following our voyages in the pages of MidLink and by tracking our position through the ship's daily noon position reports. By sparking your students' curiosity about science and the environment now we may have a few more biologists, oceanographers, and sailors to continue the work in years to come. It is a big world with a lot of mysteries to still unravel.

Now let's see if we can answer your many questions. These answers have been co-authored by one of my junior officers, Ensign Mark W. Wetzler.

Mrs. Curtin's fourth graders ask these questions:

1. How many crew members are on your boat?

2. How big is your ship?

3. How old is your ship, and who was the real Malcolm Baldrige?

4. Where do you sleep?

5. Is your boat a sailboat?

6. How long have you been on this boat and how long do you plan to stay?

7. How do you cook and what do you eat?

8. Where do you live when you are not at sea?

9. What do you do for entertainment? Do you have a TV or a radio?

10. How does it feel living on a boat for so long?

11. Do you ever go diving off the ship?

Well, I hope that we have been able to answer all of your questions satisfactorily. I know that it's late in your school year, and that you must all be very excited about summer vacation. But if you do have access to a computer this summer, and can access MidLink, please keep reading about our voyage around the world, as I will continue to provide updates on our progress on the pages of MidLink.

See you next school year.
Your Friends,
Ensign Mark W. Wetzler, NOAA
Captain Craig S. Nelson, NOAA

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