Big Boats

Something that people find perplexing about our move to Hamburg is that it is one of only a few cities with both Physical Oceanography and Malaria research. The presence of an institute that specializes in tropical diseases in a city whose warmest temperatures barely reach the mid 70s (F) in the summer is odd enough (wheee, colonialism), but it gets odder still when one realizes that Hamburg isn't actually on the ocean. Nope, we're about 100 km from the ocean. (Wait! I mean the North Sea. Which may or may not be the ocean. My resident oceanographer isn't here to clarify, feel free to chime in all you ocean people.) But, it happens that Hamburg is on the Elbe river, which is wide and deep from Hamburg to where it dumps into the North Sea. All of this is to say that Hamburg is in fact the second-largest port in Europe (after Rotterdam) and has a deep-water harbor large enough to accommodate this.


Yes indeed, the Queen Mary 2 came to town yesterday, in all her ginormous glory. We could hear her horns sounding during lab meeting as she came up the river. Or rather, I should say we could hear and feel them sound because they made the entire room vibrate! Everyone was a bit sullen that we were having lab meeting instead of watching "the boat" come in to dock. Since I'm not actually being paid yet I was able to leave right after lab meeting and see the very end of the docking operation. To orient you, the river runs basically east-west at this point and I'm standing on the north shore. The QM2 came in from the west (right) and then backed up into its parking spot with the help of at least two tug boats and several hundred enthusiastic seagulls.


Holy cow, people, this boat is HUGE. Like indescribably huge. I didn't see how it got into that spot, just the final backing up, but I sure as heck am going to try to be there to watch it get OUT because that will take some doing. It's basically pointed east and to get out to the North Sea it has to be pointed west. Maybe it will go in reverse all the way down the Elbe? I don't know, but I plan to watch and learn.


(In case you're curious, this is the back of my institute, which is where I was took these photos. It overlooks the Elbe and has an awesome view of the harbor (and for the moment the QM2). It was originally a hospital for sailors who came back from their travels with all kinds of nasty diseases. Conveniently, a few blocks north is the Reeperbahn, where the sailors could then acquire all kinds of other nasty diseases before going back to sea.)

Speaking of big boats and going to sea, Zoli left this morning for his month-long research cruise in the North Atlantic on the RRS Discovery. It is either the largest or second-largest general-purpose research vessel in the UK, depending on whether you believe the NOCS or Wikipedia. Before you start thinking North Atlantic = icebergs + nasty storms, you should know that the cruise leaves from Tenerife in the Canary Islands and pretty much goes along that latitude the entire time. So he'll be enjoying some pleasantly balmy temperatures and dolphin sightings while I'm wearing wool socks and slippers and a fleece vest. Given how much grief he gives me about my predilection for warm, sunny vacation spots I think he owes me one.