Getting ready to go

As our date of departure draws closer, each of the research teams is hurrying to finish their final preparations, organize their equipment and get it loaded aboard the Hi'ialakai. A steady stream of crates, pallets, Action packers, Pelican Cases, and 5-gallon buckets can be seem making their way from laboratories, to pickup trucks and then up the gangway and into the ship. Fuel trucks pass to and fro, cranes are lifting the heavy equipment from the pier to the ship, and the electronics technicians are running the last of the cables to connect the various computers and other pieces of equipment used to collect a variety of different measurements while we are underway.  Piles of equipment appear in various locations and then disappear almost as quickly as they appeared.  There is a constant flurry of activity and it looks like we might just get underway as scheduled.