Exploring the Indian Ocean for six weeks is like packing for the world’s biggest camping trip. Out here, there is no convenience store if we forget the milk.

Steward Mirth Miller has the milk covered, and in two weeks we have gulped about 106 gallons. We used it to wash down 200 pounds of onions, eight cases of grapes, 75 pounds of carrots and 225 pounds of flour, among many other foods.

The ship requires fuel too. So far we have burned 45,000 gallons, about a third of the 145,000 gallons that we started with in the Seychelles. We are 500 miles from the nearest gas station and other ships don’t resupply us, so we carry more than enough to last our 40 days at sea.

In fact, the Knorr could steam 11,800 nautical miles on a single load of fuel. That’s equivalent to traveling from Los Angeles to Tokyo and back again without once topping off the ship’s 13 fuel tanks.

We have gone far less than that distance since leaving Mauritius. As of noon today we have traveled 1,041 miles to and along the Central Indian Ridge. That’s not many miles, considering the Knorr has steamed nearly 30,000 nautical miles on various other expeditions since leaving Woods Hole in Massachusetts last September.

The engineers on Knorr refer to the ship as a “little city” because we can produce many utilities, like electricity and water. Water we make using evaporation or a reverse osmosis system that converts salty water into the fresh variety. Between showers, drinking water, laundry, cooking and science research, we use between 1,500 to 3,000 gallons of freshwater each day.

And like cities everywhere , last night we had a visit from the Easter Bunny (or bunnies, looking suspiciously like Bob Collier, Colleen Cavanaugh, Marvin Lilley and Jessie Philley). They decorated the ship’s main lab with balloons and left jellybeans next to each computer.

In the galley, a holiday greeting on the menu board reminded us of the continued rocky seas: “Happy Easter, don’t fall on your kiester.”

Dive and Discover Picture Word Puzzle [Printable Version of Picture Word Puzzle] Check back tomorrow for the solution.

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