I am now working as a Second Mate onboard the Survey Ship “R/V Davidson,” a former NOAA Class 3 research ship. She is 175' long 833 Gross tons and 1,800 horsepower. Our clients are Fugro a large survey corporation headquartered out of San Diego. Our contract with NOAA is to survey the Chatham Straits. Just completing one month of work and everything is going good and ahead of schedule. We run 3 small survey boats for inshore work while the ship handles the bulk of the deeper work. Survey lines are run with mostly north, south alternating lines with occasional east, west tie lines. We also conduct periodic stops lowering a probe to calibrate sound velocity. during the day with the small boats and also the ship. At night we anchor up in one of the numerous small bays. The views are breath taking, with large snow covered mountains coming right down to the sea. Looking something like a seagoing Alps. It's pretty relaxed work and a good crew. The straits are well protected from the weather and it's been nice so far with only a few windy days. We will be leaving here on the 9th June and going to Kodiak then to Dutch Harbor. Our next survey area will be off Dutch in the Akutan Pass where we will be working for 1 month. We have Internet sometimes and phone also, depending on whether a mountain is blocking the satellite. Our 2 Survey launches are aluminum 32' Bristol bay gill-netter s known as R2 and D2. Our inshore skiff is a 25 aluminum boat with twin 140 Mercury's.