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Daily Log: Saturday, September 19th

0700 hours

Starting Position: Moored at Peckham Materials, Athens, NY.
Latitude: 42˚ 16.2' N
Longitude: 073˚ 48.1' W

Day Four of the second leg of our 2009 Fall Voyage of Discovery.

We'll post the full log later, but until then here's a preview of our day.

The Half Moon spent the entire day moored at Athens Channel. This layover served two purposes; first, it would grant the students time to focus entirely on collecting data for their projects. Secondly, keeping the ship in a fixed location would provide several student teams with the opportunity to collect more reliable readings.

The students were divided into four teams, with each one granted a nickname (usually by Mr. Terry).

Team Disco Biscuit, consisting of Diana, Ellis, and Erica, would spend the layover measuring the speed and direction of the river's current during the ebb and flood tides.

Team M.AD., comprised of Sophie and Teresa, would spend their day analyzing several simple machines to understand the principles of mechanical advantage.

Team Rock Star, made up of Andrew, Jack, Joram, and José, studied celestial tracking. By measuring the angle of the height of the sun as it reached its zenith, they sought to determine several facts, including our latitude and longitude, the time of true noon, the direction of true south, and the local variation on the compass.

Last but not least, Team Heavy Metal used several methods to track the height of tide, sampling water temperatures from various depths as a side project.

In the evening, as the crew wound down from a long, hot day, our Frisian crew -- both the students and Mr. De Leeuw -- took the opportunity to teach the rest of us more about their homeland in the Netherlands, with each speaker addressing a different specific topic.

After lights out, the students continued to collect data for several experiments over the course of anchor watch. Tomorrow would bring the end of our layover, when the presentation projects would enter their final phase.

Robert Juet's Journal

The Halve Maen continues upriver another six miles or so, likely anchoring near Vloman Kill, in the area of what is now Henry Hudson Park or the Port of Albany. This is the farthest point upriver the ship itself will travel. The crew trades with the local Mohicans, buying grapes and pumpkins for the ship's stores, and most notably, trading iron tools for the beaver skins which would become the cornerstone of New Netherland's economy.

On September 19th, 1609:

The nineteenth, was faire and hot weather; at the floud being neere eleuen of the clocke, wee weighed, and ran higher vp two leagues aboue the Shoalds, and had no lesse water than fiue fathoms: wee anchored, and rode in eight fathomes. The people of the Countrie came flocking aboord, and brought vs Grapes, and Pompions, which wee bought for trifles. And many brought us Beuers skinnes, and Otters skinnes, which wee bought for Beades, Kniues, and Hatchets. So we rode there all night.

-- Robert Juet's Journal.

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