Fishbowl view

I'll start with todays most exciting news- It finally snowed!
Also today is Saint Lucia day which for us meant a nice chance to see some Swedish culture in the form of children's choir processing in candle light and singing traditional songs.
The rest of the crew has done a fantastic job filling you in on what we have been doing and how it effects the project. I just keep thinking of how we effect the museum and the visitors. So i figured I'd go over the experience of a typical Vasa Museet visitor sees.
Coming in the entrance most people are shocked by how large and imposing the ship really is. As they get closer to the ship the first thing they encounter is the enormous beakhead. They try to take a great flash photo of themselves in front of this 17th century ship. Instead they ring of bright red glare in the photo that almost resembles a Christmas tree. These are the total station targets we have placed all over the exterior and interior of the beakhead and bulkhead in the past week and a half. Today we placed, shot and catalogued number 465. Before the visitors were allowed in we set up a large cherry picker near the beakhead and posted targets all over the exterior starboard portion. This would have been quite a fun thing for the tourists to see, but they missed that show. We have put on many other interesting ones though.
Amy has been hanging out of hawse holes to get expedite the placing of targets on the exterior of the beakhead. At times visitors get a nice view of her half dangling outside the ship recorded the exact position of the points placed. Not wanting to be left out Prof. Stewart and myself have also taken turns reaching out gunports to place points in other hard to reach areas. Looking up the beakhead towards the 1 ton lion figure head tourists are treated to Theresa climbing around in a harness to get the full view of all the fastener holes and connection points for her sketches.
These acrobatic techniques have led to many questions from the visitors. Many people want to know if they can get on the ship, and stand by the gate we walk through. Thankfully we have official sweaters and key cards so we look more offical then our peg stained cloathes let on. We often have to shut the gate and explain that we work on the ship. We've all gotten used to telling visitors that we only speak English, which poses no real problem here and then explaining about ECU and the beakhead drafting program. We also try to advise them on the best way to take a photo of the beakhead, with no flash and a steady hand. We arent the only people explaining why there are people climbing all over the Vasa. The tour guides have many things to tell the visitors about us. Peter was refered to as "the boy next to the toilet" and provided a great marker for a difficult spot to locate. We try to keep the guides aware of what we are doing so they can explain our project if they need to.
Visitors can also spot us lugging around the total station, flashlights, clipboards, walkie talkies and ladders. We shine flashlights where ever we need to in order to find prisms and point markers. The beakhead hasnt been exposed to this much light and action in quite a few years.
We are officially over halfway done. Were moving rapidly through detailed sketches with important measurements and markings. We've started the fun adventure of placing points on the exterior using a cherry picker which suspends two people in a plastic box many feet above the ground. This new toy also comes with an earlier wake up because it can only be used before the museum opens to the public. We are shooting points on both sides to get a 3-d network of points for the beakhead. I am excited to what new things we'll learn in the next week and a half.