The RV Heraclitus departed Bali on January 15, 2000 commencing its next five year voyage, 2000 -2005, to study coral reefs and arrived Manus Island, Papua New Guinea on February 28. There they visited both Lorengau and Hawai Islands where they surveyed the coral reefs.

Excerpt from one of the officer's journal (Rich Moss, Chief Engineer):

"The deck we sit on for dinner is the same one that we struggle to hold on to with everything we have ......whilst tending lines in a squall before and the multiple personalities of the ship and its environments never cease to surprise. The greatest space on Earth is our playground.

The crew is happy -- two are leaving after being crew for nine months and two have arrived. As Heraclitus the philosopher said "change is the only constant." Manus Island was the end point of a voyage that lasted 44days and over 2000nm and which started in the celebrated tropical island of Bali. We run watches and people molded into their 4-8 or whichever spin cycle lives, rinse and repeat, and time flows as seamlessly as the ocean around us. Coffee is the staple of the "island ship" as we have been called and the sea always holds a surprise.

Its a great feeling, going in the direction you actually want to go with a force 6 at 6 points aft, rain lashed and pitch black, ears ever vigilant for changes in wind direction. The eyes of RV Heraclitus guide us through the blind squalls at night, and by day, the endless shimmering mirage. Occasionally benevolent the sea gods yield fish for our bellies and dolphins and whales for our spirits. Life is never boring, rather a continuous and occasionally unimaginable drama. It is this element of uncertainty and the wide open eyed vividness of the lives that entangle us, that, along with other more scientific elements, inspire us to make our journeys, to take these chances to greet our world, or worlds within worlds and gradually, hopefully, through the open sea, understand some part of it."