Safety training! I, and ten others were the only ones left who hadn’t done the safety training, which took place during the mobilisation in Helsingborg in May. The training consisted of two parts: fire stopping training and survival training that is jumping in the water in case the ship is sinking!
I didn’t get to do the second part because the currents were too strong for us to actually jump into the water. They wanted us be a safe I guess. Haha! :) I was considering jumping in anyway but decided not to at the end. We had to put on survival suits which were bright orange, bulky but warm. But tricky to put on. We had to team up in pairs and help each other out though in real cases of emergency you must do it yourself. This was a lot of fun.

The only exposed part was the face. One thing I hadn’t thought of was that once you got into the suit you had to get the air out.
Put a finger in the face opening and crouch down. When you get back up again it felt like you were in a vacuum.

After safety training we went in the lab to sort some things out. I made sure instruments were properly strapped down, so they won’t fall in case of a high swell (large waves).

It was exciting to cast off. To feel the first jolt of the engines starting and the Oden moving. Many were up on deck to take videos, photos and to chat. Bright sunshine, blue sky and the gorgeous mountains of Tromsø in clear view helped of course.

During the night we will switch to UTC time, so setting our clocks back two hours behind. This is the time we will be on throughout the expedition, despite crossing several time zones. I guess it will also be
confusing when we arrive in Barrow, Alaska, in August for the change-over when we will set the clocks
8 hours behind (!!).