We are now in the midst of the high intensity sampling. Everyone is working very hard: all the way from the bridge down to the labs. People and equipment over the reeling!

Most of the work packages on board have different routines. Arriving at a station can happen at any time during the day. Therefore there are many of us that work in shifts, me for example. Some teams are still trying to adjust and fine-tune their work tasks. Who does exactly what and when? Who keeps hold of this rope, who puts the tubing in the right place, who lifts the sample container out of the way etc. It is very hard to plan your schedule with this many people and this many activities going on at the same time, and especially when everything has to happen in a specific order. We are also trying our best to find the optimal locations to take samples in. We are scanning the bottom with the multibeam instrument and chirp sonar from the bridge to fine tune positions and find interesting features. These are instruments that send a signal downwards and depending on the times it takes from the signal to come back, we can say how the seabed  like looks and if there is anything in the water just like fishing boats trying to find fish in the water.

I just got off my 8-hour night shift – and finished my tasks at the last station a few minutes before breakfast! Nice timing. This meal ends my “day” and I go to sleep. During the small hours of the shift I normally have my “lunch”. Sometimes there are other people from the night shift, mostly from the crew that meet up in the lunchroom for “midnight lunch”. The crew is really great, and we all agree that the polar light (no dark nights) makes a night shift better.

Yesterday evening we decided to take a short break, and two of us had a couple of hours off. It is the greatest feeling – when you have been working intensely and is finally time to take your “salt-crusted” gear off and step into the shower or have a sauna and come out like a new person. Saunas are underestimated. I love them! The salty marine water leaves salt stains on everything. All my clothes have them both from deploying and retrieving the heavy pump over the reeling, and in the lab, filtering water etc. The lab benches often greet me with a layer of crispy salt, and clothes glimmer with white crystals in the mornings.

We have had our first proper station with the submersible pump too. It has worked well which we are very grateful for. The pump is put into the water via a wire and a winch, but it is a four-man operation. One driving the winch control, one keeping an eye on how the winch wire is fed from the drum or back onto the drum, and two people managing the heavy one-inch hose.