For the first time, it really feels like we are in the Arctic – no ice yet, we will come to that tomorrow. But the temperature has dropped, we have between 0 and 3 degrees Celsius and it’s really windy, so it feels even colder. Today we also closed the doors of our main laboratory when working in there – they had been open all the time so far, to get at least a bit of an outside view, but today it’s just too cold. And for the first time on that cruise, I change into my full Arctic clothes set– warm and waterproof trousers and jacket with a fleece beneath, working boots with steel caps, gloves, a baklava and a helmet on top of it.

We are spending some hours outside for a practical training of how to operate our “GoFlo “, a 60l sample container for water that we need for our radiocarbon methane measurements. This has to be lowered into the water with a small winch, located on the starboard side of the ship. Already empty it is quite heavy, so with the additional weight of 60l waters you really need two people to handle it. But we also need to operate the winch itself – one person controls the cable and the meter wheel, and one (that’s me today) is operating the winch motor to move the sampler up and down. As we are still steaming, we obviously don’t put the GoFlo into the water today, but just test to move it over the ship railing. After some fiddling about, it worked quite smooth and the First Officer (second-in-command) is happy with our “performance” and we can look forward to our first station!

Tonight there is also a small social event – a welcome dinner. Usually the crew and the scientists don’t eat at the same time as it gets too crowded with 72 people, but today we squeeze in together. The information view screen suggests informal dress code (but no work clothes) but most people have dressed up at least a bit (on the pictures you see some of us girls on our way to dinner, and one the other one our colleague Marc's creative approach for dressing up: he is wearing a tie made of duct tape). There is white tablecloth and wine glasses and the galley crew have produced a delicious 3-course-dinner. After dinner we continue sitting and talking together in the lounge room – it’s really nice to have everyone together for once (usually people spread out in the evening). As the evening proceeds, a spontaneous collaboration develops: Marcus, one of the Swedish scientists, has brought his saxophone and plays for us, first on his own, but after a while in a duet with our Russian colleague Ksenia singing – it sounds beautiful! I also enjoy chatting with the crew, hearing stories from previous expeditions and about their life on board. I don’t know how it is on other research vessels, but I think it’s not everywhere that the crew interacts that much with the scientists – now I don’t mean just this dinner, but from my general experience of the last days, and also during the mobilization in Helsingborg and a test cruise earlier this year. I like that you have the chance to get to know them a bit, there is often time for a quick chat, they seem really interested in our work and are doing their best to support us.