Entry 06
February 22 2025
4am espresso club, data analysis, argo floats and sunset birthday BBQs
Today was an exciting day because it was the inaugural meeting of ‘espresso club’ – aka, Team Plankton meeting outside the ship’s coffee room at 0400 to begin the gradual shift to our 0300 starts (we still had a couple of time zones to go at this point).
Making the most of the bonus hours in our day, we decided to take the opportunity to get our FIRST DATA – even if not from this cruise. The JC273 team had left us a couple of trays of chlorophylls in the hold, which we measured concentrations of. This felt like a momentous event, given how long we’d waited to start doing science.
Powered on by a gorgeous sunrise from the bridge and a run on the ship’s treadmill (god bless dynamic positioning), we spent the afternoon in our RN container (henceforth named and referred to as ‘Steve’) making up nutrient spikes for our amendment experiments. In the afternoon we deployed a further two Argo floats, before the crew spoiled us with an incredible spread at a barbeque on the aft deck – complete with a spectacular cake to celebrate Marika’s birthday.