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Posts tagged as “Leben & Arbeiten an Bord”

Safety on board

There are regular safety drills on board, so that everyone knows what to do in case of an emergency. The safety drill was announced ahead of time; once the alarm bells rang, we rapidly collected our life vests and met at the assembly point on deck.

Lab work at sea: a special experience

Everything has to be taped and lashed, also in the fume hood. Pipetting  on a moving ship is a challenge! On the picture:  Mara Heinrichs and Beatriz Noriega (Research Group for Marine Geochemistry).

We have been on board Sonne already for 15 days; it feels like we have been here since forever. We know where everything is and we are so used to our working space. But it was not always like this...

24 hour station and Neptune’s visit

Ein langer Tag geht zu Ende, mitten auf dem Pazifik ...
End of a long day, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ...

This morning at 6 a.m. we ended our 24-hour sampling at this station, and continued our journey north. Neptune, of course, noticed that we had passed the equator without permission; he visited us in person.

With the sunrise came our last samples – some of us had worked for 24 hours without pause, other teams had divided the work into shifts. In any case, at breakfast the mess hall (the cafeteria) was quite empty. And in the labs, many of which otherwise are extremely busy the whole day, the lights were out until late morning.

Equator station: between North and South, yesterday and today

Wo sind wir eigentlich? Bild vom Bordcomputer, das in allen Laboren live verfolgt werden kann. Der rote Punkt markiert die aktuelle Position von SONNE. Foto von Rohan Henkel (AG Sensorsysteme ICBM, Wilhemshaven; hier an Bord gehört er zum “Bio-optics” Team).
Where are we? Screenshot of the bord computer display that can be followed in all laboratories. The red dot marks the current position of Sonne. Photo by Rohan Henkel (Marine Sensor Systems ICBM, Wilhemshaven; on board member of the “bio-optics” team).

We have finally reached the equator – the boundary between the northern and southern hemispheres at 0 N and 0 South. But we aren’t just anywhere on the equator: we are exactly at the point at which one step in the right direction can turn today into yesterday, and visa versa. Our station is exactly on the international date line between 180 W and 180 E.