19 August. Time to leave the boat…

Today was a special day, it was the last time we saw the boat! The expedition is over, after one week on the lake! This morning, we had to wake up at 7am to prepare ourselves and quit the boat. I was quite sad to leave the boat, I got used to the life on board! A second week on it would have been nice! But everything has an end.

Once we finished packing every samples and our luggage, we went to the Karavanka where we’re going to stay for the few days coming. There, we had a meeting all together to talk about some rules for the next few days to come. Now, we have to make our meals ourselves, so we went in town to buy some food. We had a really nice meal prepared by our chef Adriano, who cooked Italian dishes!

Just after this very late lunch TV channel «Rossiya 1» reporters came to make some interviews about our feelings on the expedition we just did. I got interviewed for a national TV program for the first time, it was quite scary and exciting at the same time! 

A few minutes after, new scientific party for the next expedition on the lake arrived. This team is composed of Japanese and Russian people. It looks like this expedition is going to be very interesting! We welcomed them and helped them to put all the stuff they need on the boat. It was time to leave some of ours, who participate to this new expedition. It was a very nice moment, everyone was here to say goodbye, being sad to leave the boat but happy for the new participants. We hope they will have a nice moment and good results!

Today was a free work day. So everyone could just rest, visit or whatever. I decided with some others to walk a little bit in the town to visit. Back to the house in the evening, everyone decided to start working. Now is time to work on the cruise report for the next two days coming! 

Lucas Bataillard