25 June. Day 3 …Baikal environment

6 hours of sleep is not enough, now I know… And again and again more cores are coming…

We are targeting gas anomalies, making a profile across the Gydratny Fault, and that means that we have to take a lot of sampling sites. Today we collected 9 cores (or may be more?) and we are all still alive!

The night lecture is a challenge for my tired eyes, I am powerless and after the seminar I go directly to sleep.

Rarin:  

Still alive after the second day with motion sickness. Yesterday there was a lot of ‘huge’ waves, so I had to take two sea sickness pills. But it did not help, so at some point I had to lay down and I slept for 7 hours. Couldn’t eat much food. Today, the 3rd Day. I am trying to get used to the waves. Hoping that tomorrow will be better.

Alienor:

Yesterday was the first full working day onboard. It was a busy but enriching day as we spent most of our time working in the geological lab. I was surprised by how fast the time went. Everyone seems to have a designated job and work efficiently at it. I realized it might take me some time before I manage to work at the same pace as the others. However, everyone is open for questions and the working environment is good. A total of 11 cores were collected throughout the day, reflecting the intensity of the work. At around 13, I felt quite weak, and went to rest for a few hours. The rest of the crew did not do this, which made me realize I will soon need to get used to the work environment or get ahold of stronger coffee…

Regular warm meals are served four times a day: breakfast, lunch, tea, and dinner. This is definitely a good way to have short breaks in between the working hours.

At the end of the day, we had a small lecture about the HOTMUD project by Adriano. Everyone went to bed after this. Some of the scientific party, such as the geophysical team, worked on the night shift.

Today we began working right after breakfast. The core analysis went rather slowly on my side, due to my stomach trying to adjust to the sea. The work however is very interesting and I feel like I have learned a lot already.