Isolation. COVID. Social Distance. Disco.

We have arrived at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), Southampton! Supposedly the port that is the gateway to the world!

We are docked outside of NOC, it really is a fantastic setup!

Yesterday, we had a very long day on the bus where we were socially distanced and wore masks all day. Caption contest for this photo anyone? The guy on the right is Stuart who is our PSO for the cruise. The rest us of are all also from SAMS and we range from postdocs to physics techs. I on the ship to be a chemistry and complete oxygen titrations, when not doing that I am a physics tech in training but I also have to revise for my Yachtmaster. It's going to be a busy one.

It was a long day, but I mostly just slept!

It is the first time I've ever had my own cabin! I really like sharing A cabin, especially as the last few years I have been with some awesome people however after only just coming out of lockdown it's nice not to have to socialise all the time haha.

I love that the Disco has given us a coffee mug and water bottle. Reduced waste and an excellent souvenir.

I am super happy that I decided to bring my bike. Great off the ship fitness and there are only two people allowed in the gym at the time at the moment so thanks to Raeanne for lending me her turbo trainer!!!

Exploring around the compound yesterday.

Tomorrow is mobilisation day! So this space is probably going to be pretty full with mooring gear and I will set up the chemistry lab...which I also have all to myself!

With regards to COVID, Plan has been, for isolation yesterday then we had my 4th COVID test at 9 am this morning...we all kind of came out crying as it felt like our brain had been sampled with it. The nurse was a bit rough haha. We then did a. Big induction and safety brief. Then MOB/setup/load on Wed, set sail hopefully sat/Sun 🤞 https://t.co/dXh1oKniay

We need to socially distance for 2 weeks so the crew is a bubble and the scientists are a bubble and the NMF techs are a bubble...luckily we all know a few people from each team so hopefully we can initiate a game of assassin because it will be harder to kill each other when we are all so distanced, I including having particular walkways and directions to walk through to our main lab and cabin and the galley that's the only 3 places apart from the back deck that we are currently allowed to be!!

Time for some sleep before a big day of u packing!!!

Cruising.

I will be honest, after 5 months of being on furlough, I am finding work hard. Mostly the big drive twice a day from Glencoe to Oban, I feel too tired to exercise and I've been waking up early to send emails before going into the lab because I working from home when not on a boat or in the lab. Very weird times, but hopefully I will settle back into it in the next few weeks.

Seol mara the wee SAMS vessel took 2 months to fix, finally, we headed out to do some science. John, Norman and myself who make up the vessels team headed to our local site near SAMS and deployed a mooring! I was crewing and at the same time learning from John about how to prepare and deploy a moulding safely.

What is science without correct labelling of samples and calibration of instruments?!

My first proper week in the building of SAMS and I have been packing for my next cruise which I leave for in 4 weeks. 2 years ago we dropped off some deep-sea moorings with various sensors attached, next month we will be collecting these and I will be there to take water samples. Using the water samples I will collect bottles for nutrient, dissolved organic carbon and oxygen analysis. Onboard the NERC ship Discovery, known as the Disco I will be titrating seawater samples from the various depth and analysing the oxygen content to then transfer these numbers to a calibration curve to compare against the oxygen measurements on the sensors!

So many boxes! Now to do various shipping forms for hazardous goods. Without weights and proper labels, they won't end up in the right place!

I currently got equipment in 5 different places around SAMS, hopefully, next week it will all come together! 

So many lists.

The kit leaves next week, but we don't leave until the end of September! The main difference for this cruise is that we are going to have to get COVID tested two times, part-time isolate and then social distance onboard for the first week. It's going to be weird.