James Bendle's blog

The picture above shows Stephanie Carr (the microbiolgist and other organic geochemist onboard) and me looking happy with the cores coming up from our current (the 2nd) core site. 

 This morning, shortly after I woke, we reached our first drill site (WLRIS-06A). There was a flurry of activity, the dynamic positioning thrusters were deployed, beacons dropped to the seafloor and the crew started assembling and lowering the drill pipe, section by section, through 3700m of water to the seafloor.

It’s been another interesting but very long day (midnight now, working since 8.30am). Science presentations this morning. We’ve had some great presentations since we started the cruise, many of the scientists onboard have worked on Antarctica or in the Antarctic margins previously. While we have been sailing to the first site they have been generously sharing their insights and past discoveries, so that we all have a deeper understanding of the aims of the cruise.

Last couple of days have continued the hectic pace we’ve had since the start. Worked 14 hours both days!

We sailed from Wellington a few hours ago, it feels good to be underway! Several colleagues from Wellington’s University of Victoria paddled out to the mouth of the bay in sea kayaks to wave us goodbye and wish us good luck. Everyone is full of optimism and ready to work hard to get the job done.

I am an Earth Science Lecturer and research group leader at the University of Glasgow, UK. I’ll be keeping a diary about the everyday ups and downs of life onboard whilst trying to conduct research in a floating (and pitching and rolling) chemistry laboratory on IODP expedition 318!