Hello all, this is my first ever blog and my first time sailing on the JOIDES Resolution (JR). As an oceanography student at the University of Rhode Island I sailed twice but each voyage was for no more than 8 days.

We will have exceeded that time span before we reach our first site, east of the South Island, New Zealand. You would think that we would be out sunning on the deck with all that “free time.” But our time is anything but free. We have been learning. This scientific drill ship is a complex operation, with everything to learn from toilets to safety equipment and every aspect of our core analysis tools to test and re-test. Additionally there are many expert scientists on our scientific crew who know a great deal about what we might expect to find when we start getting core on deck. There have been two or more science lectures daily interspersed with logistical lectures and time in our labs.