It's only a week now before I have to leave and head off towards Hong Kong for our port call to join the JOIDES Resolution and to start our work that will last through to almost the beginning of April. Now is the time to cook all my favorite snacks and meals that I will miss when I'm away because although the food on the ship is very good it is not quite the same thing as home cooking and personally I'd like to play in the kitchen and prepare meals after a long day at the office which is a pleasure I will be denied on the drillship.  However, I am looking forward to meeting new friends and colleagues as you can see from the photograph in the previous blog entry we had a relatively large team of sedimentary geologists on the last cruise many of whom turned out to be very nice colleagues with whom I'm still in contact and I hope to expand my network of friends and collaborators in the same way on this next cruise.  if I were not already living in Louisiana I would also say that I was looking forward to missing the cold winter months but of course we don't have much in the way of cold weather down here on the Gulf Coast.  In fact in many ways the South China Sea and southern China share the same type of climate as we enjoy here which is much nicer in the winter than it is in the summer,  although both places can suffer a rather cold chilly days and are usually not very well prepared for them.  I am also getting ready to enjoy a little bit of decent Chinese food at least during the port call in Hong Kong where the local people really know how to deal with a nice piece of fish or indeed mini octopus.  The food is a little bit different from the fare available in mainland China but is still extremely tasty and much better than we can get around here.  I also seem to have a good supply of high-quality chocolate and lots of coffee but I'm racking my brains to try and remember what it is that I have overlooked since I'm sure I will remember it as soon as we begin to make our cruise.  Something to make the place seem a little bit more homely.  I just know that I feel the little bit like Imelda Marcos in packing all the shoes I need between steel toed deck shoes,  boots for the  laboratory, sandals for free time and sneakers for the gym.  I am trying to think about other things except the up coming duties and travel but it is rather difficult to put it out of mind. The clock is ticking rather rapidly

Peter Clift, Kate Macintyre, Steve Clemens and Federica Tamborini on the helicopter deck at the end of ODP Leg 184