It’s Sunday, 2215 hrs ship time and we are underway avoiding Typhoon Choi-Wan and heading to Site SRSH-3B on Tamu Massif, Shatsky Rise. Some are asleep, some writing reports, others surfing the web (thank God for satellite communications!), still others are trying to solve emergent problems that come with doing science.

I remember working on my own research and spending many a long hour with my equipment trying to figure out what the heck is wrong, why won’t it work right? Why won’t it do what I want it to do?? Well this comes with the territory of scientific research. An important quality and characteristic of being a scientist is persistence and perseverance. You know you’re on the right track when you finally figure out where the problem is, now it;s time to fix it! Especially working on a ship, all the bumping and bouncing, salt water, humidity and everything else can and will cause problems. Can it be the calibration, the blank, the standard, a frayed wire, a gasket? Whatever it is, if it’s being handled by a scientist, you can be sure – it will be fixed, wish us luck!