One of the new developments for me about returning to the drilling vessel after some years of absence is the transformation in outreach that is now going on as an integral part of each cruise. Central to that has been the development of interactive communication and particularly the ship-to-shore video links that we are doing with a variety of schools and universities in the different member countries. We have been conducting ship tours using an iPad showing the basic operations of the JR and explaining some of the scientific objectives, as well as answering questions for groups that have included professional scientific meetings in Switzerland to middle schools in the Midwest of the US. It is quite gratifying to see how much the scientific party have thrown themselves into this, with people volunteering either to guide the tours or to be interviewed in the labs as the iPad makes its way around the ship. Since we have people working here all the time it hardly matters what time the guest school actually wants to make the tour. One of the best parts of this is fielding questions at the end since there is usually some type of unusual, surprise question that we don’t normally get asked. It is that these made us feel useful as we wait for the return of new material to be described.