Introduction by Juliet Crowell

Students always want to know what it is like to live at sea on a ship for 2 month.  How is it to work 12 hour shifts? How are the sleeping rooms? Do you have a shower? How is the food? What do you do for fun? Anna Ling from the University of Miami Rosentiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science ( RSMAS) is one of the scientists on expedition 359. Anna has written a great blog about her first impression of the JR. In her blog Anna describes her life on board the JR and takes the reader on a virtual tour.

Blog by Anna Ling

Conference Room

The very first place I was antiquated within the JR was the conference room. This is where meetings and discussions are held. A side from the Mess Hall, the conference room is also closely connected to our living quarters.

                                                                                  JR Conference Room

Mess Hall

As I am Malaysian and food plays a large part of my culture. I will start my tour with one of my favorite parts of the JR -the Mess Hall aka the dining hall. This is where I will spend not only breakfast, lunch and dinner; I will also have tea breaks and snack breaks here! Main meals are served every 6 hours with a 2 hour window, while snacks are served in between every main meal. If the math is done right, there is basically food for every 3 hours -it is pretty easy to put on a hefty amount of weight here and there as there is a free flow of food! On top of that , food is not bad at all (mostly from a graduate student perspective)!

Which is a good segway into the…

Gym

With the amount of calories taken into the system. I will have to burn it all away somehow! There is a pretty neat gym installed in the JR -and a decent amount of free weights. It is somewhat similar to what RSMAS has to offer but a gym on a ship gives me no excuses for not working out.

Cabins: The bedroom for the tire souls:

What would the living quarters look like? It is an incredibly small space with bunk beds. I share a space with another scientists of the opposite shift so we do not strangle each other by week 3 and have some privacy. Want to know how good my marketing skills  are? I wiggled my way into obtaining the lower bunk! Of course, I have to share a bathroom with another cabin. That makes 4 people to a bathroom. We agreed that whenever the light is on, there is someone inside. I do hope no one forgets to turn off the light, or else there will be broken doors to be fixed.

The JR Labs

The next location in the JR is probably the place where I will spend the bulk of my time (at least 12 hours a day) – even more than the 7-8 hours in my living quarters. That would be the core deck sedimentology  laboratory. This is my playground with the other cool kids and it is shared with the physical properties specialists.

The Catwalk

The is located right outside the core deck sedimentology laboratory where the action happens. This is where the technicians transport the core from the drill floor onto the deck for us to investigate. The JR is supplied with kilometers of core barrels stacked nicely in close proximity to the derrick. Thee JR is supposed to be capable of drilling up to 8km depth!

To read more of Anna’s blog entries during Expedition 359 go to: alingrsmas.wordpress.com (exp359)