bear with me...

Sorry I have been so slow, I will be writing a summary of the rest of Santiago and Peru at some point - in the meantime, I have added more links to photos from the cruise

Tour of Santiago - Monday

Woke up on Monday to a wonderful clear sunny day (I have discovered this is the norm...) and had breakfast in the buffet restaurant in the hotel. I was overwhelmed by the options (though not as good as the Regal pacific), and ended up with bacon and eggs on toast, but nowhere to sit. I ended up sharing a table with a young spanish couple, from which I escaped as soon as was possible! Then it was up to my room to get ready for the half day city tour! Alejandra (lovely lady fluent in spanish and english) took me from the hotel to the coach along with another english couple. We toured a few more hotels picking people up, then went to the meeting point with another coach where we exchanged passengers so that those on our coach were doing the city tour, and those on the other coach were heading to Vina del Mar/Valparaiso (which I was due to do on wed and what the other couple from my hotel were doing!) Alejandra then went round asking people where they were from and then got everyone to raise their hands and cheer when she read out their country - it was a good way of meeting people! we had a very multi-national group - 4 English, 4 Canadian, 2 America , 4 Australian, 1 Mexican, 2 Brazilian and 3 Argentinian!
The tour took us to Cerro (hill of) Santa Lucia where Santiago was founded and we were treated to a little drama showing what happened then, Plaza de Armas (where all the weapons were kept and now a beautiful square) where one of the english women took my picture (proof I was there!), the palace of money - where the president (first female president for Chile!) works but does not live as they live in their own residences. This place was very interesting as you can only walk through the two courtyards one way, or the guards will stop you going back, and so the palace has one entrance and one exit! The first courtyard (cannon courtyard) has wires going across the top (Chilean joke is that these are for the presidents washing!) so that a white sheet can be drawn across it for helicopters to land on. The second courtyard (orange tree courtyard) had quite a few guards in it, as the press were waiting to do a interview. many of the guards were female, and all happy to have their pictures taken, very relaxed despite the palace having been bombed during the coup. I have to admit my knowledge of Chilean politics was limited to ´there was a bad man called General Pinochet´! I know a lot more now and apparently the Chileans both admire him for saving them from the awful president they had and hate him for the atrocities he committed. It was all very interesting! Im sure we went somewhere else before the end, but it currently escapes me! So we finished at a shop called Faba, where we got given free Pisco sours - very nice! This is a lapis lazuli shop and as only Chile produces it (the only other place it exists is afghanistan but the mines are closed) it is considered to be the best souvenir from Chile as you can get woollen items in peru! It is also their national stone. I caved in and bought a tiny penguin, and determined I would buy no more souvenirs here (haha...).
We were then given the option of being taken back to our hotels or being taken to the seafood/fish market (or it could just be the general market - but I only saw seafood and fish...) for lunch. At this point I had chatted a little with the English woman who had taken my picture at the Plaza de Armas -Barbara from Norwich who is spending a week teaching research methodology at the university here. In the shop we had sidled next to the other English couple - 2 retired londoners and we agreed to go have lunch in the market together - I had crab pie (Crab meat drowned in cheese, very nice!), Barbara had squid filled with prawns and cheese, and the couple had sole. We all tried each others, all lovely and was nice to have some conversation! Barbara and I then went up San Cristobal, stunning views! Bought a few souvenirs (oh Mummy and Medina could buy thousands of wonderful earrings...). Then we slowly made our way back to my hotel, finding tons of local craft shops (resisting so many beautiful things), eating ice cream and having a nice chat! I then gave her my room number and the hotel phone number so that we could meet later in the week for a meal as we had both agreed it was lovely having someone to wander around with. Unfortunately this never happened, she had said that she was only free on wed but that the 8 Bolivian midwives she was sharing an apartment with often arranged things and she said yes without knowing what she had agreed too! her spanish was a lot better than mine, but not up to conversational standards! But it was still a lovely day...

Arrival at Santiago - amazing place!

I have now spent a week in Santiago, and have totally fallen for the place even with the limitations of going solo!
The plane journey from Mount Pleasant to Santiago was reasonably pleasant, got put in the responsible seats - the ones by the emergency exits where you are required to read a special leaflet to know what to do in an emergency. I loved the seats, for a start, the legroom was so amazing I had to slump considerably to even touch the seat in front. Also unless they have a completely full flight, they leave the seats in the middle free (each side has 3 seats), so plenty of room to stretch out! So slept the first half of the journey to Punta Arenas, where we all trooped off with our hand luggage, left Paul behind for his trekking (minus his hold luggage, hope he has got it now!) went through customs, and then trooped back on again. More sleeping and snacks, and we arrived in Santiago. I had organised to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the BAS people for the first night so it wouldnt be a total culture shock, but a separate transfer to the hotel. So after collecting my hold luggage, I went outside and located my transfer (guy with a board saying Brony Hull.... one day I will turn up somewhere and they will have my name right...) and had a long car journey to the Hotel Regal Pacific. This hotel has to be the most ridiculously expensive hotel (for S. America) I have ever been in, and all we were doing in it was sleeping, I will never understand BAS... I got there half and hour before the others and checked in easily (Mr Bryony Hull this time - the plane tickets were for Mrs Bryony Hull...). Found everyone, then agreed that people would call me if they were going anywhere, and wandered back to my room. Never got a call, discovered later that everyone thought I had gone off with everyone else, oh well! The room had a GIANT double bed, bath, shower and widescreen tv, very nice... Got up reasonably early the next morning as I couldnt remember when the others wre leaving and I still had to hand over my laptop to Rob to take back to BAS for me. Got downstairs to discover Huw and Hilary there, so went to breakfast (included of course!) with them. They had enormous quantities of fresh fruit, bread products, scrambled egg, bacon, fresh fruit juices and cakes. I had a large plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, a huge bowl of strawberries and a plate full of pastries which were crammed full of chocolate filling.... mmm.... didnt need lunch! turned out they were all leaving at 3 (my hotel transfer was at 12) so bumped into Rob, handed over my laptop, then sat down with one of the Rotherites (sorry cant remember his name - very nice guy) and David Pearce, and discussed Santiago. The upshot - no bad areas, all pretty safe, make sure I visit the Museo Chileano de Arte Precolumbino (I am sure you can translate that!) and San Cristobal. So off I toddled with my luggage to my new hotel after some goodbyes and good lucks all round. This is where I am now, the Hotel Galerias, booked til Sunday when I fly to Peru. Very nice hotel, again a little on the expensive side for S. America (dirt cheap in UK!) but at the time of booking, it was a question of finding me somewhere at all! Amazing location, right in the heart of downtown Santiago which I have thoroughly explored and almost know my way around! Arrived at the hotel to discover I couldnt check in til 2pm (it was half 12) so left my luggage with them, and found a little park (later I was to discover this tiny park was right next to Santa Lucia Hill, a gorgeous park, but I missed out that day!), sat down and started perusing my spanish phrasebook (I had even forgotten gracias on the plane so some memorising was required!). At half 1, I was interrupted by a man handing out love poems (translation in english provided - urgghh!), unfortunately he spoke good english so I couldnt escape from the recitation of his life story - father exiled to Manchester by Pinochet, universities privatised by Pinochet, doing a medical degree, very expensive... then after listing a dozen places my group should visit (I didnt admit I was by myself of course!) on the back of the poem which was rather nice of him I thought, he requested money. I caved - after all it was nice to talk to someone in English when surrounded by Spanish speakers! Didnt give him a lot though and eventually he went away, telling me to be careful of the bad men that could prey on me because of my hair colour... hmmm... Wandered back to the hotel, checked in, and then Im afraid I watched TV and slept!

The end of Antarctica, the beginning of the solo adventure!

Hello again, since I was last on, we left Rothera - amazing place, got a sending off with flares (they were aiming at the ship and were pretty good shots!). The JCR was now loaded up almost fully (I think 82 people, max = 84!). The lifeboat drill was fun! The sea was pretty rough coming out of Rothera, but I only felt tired for the first evening (sea legs fully operational!). We then had a startling good crossing of Drake´s passage which puzzled everyone! Therefore we slowly crept into Stanley as we could have arrived at 10pm Thurs, but the berth wasnt ready til 7am Fri! During the crossing, I did the cruise reports for the equpiment I was responsible for, some of my 1st year PhD report and spent a great morning shadowing the engineers. When I had the engine tour, and from talking to the engineers I had thought the whole job sounded really interesting, so they offered to let me follow the duty engineer (which on that day was Jim - 3rd engineer) around for the morning. So we went up and down the entire ship (conquering my fear of ladders!) taking readings and checking everything. Was really interesting, could have spent a lot longer down there. He even let me press a button! Lol!
Arrived in the Falklands, and dashed into Stanley to sort out all my travel arrangements. Organised a week in Santiago with 1 night at the same place as all the BAS people to give me a feeling of the city with people to show me, accommodation at the Hotel Galerias for a week, 2 tours (city tour of Santiago and day trip to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar) and airport transfers. Had a bit of hassle sorting it (my own fault for giving them 1 day to sort it all for me!) but it was all done in time, with all the necessary documents ready for me at the airport. Had a last night in Stanley at The Brasserie with all the geos and bios, had a lovely smoked salmon starter and seafood spaghetti main course with plenty of wine going round the table. david Pearce and I shared a baked alaska, gorgeous... Started a game of chinese whispers, which involved clinking the glass next to you while whispering in the relevant persons ear, and seeing what it ends up as. It got quite rowdy and rude towards the end! Then we went to Deanos - a bar with music and a dance floor! very amusing and fun, they finished with a slow song (for all the 15 yr olds populating the bar!) which just reminded me of school discos!
More later (people are getting irate at my computer hogging...)
xxx

nearing the end.. sob...

Sorry (again!) for being so irregular with posting on here! It has been very busy and very interesting couple of weeks since my last post. We got out of Pine Island Bay, just in time according the next day’s sea ice map! We did a lot of trawls and some people went ashore to an un-named island in Pine Island Bay. This trip involved 2 boats, each holding one navigating officer (Tim – 1st Mate in one and Jamie – 3rd Mate in the other), 2 scientists (James and CD in one (GEOs) and Peter and Steffi in the other (BIOs)) and 1 other person (Ralph – 4th engineer in one and Tony – AB in the other). The objectives of the trip were:
To collect penguin guano (aka poo) from rock surface on the un-named island for radiocarbon dating.
Identify and survey raised beaches and sample them for organic material (penguin bones, seal skin etc) suitable for dating.
Got some nice photos of the boats on the way to the island, the internet is slowly improving so will hopefully upload some soon.
We also went trawling for corals, for dating purposes, which unfortunately we didn’t find. It was then off to the Polar front, looking for core sites, mainly for Claire, who wanted thick sediment, preferably ~10m of Holocene. This was pretty much the entire point of her coming on the JCR, but unfortunately she found very little of any use to her. So we then slowly made our way west looking for core sites as we went, and arrived in Rothera on the morning of the 3rd, earlier (!) than planned, after doing a live animal trawl in Ryder Bay just by Rothera. My shift had been very, very busy the night before, so I slept through the announcements about us arriving, and my cabin-mates getting up (Tara is now in mine and Hilary’s room too), so I missed our arrival.
Since we arrived, we have all been on shifts helping out with the unloading and loading of the ship. Most of the time, we have just been hanging around, but it has been nice helping out when we can. Yesterday we went down into the lower hold, and I went down a ladder to get there (it was the only way!) so I am feeling particularly proud of myself. Thursday evening we had an end of cruise party to which the Rothera winterers were invited. So drinks in the bar started at 6pm, food at 7pm (buffet including sausage rolls, and chicken satay sticks, plus a curry) and then sitting around chatting to everyone. Despite everyone on the ship knowing each other, apart from some introductions at the beginning, the room very quickly separated in scientists, officers and winterers! When there is separation like that, which happens most nights in the bar with some exceptions, I nearly always chat with the officers (mainly the engineers) as they have far more interesting stories to tell! They have all travelled all over the world with various ships (containers, cruise liners, RFA – Royal Fleet Auxiliary etc). It was a good party, finishing reasonably early due to Rothera’s normal rule of 2 cans per night not applying, and most people not doing any shifts (though some were on call, and the 2nd engineer – Tom was on duty) so everyone rather fell on the alcohol!
Today – skiing! In the morning we (GEOs) went to Fuchs House (Rothera) to borrow some skiing gear (skis, boots, poles) and then went to The Ramp (!). Here the two guys, who were field assistants, dragged us up the slope on skidoos. Those who were comfortable skiers were towed behind (2 behind each skidoo) and those who weren’t sat in the back space (1 person on each skidoo). The first time I went up on the back, and skied relatively happily down. The next few times I was towed up, almost as fun as the skiing, but very hard work on the arms as you go quite fast, up a reasonably steep slope, just holding onto a rope! The snow was really good, and the slope was just right for me (blue-ish), which was great. I felt pretty happy going down it, and didn’t fall over (until the end….). They gave me touring skis, which were interesting, as the bindings were very difficult for me to do up by myself. Each ski also attaches to each leg with a lanyard so if you fall over and the bindings release, the skis don’t go off on their own into the sea or into the fur seals near the bottom! We did a few runs each, then decided to head over to Vals aka The Bowl. This involved a 5 minute tow, I managed to not fall over on this and only let the rope slip through my grasp once. Claire – in the back of the skidoo, got the guy driving to stop and he came back for me. However this achievement has left me with very, very sore arm muscles, far more painful than my legs! We eventually all got there, but the skidoo ahead of us got bogged down in snow part the way up the slope there, so after some discussion and experimentation, it was decided that the snow was too soft for the skidoos to get up the slope, never mind tow anyone. So we sat in the caboose, a little hut containing a stove and a lot of food (mostly out of date!) and drank coffee. It took over half an hour to boil the snow in order to make the coffee! We also tried some of the biscuits and dried fruit there, and were dared to try the ‘French Rabbit’ Merlot (in a small carton like one for fruit juice) as it was considered terrible by the Rothera winterers! It wasn’t too bad…. Then after many pictures, we got towed back and did a couple of runs on the original slope. On the last one, I decided to try to do a little (very little!) jump at the end, and managed to do quite a spectacular ‘faceplant’ (Lewis’ phrase). It just went wrong from the moment I took off, landed, rolled a couple of times, and then went face first into the snow quite hard. My nose still hurts! A couple of the others were at the bottom and found it quite funny once I had given the thumbs up that I was ok. I then gathered my skis and started to walk back to the base, but halfway there I realised my glasses were gone, cue major panic and rush back to the bottom of the slope, where a few of us searched for them. I had almost given up when Paul found them, a little bent but intact. Phew!
More later….

More ramble...

It is now Thurs 13th March, and after another hectic few days, things have started to calm down a bit. We are now on our way out of Pine Island Bay, and moving towards the first of many core sites in the Amundsen Sea and out towards the Polar front. Each project gets 10 science days, these do not include passage time, but if one project uses disproportionately more passage time to their sites, then not enough time is left for the science days for everyone else, so they get docked more days. There are 3 projects:

BIOPEARL * for all the biologists. They trawl, dredge, box core (to get anything that burrows into sediment), and CTD (micro-organisms). This is led by Peter (Enderlein), one of the two PSOs * Principal Scientists. I don't know what there entire project is about, but on the cruise, they are mainly looking at how life on the shelf differs in diversity and quantity to life on the slope and on the continental rise. I am told there is a huge conundrum, due to 10,000 yrs ago, the ice sheet is believed to extend and be grounded at the shelf edge, but the life they find on the shelf is so different to that on the slope and rise, that it is unlikely that it evolved from slope/rise organisms in that amount of time, or migrated. So this led to a discussion (non-scientists would have called it an argument!) between biologists and geologists a couple of days ago. This is because biologists believe there must have been small pockets of either open water or shallowish sea ice where organisms could have survived during the last Glacial Maximum (10,000yrs ago) and geologists say no, all the evidence points to the ice sheet being grounded at or very near the shelf edge all around this area. Of course, as is the nature of these 'discussions', both are right, and both are wrong. There is simply just not enough known about either the organisms or the extent of the ice sheet!

QWAD (Quaternary West Anatarctic Deglaciation) which I am in, led by Rob (my supervisor and the other of the PSOs). They are mainly concerned with coring as deep and therefore far back in time, as possible. They do not need high resolution cores, just a long sedimentary record. They also look at seismic and swath data. So when I do any CTDs, the time comes out of QWADs science days.

CACHE-PEP(Climate And CHEmistry - Pole-Equator-Pole), led by Claire Allen. Her, Lewis Collins (3rd yr PhD student) and Hilary Blagborough (technician * and my cabin-mate!) look at the last 10,000 yrs (Holocene) so they concentrate on cores, but ones that have high resolution of that period, so thick sediment! They mainly look at diatoms and forams (micro-organisms, I think of the protoctista kingdom). Hilary showed me some in her microscope, which looked like tiny pliers! Unfortunately as Claire isn't a PSO and only has 2 other people in her entire project, she can find it difficult to get her fair share of science days, so has to fight hard. This is especially unfair, as she didn't need/want to go into Pine Island Bay, so she had to fight not to get any of her science days taken from her because of it!

So far the biologists have used 8 of their days, and each science project is losing half a day due to being behind schedule, so they are rationing their last few hours! They will probably save a day for work they want to do on the way into Rothera and in Marguerite Bay. They are having a meeting tonight to decide whether to use up a few hours trawling in between our next core site and the one after.


The minke whales have been back, playing with the ship again, and Huw has got some stunning pictures. I was unfortunately busy with the swath at the best time, and during the only free few minutes I had, they disappeared, or played on the other side of the boat to where I was! We are crashing through ice at the moment, as I look out the window, it looks like the ship is on land! There have been a ton of penguins and seals out there. I saw lots of seals, but unfortunately was asleep for the penguins. Yesterday and the day before were rather busy, so slept later than usual.
My normal day (not that I think I have ever had a 'normal' day!) consists of getting up at midday for lunch, fiddling around or doing PhD work until 4pm, when I start my first swath watch. This lasts for 4 hrs, though on mon/wed/fri I am relieved temporarily by Tara to have dinner in the duty mess at half 5 so she can do circuits at 6, and on the other days at 6.15 so I can get changed and have dinner in the saloon at 6.30. I then return to finish my watch at 8. Between 8 and 10, I go to the bar and chat to whoever is there, there is almost always someone. Then I have my last swath watch between 10 and midnight, after which I return to the bar! If there is any coring or CTDing going on, I am involved in that. My shift officially finishes at 4am, so in case there is any work needing to be done in that time, I have to stay up til then. This is definitely most easily done in the bar, where there is caffeine and people to talk to! I wouldn't like you to think that I haven't done any PhD or processing work, so let me reassure you that while I am swathing, I am usually working too! The reason I was so tired last night and missed the penguins this morning and afternoon, was due to Tues being a normal day until 10pm, when we arrived at the bio site. The plan was to do one CTD at the beginning for David and one at the end for me. As I am the only one who downloads high-precision thermometer data from the CTD, I have to be around for each one, however the downloading takes a few minutes, so I don't mind. So we did the first CTD, I downloaded the data, then did my 10-12 swath watch. The next CTD and the preceding box core were due to be at around 3am * 4am, so I thought staying up would be the best option, even if the box core didn't fall in my shift, so I went to the bar. Luckily there were people there most of the night (/morning!) so stayed in there til 3am, drinking several cans of coke for the caffeine. I think I may have to start forcing down coffee late at night soon, because I think I am becoming used to the small amounts of caffeine in the coke, and I don't want to be drinking several cans a day! Anyway, I went down to the UIC at 3am. They were still trawling so I knew it would be another hour or so before they swapped the wire over to the box core and CTD, meaning that although I wasn't required for the box core, I still had to stay up for the CTD afterwards! At that point I wished I had gone to bed, but it was too late now! I watched a couple of episode of Stargate Atlantis, and then finally at ~6 it was the CTD. We did that, which took ~1hr as we were at a 1000m site, and then as it was only 15mins til breakfast, I stayed up for that, having sauté potatoes, fried tomatoes, bacon, poached egg and toast

Dinner:
I don't know whether I have already mentioned this, but dinner is formal. There is an official dress code for men, they have to wear shirts, no jeans and trainers, and look smart. It was relaxed this season so they don't have to wear ties anymore. There is no official one for women, but we are told to wear what we consider is the equivalent to the men's dress code, so I wear what I would wear to work * smartish top, black trousers and black shoes. The officers wear their uniform, which is white, so some officers (and some of the scientists) go to the duty mess most nights so they don't have to get changed several times in a day. It is also more relaxed down there, you just go to the hatch, request your food from the menu and sit down. When you have finished, you just take your plate back to the hatch (which leads directly to the galley) and they deal with it. It is more like a canteen than the saloon which is more like a restaurant, sitting down with your own, named napkin and getting served at your table. They also serve Mid Rats (Midnight Rations) in the duty mess for those people on shift. This is prepared by the 2nd cook (Jaimie) and is again a totally different meal to the others. The only similarity between meals is that the soup of the day is the same at lunch and dinner! The head chef, Ash is very funny and sweet. He often coerces me into having a dessert! Last week he even kissed my hand to say thank you for eating it! He does similar things to all the women on board, which may seem strange but from him it is just funny, and very sweet!

Ramble.....

I am afraid I have been very busy since the last update. We went out of communications range last week, and it took several days before the new very basic email system got up and running. In order for us to receive and send email, the ship has to be stationary (so we lose time) and orientated correctly so that the receiver can 'see' the INMARSAT satellite, so if the swell is in the wrong direction, we can't stop. They have been trying it every evening so far, and most of the time it works. It takes a long time to deal with emails though, as one may come through this evening, I then compose my reply, but it doesn't leave the ship until the following evening, and then if the person I have sent it to, composes a reply within a day, I get it the evening after that! As I am so busy, and communications are tricky, I will stop posting (via Laurence) for every day, so instead you will get some rambling about the past few days. Since the last post, I have done many CTDs, all of which have gone pretty smoothly. We had a few problems convincing Sevy (Vsevelod, the Russian CTD technician) to deploy the CTD when the air temperature dropped below 7degrees, which it has been for the entire week, as the sensors can freeze very quickly in the process of getting the CTD over the side and into the water. Also the past couple of days, the high precision thermometer has been missing out a few readings (it takes readings every time a bottle is shut on the CTD), so Sevy is currently trying to work out whether it is a software problem, or whether the bottles are either not firing correctly or the signal isn't getting through to the thermometer. Luckily, the last few CTDs have all been for David Pearce, so as he fires all his bottles at one depth, I don't need all the readings. I probably won't be taking water from any more CTDs until we reach Rothera (~3-4 weeks). I have seen many icebergs (got within nudging distance of a few!), a few penguins (I always seem to be doing something else when everyone else sees them!), some seals, a killer whale (amazing!) and about 10 minke whales. The minke whales played with the ship, diving right underneath the bow many times. I got a few good pictures and some people got some great pictures and videos! We have also crashed through lots of sea ice, in one case, we thought the captain (also known as the 'old man' or master) would avoid it as it was a small patch, but he decided to go straight through it! So as everyone realised what he was going to do, everyone made a dive for their equipment before it all crashed to the floor! When the ship goes through sea ice, it shudders and groans, and can tip violently from side to side, no gentle rolling! Also it pitches (tipping forwards and backwards) as the ship rides up on the sea ice and then breaks it! I think most people find it fun though! The most exciting bit for everyone on board is that we have managed to get right into Pine Island Bay! This is vital for all the scientists, as only a couple of ships have been here, and in the southern-most area near the ice front, only one ship has been here and it was the NBPalmer (American ship). The biologists are the most excited, as no biology has been done on the shelf here, so they have done trawl after trawl. Most sites they have spent a day at * swathing to find the right depth (1500m, 1000m, and 500m sites), CTDs to collect water before the sediment is stirred up, 3 Agassiz trawls and 3 EBS (Epi Benthic Sledge) trawls. I think both work similarly but catch different sized beasties! They lower a sledge to the sea floor then drag it along for 1km, close it and raise it up. Recently they have caught 6(ish) octopi so Jan (biologist) is happy! They also catch many fish, gastropods and many many more. Johnnie (IT guy) has resurrected a notice used many times before, calling the cruise, the 'cruise of death'! This is because they kill everything they catch! Apparently this cruise has been relatively humane, especially in comparison to a previous cruise, where someone was looking for a particular species of fish, but caught 300 of another species. She decided to process them all anyway, in case she never caught any of her intended species. We haven't caught anywhere near that quantity! All the geologists have been on shifts for a week now, so I have started to help out with the coring. We have done several box cores (get about ~30cm of sediment) and several piston cores (up to 3m of sediment), and processed them. The whole process starts with the cores coming on deck. We go outside (hard hats, overalls, steel-toed boots, and gloves) and collect it. With a piston core, this is relatively simple, just pulling the plastic casing, containing the sediment, out of the corer and capping each end. With a box corer, it comes up in a box (funnily enough) and the top is water, which must be drained off, before we insert the plastic tubes in and come out with a core. This is where it gets very scientific*. We use thin tubes to suck the water out! This involves precise timing, as it is easy to end up with a mouthful of incredibly salty water, and even sediment! I am convinced the deck crew are laughing at us the whole time. I haven't done too badly so far, only a bit of water, and no sediment, but poor Benny (PhD geologist) unfortunately sucked up a huge glob of sediment a couple of days ago, at which point we all laughed like drains! He was spitting for hours afterwards, convinced he could still taste it! The plastic casing containing the core is then cut just above the top of the core and capped. It is then washed and dried (which rubs off the original labels). The casing is then measured and relabelled with the length, core number and a dozen other things! This is the most important part so every time the core is cleaned, it is relabelled, so this leads to labelling one core about 5 times before it is finished with. It is then put through a magnetic susceptibility recorder * every 2cm a reading is taken. The core gets split along the centre so that one half is kept and put in an archive, and work is done on the other half. Next we describe the core using colour charts, and look at shear strength and texture. There are frequently 'burrows', small holes in the core left by animals. Finally, the smear slides and samples are taken at regular intervals along the core and where there are changes in it, and the core is bagged, wrapped, taped up and stored in the freezer (-20degrees!). There is a scientific freezer, not used on this cruise, which is kept at *70degrees!