This cruise has been so wonderful from beginning to end – the science went swimmingly and the team was great. The crew and support staff on the ship made our jobs go smoothly, and it’s a treat to be able to focus on doing the science without having to worry about all the other stuff that usually comes along with it. As you can probably tell, I’m excited about continuing on with the (land-based) parts of our project, but a bit sorry to leave the ship and the beauty of the Southern Ocean. Late on the afternoon of Jan 20th, we arrived at McMurdo station, got oriented, and brought our bags to the station airport to be put on a pallet for tomorrow morning, where they also weighed us and our carry-on items! Tatiana and I took all of the cells that the team has isolated on the cruise to an incubator, where they will wait until they are shipped to Tatiana’s lab at the University of Rhode Island. And then, suddenly, it’s over. There is music on the patio of Hut 10, and all-night sun. There was some late-night hiking with the help of the 24 hours of daylight, and then, with very little sleep (because who can sleep when you have less than 24 hours to explore McMurdo?), we found ourselves in big red parkas at the McMurdo airfield, boarding a c130 to fly out to Christchurch, New Zealand.
What happens now? Well, we have a good 3.5 years of work ahead of us, both at the University of Rhode Island and the University of Edinburgh, analyzing the samples from the cruise, growing up the cells we isolated into cultures, and doing experiments that will help us understand the evolutionary potential of Southern Ocean diatoms. I hope you enjoyed this peek into the start of this 4-year project. Posted by: Sinead Collins