Chikyu cruise, day 2

As it happens too often in deep-sea research, today’s theme was “technical problems” (but fortunately nothing big). A test dive for the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) was planned between 2h30 and 5h30 in the morning. During this dive I hoped we could get some extra sediments for my research. Unfortunately when I arrived in the lab at 5h, the only thing waiting for me was the information that the dive was cancelled due to “technical problems”.

 The ROV being fixed...

Well in this case, there is not much else to do than go to the breakfast and start an early day of computer work hoping the ROV will get fixed soon. Because we are on a really tight schedule for the drilling (the main objective of this cruise), we decided to skip the test dive and prepare for drilling. And guess what, after a first preparation dive there was a… “technical problem”. However, things now seems fixed as at the time I am writing this blog, the ROV is back down and the driller is now looking where they want to drill. I have no idea about drilling, but it looks either quite difficult to aim, or they are very picky on the location, but at least something is going on.

We can follow the operation "live" from the office room where we spend most of our time when not busy with samples or preparation of the sampling.

As I said previously, when you wake up before 5h00 to just realise that you could have actually slept longer, going for breakfast is a good way to at least get some kind of elementary satisfaction. And on the Chikyu, the meals are great. Because the work is going on 24/24 there are 4 meal times per day (5h-7h, 11h-13h, 17h-19h and 23h-01h). And as there are many people working on this ship, it is buffet style! And quite international food to accommodate the tastes the crew coming from many different countries. Actually it is very different from the other Japanese research ships because here the main language is English among the crew (and I really appreciate that).

So let's see what the food looks like...

Let's start by a bit of salad

Then a bit of meat or fish depending how hard was your work. On a ship, often scientists need to be careful, because meals are made for the crew and technicians who do physically hard work and need lots of calories...

The choice of side dishes is as good as in a nice hotel!

Actually, here the diner time of someone is the breakfast time of someone else, so at any time you also have a choice of bread, cereals and yoghurt for those who start their shift.

For me, maybe the most dangerous is this shelf with a lot of nice cakes! 

(Actually for me absolutely all this food is dangerous as I want to try everything)

And in case you had the mental strength to ignore the dessert shelf, this self service ice cream will break your last bit of resistance. But it really is good ice cream!

Well actually now it is meal time! So time for me to stop writing and refill all the calories I burned while writing this blog. And maybe tomorrow I should introduce you to the gym we have on board...