Unpredictable, changeable, variable, unstable. All in one. But seriously how bad it could be? Well, pretty bad indeed. Awful and very frustrating.
I cannot even mention how many times these past days Preben and I were ready to go, but literally ready, and at the last minute a new forecast changes everything. So far, we have three missions aborted, and one of them we were so close, only 12 Km away but unfortunately, we had to come back. The combination of strong winds and not an easy terrain make us to return for safety. Anyway, we came back safe and sound to the station, without samples and not with a smiling face. The lesson to be learned: working on this kind of environments requires extra patience! And never giving up…
The morning of Tuesday November 27th, was so much productive for us. Not because the weather was good but because we managed to finish the installation of 3 active pumps, for both organic and inorganic compounds. Preben came up with a very smart idea to improve the inlet of my active pump and after seeing the new modification installed on the roof of the “Atmos shelter”, our little and cozy “office” for the next weeks, we are very happy with the results! So now the smile is back in our faces!
Wednesday is the day of preparation for our, hopefully, next field trip to the Plateau. A traverse of ~75 Km to be done in the Hilux for safety reasons. We have two sampling sites to visit. One from the previous season and a new site in a more challenging area in the deep Plateau to increase the resolution of our sampling. We are very excited to complete this traverse so I’ll tell you more in the next blog.
Cheers to all the readers,
Stefania.
