Day off!

January 15

Today I took a day off. Well, half a day, but it was so amazing already. I woke up around 9:30 and went to translate for the doctor. "We" had quite a few patients lined up, so it took about two hours total. I guess people are feeling the stress of being on the ship, working non-stop and such. And just to reassure my friends and family - I am doing ok.
In the afternoon I went to the boot camp class. I wrote about it a few days ago, when I was jealously observing people on heli deck  doing exercise. The weather wasn't perfect, but manageable. It felt so great to be outside, run around the deck and do the circuit training in the hangar. I will probably pay for it tomorrow, but it was totally worth it! After the training was over I went to the ship's sauna. The sauna on Akademik Tryoshnikov is probably the best room of all. You almost forget you are on the ship while sweating in the sauna, but then the ship starts rocking and you remember :). There is also a cold water bucket one can drop on their head to cool off. What a great experience! Just what was needed to warm up and re-energize.
After the sauna and the tea, I went to see a girl we med-evaced from Marion island. Besides being in pain, she is on this foreign ship, doesn't know most of us and primarily stuck in bed. So we chatted and painted our nails - celebrating my first day off in over a month - a perfect girl's night in! I hope she will be all right soon.

Meanwhile the sun showed up and I went on heli deck to enjoy a few minutes of the sun and show off my freshly painted nails.

Showing off my nails

Masha, Holly and Pau relaxing in the afternoon sun on the helideck

I then rushed to the PI meeting, where we discussed our current and upcoming plans, realized how little we know about future customs procedures in Australia and the work mode got turned on again. I spent the rest of the night figuring out the details for the upcoming cargo shipment. My plan is to prepare everything in advance, so I can relax in Hobart. I hope the plan works!

I have a few busy days of writing report and organizing cargo ahead of me. Wish me luck :)

Физкульт-привет! / Heli deck boot camp

January 10
I can't believe how lucky we are to be sailing in this atypically nice weather. We have seen the sun for four days in a row (January 7 through 10), which is just amazing. And I am hoping tomorrow (January 11) will also be nice.
As we are steaming off to Hobart without any more island stops, many teams on the ship officially finished their field work for the leg. Some others are still collecting data from atmosphere and ocean. So with some spare time in hand and exceptional weather one of the BAS scientist started a boot camp on the heli deck (weather permitting). Unfortunately I haven't quite made it to a class yet, since there is always something for me to do in the middle of the day. But as I was attempting to sample the first hail event on the upper deck, I shot this picture of the boot campers exercising:

I also have to admit that hail sampling was unsuccessful, it was a fluke of an event that lasted a couple of minutes tops. By the time I got all my gear from the freezer, the hail stopped and the sun came back. It wasn't even that cold - you can see people exercising in shorts and t-shirts with an occasional sweater outside.

Exercising on a ship isn't easy. A lot of times there is too much to do. The gym has very limited equipment, and it becomes dangerous when the ship rolls. Heli deck is just about the only large flat space available. Many Russian crew members walk laps on heli deck, weather permitting. I have to applaud their patience and consistency. I personally try to do my yoga as regularly as possible. An occasional game of table tennis is the only add on I managed to do so far. I wish I was more organized about my fitness. Maybe I will manage to do the boot camp tomorrow, but once again too many things are planned for me...

Leaving Marion Island

28 December
I am happy to report we safely recovered our people from Marion island and are currently underway. It was a really pretty and unusual to see land while at sea and we will enjoy views of many more islands.
Here's a picture from yesterday overlooking the helicopters parked on the helo deck and some interesting cloud formation in the background. Too bad we could not launch a radiosonde to get data from the vertical profile. We usually launch from the helo deck and cannot operate while the helicopters are out of the hangar.

The weather was much nicer today so we did a lot of different things. We did a 200m CTD cast, deployed nets to collects zooplankton, deployed nets that scrape the sea floor to collect benthic species, launches a radiosonde. We were gonna end the day with a 1km CTD cast followed by a 1km trace metal rosette cast, but things got a little off track. We lost communication with the normal rosette half way, so spent the rest of the evening trouble shooting. Trace metal rosette was successful in principal, although we did not collect many water samples. But all in all it was an extremely busy day for many science teams and for the ship's crew.

***
Aside from science life on the icebreaker goes on. We have been sailing for a week now and the days are starting to look more and more routine. The meal schedule keeps us on track :). This never changing meal schedule that my grandfather described in great detail.
Actually today was the first day I managed to attend all four meals - I usually skip breakfast or tea if I am working or sleeping still.
I am yet to properly visit a gym and a sauna. I only played one game of table tennis so far, where I lost miserably. Need to up my game a lot ;))))

And I only located the sauna today. We have limited freshwater supply on the ship, so sauna is not open daily, there is only two days a week I can go - on Saturdays for the expedition day and on Sundays for the women's day. This week I did not have time on either day.
I have been trying to keep on track with my yoga, but I did not find time to do a proper cardio workout at the gym. The only thing that I hope helps me - I ran around up and down the stairs all day long. My cabin is on "-1" deck and my atmospheric office is on the "4.5" deck. We launch balloons from the helo deck on the "2nd" deck and the CTD lab and the mess (cafeteria) are both on the main "0" deck. But I am not sure it is enough and I keep promising myself to go running or rowing every day. Yet it is again closer to midnight and I got up at 7AM and I am exhausted. So all I will most likely do today - take my water sample at midnight and go  to bed.