64PE366 - Day 3

Safety first.

The people from the CHARLET project are back on the Pelagia. For some of our team it is already the forth cruise within the project, so we pretty much know what we do in terms of where and how to set up our working space and what the daily routine on board is going to be. The ship is already like a second home. But no matter how well you know the ship before we start the science part we have to do the safety part. This already starts way before we step foot on the Pelagia. Everyone is required to take a course in Sea Survival, which includes a lot on theory but also a practical part, where everyone has to get into their life suits, jump into the water and ultimately getting into a life raft.
When finally on board the second officer held a safety meeting before departure. The first part includes showing a short presentation about all the things we should and shouldn't do.

Thinking back to all the other cruises on the Pelagia, I was about as excited to watch it as watching safety instruction for the 50th time on an airplane. But weren't we in for a surprise when the new video started. Well, the contents are still the same of course, but everything is explained in flashy pictures and short video sequences.

One of them was a very realistic one that showed how a hand gets smashed if it is in the way of a closing metal door, it involved a lot of blood or more probably a large amount of ketchup. This one will probably stay in our heads forever. After the video all the "first timers" (people who have not been on board before) get a tour to familiarize themselves with all the different parts of the ship and all the routes that lead to the muster station (place on the ship where everyone assembles in case of an alarm).

And last but not least, there is a scheduled fire drill, where everyone has to pretend it is real, take their life jackets and survival suits and go to the muster station. Once everyone is there and wears their life jacket it is usually over and we can go back to work. But yesterday we also had to get into our sea survival suits. They are designed so you can keep your cloth on underneath and but everyone had a little struggle to get into them. It already takes some practice to get into them but yesterday most people were also wearing a winter jacket. So maybe next time we try without the winter jacket.

With that valuable lesson learned we focused again on the next week and all the sample we have to take.