64PE366 - Day 8

It is Saturday, day one of our way back. Which, due to rather bad weather conditions, turned out to be a bit more than a two day journey. Wind force 8/9, 6 meter high waves and a staggering speed of around 5 knots (even down to 2 knots): Texel, here we come! After a bumpy night I went up to the bridge for an hour this morning where you definitely have the best view of the waves. It looks amazing to see a ship as the Pelagia being lift up for meters and then fall again. You can see the good waves coming from far! What can also be seen well from the bridge is how working in these conditions is a bit tougher than it normally is. At the front, Tim, Paul and Richard had to collect their bottles from the on-deck incubator.

Even with the ship stopping and potioning itself such that we experience the least rocking, it is not easy without any shelter and it now takes two persons to hold up the lid of the incubator! And on the deck at the back, Corina and Amanda had to run after the water bottles that fell out of Amanda's incubator because the lid broke off. For the rest of us it was quite a quiet day. No CTDs, finishing some filtering, replacing some fallen down decoration on the wall and holding on to our chairs and plates. As Saturday was the last night at the ship, we went to the bar. Some brave attempts at dancing were accompanied by the clashing of plates in the kitchen. If you were at the bar, holding on to your drink was probably priority number one. The most basic movements became challenging and fun.

I really liked it to be on this cruise and, even though it had scientific consequences, experience some bad weather! We are now in sight of Texel and it looks we will make it into the NIOZ harbour on time. Bye from all of us.