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Long-Term Ocean Climate Observations (LOCO) – D301/302
Cruise Diary – 22nd March 2006	Petra presenting the cake to Socratis   Socratis with his birthday cake
Wednesday - This morning the captain had organized a meeting with key persons from the scientific and regular crew to discuss the cruise plan in detail. How to organize the work such that we can have a full 24 hours program and be as efficient as possible with the time available is a major issue. There is ample experience from previous similar cruises. However, these past cruises also learned that always new problems can arise. Therefore, the cruise plan will be flexible and will become definite on a day by day basis. We also learned that the Discovery sails faster than planned, obviously related to the cleaning and painting of the vessel in Cape Town during dry-docking. This, combined with the change in port of arrival, Durban in stead of Port Elizabeth, makes that we expect to finish this cruise just before Easter. After all the delays in the previous month it looks like we are now entering a new period. Of course everybody is happy with this news. After rain comes sunshine! By the way, the sun is shining here very strong. We really have entered tropical areas.
Also inside the vessel it is warm, even with the air conditioning, temperatures are not below 25 degrees inside. Combined with the calm sea the Discovery is becoming more and more like a sailing tropical island. Today, Socrates has his birthday. In the morning, during coffee time, he got a nice present and after dinner Petra gave him a beautiful cake that had been prepared especially by the cooks. I guess it will be very tasteful, but I am not sure since we will taste it in the evening.