Never Bring a Pocket Knife on a Rubber Boat

By the end of the Lee Cruise, I was starting to go stir crazy. The oceanographers had their buoy releases and retrievals to set a tempo for our slow march at sea. They had daily success and failures, a sense of energy expended and work accomplished to mark the passage of time and set apart each day from the other. Looking at their sleep deprived faces, I knew any objective comparison would find me very lucky to have an automated instrument, but I was bored out of my skull and my motivation had bottomed out.

Typical view

Before leaving, I'd harvested a lot of haphazard advice about combating cabin fever. Go outside (also helps with sea sickness). Work out. Develop a routine. Find some hidden corner of the ship where you can get away.

All excellent tips. But as we approached Nuuk in October for the final time, I was beyond coping strategies. I wanted to be on solid ground. I wanted to be anonymous. I needed things to be easy, surprising and pleasant.

A welcome change in scenery

We finally pulled into the fjord on a clear, sunny and calm afternoon that encouraged a lot of shore watching. We wouldn't dock until later that evening, after we had idled in the harbor for a few hours as the previous occupant of our spot was saddled with engine troubles. I resisted every urge to do a neat swan dive off the bow and swim the few hundred yards to shore.




Once we eventually docked, I teetered off the gangplank before the mates could even secure to the ship and practically skipped up the hill from the shipping yard to downtown. We had nearly a full week on shore ahead of us. Now that Ruth's cruise had wrapped, she was in vacation mode and suggested a few activities for the upcoming weekend to take in the sights. I desperately needed a break from anything research or ship related, so I was eager to tag along.

Nuuk Village

We'd both just read Wild, Cheryl Strayed's memoir about hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and were interested in hiking into the foothills outside Nuuk. That Saturday, we took the short bus ride to the other side of Nuuk and tried to find the trail head.

Misty foothills outside Nuuk

After spending half on hour stumbling over slick mossy rocks, we realized we'd missed the trailhead badly. Though, without any trees or shrubbery to obscure our sight lines, we quickly found the trail. Strolling along, there was a peaceful lake and a few bubbling waterfalls. Looking behind us, we could see out past Nuuk into the harbor and many small islands dotted across it. It felt incredible to feel my leg muscles exerting themselves and to breath fresh Arctic air. We stayed in the hills long enough to see the mist layer peel back towards the sea revealing the small, clean fishing village.

Hi Mom

 Though Ruth and I hadn't met in person before the cruise, it was comforting to talk with someone who recognized the details of my life in San Diego especially being so far from home. Because everyone on the boat was so friendly, it was easy to forget that you were living with a group of perfect strangers and the toll that it can take.

As we clambered down back to the bus stop, I noticed no one else on the trail seemed nearly as tired as I was. There were joggers on their easy weekend trail runs or families on their post-breakfast strolls. Everyone was either the blond offspring of meaty Scandinavian explorers or the ruddy descendants of native Greenlanders. Even the children in their impossibly cute one-piece snow suits sprung over the rocks and moss with surprising ease.

As several more adorable, fluorescent marshmallows toddled past me, I chuckled at my earlier eagerness. Then, remembering that I got to have a beer for my troubles, I cheered up considerably.

Why are all fjords so beautiful? 

Ruth (SIO) and Sofia (LDEO)

That evening several of us went out for a memorable night at the local Greenlandic brewery. Over the course of the night, Ruth managed to convince the crew to take us out on a liferaft for a free tour of the fjord. Luckily they remembered their promises on Sunday morning. Sofia, another friend had just arrived for the next leg of HiWinGs and her cameras had been in place since Woods Hole, so the three of us all gathered in the main lab to don Mustang survival suits for a bone-chilling, breathtaking ride into the fjord.

The waves in the fjord weren't outrageously big but choppy enough to make it a white knuckled ride in the small Zodiac liferaft. Despite the freezing cold, it was pleasing to go very fast in a vessel for a change. The Knorr is large and slow, designed to weather storms and deploy large scientific instruments. This makes it the nautical equivalent of a pick up truck. The Zodiac was more like a sporty motorcycle, both in terms of speed, lack of comfort and exposure to the elements.

Shipwreck!
The owner paid $1 for the ship but still managed to skimp on a proper
mooring and lost it in the first storm of the season.

We spent several hours jetting around the fjord exploring a local shipwreck, small icebergs and soaking in once in a lifetime views. Sitting in the front of the raft, Ruth had inadvertently volunteered herself as iceberg sample collector.

All of us were frozen solid at this point and our hands were barely functional. Paul extended the unsheathed blade towards Ruth. At the last moment, he stopped with the knife outstretched over Ruth's open palm, to remind us that if anyone dropped the knife, it'd likely puncture our raft and sink us within minutes. We nodded and Ruth stoically accepted the pocketknife. Paul inched us closer to the icebergs to have a better angle, the thin rubber layer grating against the rough surface, and Ruth started hacking away.

Unfortunately, in all the formality of the moment, she forgot that someone also needed to catch the ice after it'd been knocked loose and her sample promptly fell to the bottom of the fjord. We tried again, this time successfully grabbing a few hunks of ice. Ruth gingerly returned the knife and I realized I'd been holding my breath for the last two minutes. We zipped back to the Knorr, eager for the familiar comforts of hot chocolate in the mess deck and perhaps even the fiery heat of the engine room. The little tour reminded me how safe the ship had kept us for the past month and how extraordinary the conditions we sought were, in the overall scheme of things.

Nuuk shipyard

I felt refreshed and human again. A feeling I prayed would stay with me well into the next and longest leg of our journey.

I spent the rest of my time in Nuuk writing postcards, catching up on a backlog of Internet cat videos and tried to set a record for consecutive meals eaten at the local Thai restaurant. The rest of the HiWinGs team soon arrived with their instruments and supplies to get ready for our five week journey in the North Atlantic.

Sismuit Harbor and the Iceberg Playground

We'd been in the Davis Straight for about ten days. The halfway point of the Lee cruise was coming up. There was a science party change over scheduled in Sismuit, a small fishing village up the coast from Nuuk. I was a little disappointed to find out that the Knorr wouldn't actually dock but scientists would take a life raft, known as the Zodiac. 

Sismuit, Greenland

As we pulled into Sismuit, the weather was typically Greenlandic with grey overcast skies. We passed through an ominous fjord and the village soon appeared in the mist. I could see it was even smaller than Nuuk and felt my disappointment abate a bit. 

Paul C, the third mate who is writing a book about Greenlandic history, pointed out a brand new bridge that had been built since their last visit. With the Greenlandic ice sheet melting, many Danish and other Western mining companies were pouring money into developing the sporadic local infrastructure. 

Crew prepping

Launching the Zodiac

The crew on duty busied themselves with craning the Zodiac off the Knorr and helping departing scientists lower themselves into it. Some of the off-duty crew started putting their fishing rods together. Most of the crew members aren't sailors first, but at heart, fishermen who happen to sail. 

Flying fish?

The harbor waters proved very generous. The fishing only lasted about 20 minutes, but this was enough time to catch several dozen fish. No sooner would they get their hooks under water before the rod would jerk with the weight of a 18-inch cod. Since the ship deck sits many meters above the water level, the quickest way to reel them in was to fling them over the rail.

The chief engineer and the bosun tackled cleaning the fast growing pile of fish flopping around on deck. Bobbie, the head steward, just shook her head and laughed at the prospect of cooking nothing but cod for the next few days. 

Science party exchange

The Zodiac zipped back from shore and we welcomed the new scientists on board. As they got settled, we prepared to head out towards the Davis Straight again. Though it was tough to be so close to land without going ashore, I was excited for this next portion of the cruise.

 We'd head north to complete another transect between Greenland and Canada and icebergs were common sightings. Just a few days after leaving Sismuit, I ran into Ruth (another SIO grad student, who coincidentally was on the Lee Cruise) in the mess deck getting some tea. She looked positively frozen over but had a huge grin on her face. She encouraged me to step outside. I ran to grab my camera and was still pulling on my layers as I opened the door outside to the frigid air.

Marscapone

Iguana

Wedding cake in the distance

As I scanned the seas around us, I saw they were sprinkled with icebergs beginning a few hundred meters off the ship and continuing until the horizon. They were all different shapes, sizes and colors. Ice cream cones and sandstone arches. Ice cubes for your tumbler or a chunk of wedding cake. Unlike the gigantic ice sheet off  coastal Baffin Island, these icebergs weren't Mother Nature flexing her muscles. They were a playful invitation to stay for a while. 

Nearly the entire science party was outside with their photography equipment. Field scientists, being a pretty self-selecting group in general, can almost universally be disarmed by conversations about nature photography, backpacking or rock climbing.

Everyone had the same struck look on their face, especially the grad students who had never been on an Arctic Cruise before. I tried to calm down enough to let the sight really sink in and lodge in my memory.

For all the work it had taken to get to get here and how hard the journey had been, I felt grateful to be on the ship in that spot, on that day. 

Field Lessons and Glory Land

Snow falling on buoys

Field Lessons

Leaving Nuuk, I brought a temperature control box back up to the van after making a few repairs. It was a gorgeous morning. Light snow was falling and the temperature was just cold enough to draw goosebumps. In the van, I warmed my hands over the heat pouring out of our vacuum pumps like a fireplace. We'd soon be back out in the open ocean, away from all the coastal sources of pollution and sampling natural gases from the sea surface. I brought all the instrument up to sampling mode and soon we'd be back up and running.

Ruth hauling in the CTD rosette that's just
returned from the bottom of the ocean

I checked all my connections and flipped the switch on the box I'd just installed. Suddenly sparks started pouring out of a power supply. Panicked, I quickly unplugged it and stopped the sparking. I cursed under my breath and scowled at the box. After quadruple checking all the connections and seeing nothing out of place, I hesitantly plugged the box back in, just hoping for divine intervention. It started up perfectly.

Bewildered, I sat wondering what had just happened. A good ten minutes passed before I realized snow flakes had melted on the box and caused a short circuit. After a few minutes in the warm van, the small drops evaporated luckily avoiding damaging my power supply permanently. I rolled my eyes and sighed a sigh of relief.

It was a classic example of the unique perils of field work. When else do you ever concern yourself with snow in your equipment? I was grateful for the reminder and also, to skitter out unscathed. During this Lee cruise leg (before HiWinGs) my primary goal was to learn from as many of these small mistakes as possible --without totally breaking everything. Under that view, I was way ahead of schedule. It'd only taken me two hours to get the first lesson under my belt.

We'd spend the next three weeks crossing the Davis Straight between Greenland and Northern Canada. Craig Lee and his team were studying ocean currents in this area. To do this, they'd drop a large water sampling device (a CTD rosette) into the ocean at various points. Each time they cast the CTD, they'd take dozens of water samples all the way from the surface to the ocean floor. They'd slowly make a path across the Straight (aka a transect).

UW crew hauling in a buoy (in the water on the left).
Textbook.

Their team would also scoot around the Straight replacing moorings (anchored buoys). Each of these buoys contain small rugged and low power instruments which had been taking data without any human intervention since they were deployed 2 years previously. Old ones were being picked up and new ones were being put in their place.

This was classic physical oceanography being performed by a experienced team of scientists. I was excited to be able to observe it first hand, and potentially take interesting air samples as we moved between each CTD sampling mark or buoy location.

Glory Land

By the end of the week, we'd made it across Davis Straight. Though I am an early bird by nature, something about sleeping on a ship had turned me back into a 15 year old and I didn't stumble up to lab until 10 AM. Byron, who's been leading cruises since the early 90's and well used to sleeping in sync with the motions of the ocean had been up since 4 AM. He encouraged me to take a peek out the window.

I wasn't expecting much. All week the skies had been overcast and grey.  I was also feeling pretty down. The internet connection was poor and I hadn't spoken to any close friends or family for nearly three weeks. I barely rose from my chair to look out window.

Wow.

My jaw dropped. Land. Not just small dirt mounds with their chins above water. Hulking, rusty snow-capped ridge lines filled my window. They looked mythical in the weak light of the high latitudes and their feet covered with misty sea spray.

At a distance, Baffin Island seemed like a wild glory land. Alaska without the mosquitoes. Patagonia that you can drive through. Down below the cliffs, I saw a gigantic ice shelf that was probably the size of a modest housing development.

My first sea ice sighting!

Checking the ship's weather system, I noticed that we were also in 40 knot winds (about 45 mph). This was exciting for our measurement of gas flux across the sea surface. High winds means the ocean gets better ventilated. As a bonus, the seas stayed relatively calm despite how strong the winds were because we were so close to shore. Without long stretches of ocean surface to glide over (known as fetch), even very strong winds won't have enough room to get large waves going.

Desperate for some sunshine, I bundled up and cautiously made my way outside. As soon as I stepped out into the headwind, I felt as though someone had shoved me backwards. I leaned forward grabbing on to railings and handle bars to find the best views. I snapped a few photos and felt my gums freeze over as I smiled into the wind. I felt the joy of witnessing rare terrain rise in me.

40 knots, young seas

Seeing the shore, I was reminded that the sea was not a friend but a begrudging host. Even if this particular land was just as unforgiving as the bergy waters surrounding the ship, it was familiar. It was dry. It's surface didn't change hourly with wind or weather. It ached me and thrilled me to see it.

Seeing Baffin Island filled my tank for the weeks ahead at sea. I was ready for more walking at angles and eating off moving plates because I might see something else beautiful and measure something unknown.

Nuuk, I

Land ho! Can you find it?

Sergio and Byron (NOAA) surveying the coast

We approached Nuuk, Greenland on a dreary, rainy day. All the scientists huddled together with anticipation on the front deck, despite the wet and cold. The crew remained business-like and started getting lines ready for docking. We watched as the small rocky outcrops grew into a jagged coastline. Even though we were never in any danger during our transit, seeing solid earth triggered visceral emotions in me. I wondered if this was a tiny version of what ancient explorers felt when they saw shore after a long journey.


As we entered the fjord, I transitioned my instrument from sampling to idle mode. Down in my berth, I strapped on my walking boots and looked for my wallet stashed in the back of a dresser drawer, where it'd been existing without any use since we left Massachusetts.

Hans Egede, the European missionary who "settled" Greenland.

After docking, the science party all caught a cab into downtown from the ship yard. We had a cheerful dinner at a Thai restaurant which was universally recommended as the best in town. Greedily and happily, we breathed in our new surroundings. We enthusiastically ordered beers named for ancient Vikings. We examined the lime leaves from our Pad Thai and wondered out loud where they had been imported from. Even we when we saw how expensive everything was, we couldn't help but laugh at the novelty of paying for something.

Full and content after dinner, Byron and I strolled back to the ship. The rest of the science party went to their respective hotels to prepare for their flights home, but we'd see them on the ship the next day as they packed up their equipment.

Charming, even without several feet of snow.

The next afternoon, I ventured back into town with another grad student, Sophia from Columbia. As we walked and stretched our legs, I appreciated the ability to stroll aimlessly. The weather stayed grey but as we walked into the historic section of town, Nuuk became quaint and charming. Walking by colorful wooden cottages that did not once sway or retreat, I felt renewed.

Our "zero-air" generator. Getting under the hood.

During the rest of our port stop, I started making repairs to equipment. Our zero-air generator (ZAG) had been acting funny San Diego. "Zero-air" means air with zero contaminants (i.e. nitrogen + oxygen + a little bit of water vapor). We use zero-air as a control for our measurements. It is identical to ambient air except it lacks organic gases, so any signal measured during a "zero" is due to instrument noise, not actual gases.

Making some progress on the ZAG, I'd spend my afternoon hours walking around town. The ship was buzzing with activity again. A new team of oceanographers from UW had arrived and I was careful of staying out of their way as they did their heavy lifting. I was also steeling myself for the next three weeks, which we'd spend further north in the Davis Straight between Greenland and Northern Canada.

Leaving Woods Hole, I had vague notions that this cruise would be really tough but no details on how tough. Now, I entered the second leg with a storm under my belt. I was also excited and curious to see a different type of science from my own, and proper oceanographers at that. This team was very experienced and in the Davis Straight often. We would also venture to our northernmost destination, which meant the possibility of viewing the Northern Lights as well as icebergs. 

We left Nuuk on a clear, cold day. Snow sprinkled the deck and clouds on the horizon made beautiful blues and purples. It felt like a nice sign for our destinations up North. 

A sparkling winter day to set sail for the Davis Straight.

North Atlantic Velociraptors

After a few days at sea, I had my routine down. In the mornings, I'd check on the instrument and note what gases we were seeing as well as different temperatures and pressures to note how the instrument was doing. In the back of the ship, I'd check on the racks of stainless steel gas cylinders containing the chemicals we use to react with our samples.

Tanks. A lot.

In the afternoons, I'd sit in the main lab at my computer and start processing the gigabytes of data we collect each day. Processed data gives me a better idea of how the instrument was performing over longer time scales, like days to weeks, instead of just the last hour's worth of real-time data I can see on the instrument computer screen. If anything looked unusual, I could make adjustments on the fly. In the evenings, I made figures to send to my adviser. Things seemed to be going well. The instrument was running with a few kinks to work out here and there. With 2 1/2 months of sampling ahead, nothing too pressing.


One day before lunch, I noticed a forecast pinned to the announcement board outside the mess hall. Before my brain could bring the swirling lines and colorful whorls into focus, a scrawled note caught my eye. Someone had written in large block letters "THIS WILL SUCK". Someone else had crossed out "WILL" and wrote above it, "MIGHT".

Wait. We're not going to Bermuda? 

I blinked a few times and read the forecast again. They were predicting 20-25 knot winds and 2-3 meter swells a few days before we reached Nuuk. We would also have to continue full speed ahead to arrive in Nuuk on schedule. This mean we'd be hitting the waves diagonally, which was far more uncomfortable than facing waves head on. As this sunk in, I appreciated both the honesty and the optimism of the comment.

A few gas standards strapped in for the ride ahead.  

I went to the lab located high and fore on the ship. Because of its position, it would take the brunt of the bad weather. I scanned the room for loose tools that could turn into projectiles and re-tightened the ratchets that lashed all our boxes to the walls. I even went over to our instrument, which is mounted to the wall and floor, and gave it a hard shake. Satisfied, I left the lab and secured the weather dogs on our lab door for the first time.



Later in my berth, I surveyed my many anti-sea-sickness options. There was fast-acting Dramamine, slower but longer lasting Bonine, and the nuclear option: Scopalomine, a dermal patch that takes 24 hours to kick in and lasts three days. I popped the raspberry tasting Bonine, slipped on my acupuncture wristbands and hoped for the best.

As I lay in bed, I could feel the gentle rocking motion of the ship getting stronger and more unpredictable in its rhythm. My room was located above the huge potable water supply. Normally I'd be half asleep lulled by the sloshing of hundreds of gallons of water in rhythm with its wave cousins. Tonight, as the storm grew in strength, the force and echo of water hitting its metal container made high pitched squealing noises that sounded like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park.

Russ, chief electrician, hanging out in the CTD hangar protected from the large wave action. 

Bonine proved to be a good choice and I managed to fall asleep, though not before catching air a few times. I slept on my back, in a snow-angle formation to prevent myself from being rolled out of bed. In this sort of tense state, I fell fast asleep and didn't wake before 10 AM the next morning.

Smile! We still have a kitchen!

The next morning, the storm was at its peak. It was surreal to wake up to the walls and floor moving around me. I took another pill, brushed my teeth and managed to climb the one floor up to the main lab without smashing into a wall. The normally bustling center of science on the ship was completely empty. All the computers were abandoned.

At lunch, scientists wandered in slowly. I wondered out loud how the stewards were cooking under these conditions. Someone informed me that at 3 AM a powerful wave had popped out a window in the kitchen as the chief steward was getting ready to start breakfast. The kitchen had been flooded, but cleaned and put back in order before breakfast. I realized all the windows in the mess hall had also been covered with their hatches.

Holes in thick aluminum tape covering our lab doors.
Courtesy of 20 knot winds and sleet. 

The storm lasted about 36 hours and I'm not ashamed to admit I was taking Bonine for most of it. We had less than a day now before we arrived in Nuuk. We limped into harbor just as the drugs wore off and I was just starting to feel like myself.

I was really proud of myself for surviving my first storm and tried to contain my excitement at being in port. I had a lot of work ahead of me, now that the ground wasn't moving any more, and I also knew we had many more days like this ahead.

Settling In

"Scientists At Work"

Leaving Woods Hole, we had 8 days to get to Nuuk, Greenland where we'd pick up a team of oceanographers from the University of Washington. The HiWinGS team and I would use this transit to fine-tune our instruments. The chief scientist of HiWinGs and I would operate our instruments during the UW cruise while the rest of HiWinGS would leave Greenland by plane.

It was valuable time at sea and I felt lucky to have it. Any field researcher can tell you that most instruments take time to "settle in" to a new locations. With all their joints and circuitry, things can shift and react to new environments in unexpected ways.

Instrument are surprisingly human in that way. They can be sensitive, temperamental even unreasonable, usually at the most inopportune times. Other days, they can be simplistic and easy-going. Most of the time, you never really find out why.

Happy Hour. (Not really).

The first few days leaving New England were picturesque and unlike any weather we've seen since. We glided through flat, shimmering seas at a satisfying clip. During breaks, science and crew alike sprawled out all over the ship to bask in the bright yellow sun.

The instrument also seemed to be in a good mood, so I had time to start settling in myself. I had my own berth, a large room towards the front of the ship. Looking through the half-dozen or more impeccably placed drawers, I did a quiet fist pump for bringing three extra pairs of shoes and twice as many clothes as I probably needed. If I went crazy on this boat, it sure as hell wasn't going to be from the lack of slip-on canvas shoes or an extra pair of jeans.

I soon discovered ship meal times are strict and absolute. Breakfast at 7 was similar enough to my routine at home. Lunch followed swiftly at 11:30. By dinner at 5 PM, walking to the mess hall just felt like surrender. On top of the relentless meal schedule, the cooks on the Knorr are known for being extremely generous with their portions. As talented as they are (Filet mingon? Pecan and panko crusted eggplant?), most days I ended up tossing half my portions into the trash.

By the end of the second day, it had circulated through most of the crew that I was going to be on the ship as long as they would. One of the engineers, a barrel chested ex-football player with a handle bar mustache and aviator glasses from the 60s, approached me one day.

"Is it true?" I gave him a wary look, not sure where this was going. "Is this really your first cruise?" I nodded slowly. "Well holy shit!" he laughed. "You picked a helluva cruise for your first!"

I smiled and shrugged at his good-natured teasing, but I knew what he meant. Most of my classmates at Scripps get their first cruise experiences during an afternoon field trip our first year. They don't venture more than 45 minutes away from shore and you aren't expected to do any of the heavy lifting. Though many go on to spend months and years away from home in places as far away as Antarctica, you get a chance to decide if cruises are for you.

I'd given myself a pretty steep learning curve. Before we arrived in Nuuk, I'd learn just how steep.

Woods Hole

The RV Knorr

My adventure starts in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, a small beach town on Cape Cod. It is also the home port of the RV Knorr, a research vessel. I'll be living on board and traversing the seas around Northern Canada and Greenland for 2 1/2 months to take atmospheric measurements.

Beautiful Woods Hole 

The instrument I'd be using had spent its summer sampling pine tree emissions in the Great Smokey Mountains. I had three very short weeks in August to prepare. The day it was wheeled back into lab, I threw myself into another gear. I'd arrive almost every day as the sun came up and stay past sundown.

I'd been waiting for this moment for three years and part of me was thrilled to start my adventure. The other part was highly stressed, over caffeinated and barking at customer service representatives, "I need it by September or it will literally miss the boat!"

The instrument (left) in the "lab", which is
 actually just a fancy shipping container.

Everything ended up getting completed but I still felt hurried and rushed. As shipment day approached and the stress mounted, I would imagine the truck driver that would drive my equipment to the East Coast being a narcoleptic, meth addict. On particularly bad days, I would imagine a sinkhole opening up across the I-80 swallowing the truck whole. The driver always had enough time to make his cowardly escape.

When shipment day arrived, I was relieved to crate up my instrument along with four 200 lb watertight plastic crates and a dozen cardboard boxes. This collection of pumps, tools and electronics would wait for me at Woods Hole until I arrived to load them on the ship.

With my instrument gone, I finally had time to think about getting myself ready to live at sea. I made several euphoric trips to REI to fill out my Southern California wardrobe for the Arctic in November. I stuffed a gallon-size Ziploc full of Dramamine, Bonine, ginger candies and acupuncture bands. I ordered a few paperbacks about adventure and character-building struggle. I downloaded scores of scientific articles that I imagined myself poring through on the ship as I drank hot cups of tea and stared thoughtfully out at the horizon. I started to calm down. I even started to feel excited.

The lab being set down ever so gently.

Early one morning, I had bleary eyed greeting with Matt, a postdoc from our lab, at the airport. After a short flight to Phoenix, then Logan and two hours in an economy sub-compact, we arrived in Falmouth late that night. We checked into our respective rooms at the slightly mildewy Mariner's Motel and tried to get some rest. It was time to get down to business.

Neither of us had ever done research on a ship before, so we'd given ourselves a week to create a sea-worthy laboratory from the boxes I'd shipped. The laboratory itself is actually just a shipping container with power outlets and fire extinguishers. We had it on loan from the University of Delaware and it was waiting for us in the shipyard along with my boxes.

After a few days of unpacking, I watched with a clenched jaw as the container was forklifted and then craned several stories in the air before it was set gently onto the ship's deck in front. There, it was bolted  into the ship's frame so it would survive the heavy seas we'd be sure to see.

Did I mention I'm terrified of heights?

Next, we installed a long set of tubes up the length of the mast of the ship. We'd use these to sample clean Arctic air and avoid sampling the ship's own diesel exhaust.

My inlet is a bit complicated, so before I knew it a hardhat was plunked on my head and I was scooted up the mast in a cherry picker. Now I was dangling from the same crane that was carrying our lab not too long ago. Hands shaking, I installed my inlet to the mast and reminded myself to bring back the crane operator a tasteful gift from Greenland.

With my feet back on the ground, the rest of the week became a blur. For one night, we took a pause to try some delicious English ales at the British Brewing Company. A college friend joined us to toast the untimely coincidence of my 30th birthday just three days before my departure.

All week Matt battled with important but mundane, soul-sucking tasks so I could focus on slightly more interesting scientific problems. Slowly together, we brought the instrument up to working condition.

The night before we left, I moved all my belongings on to the ship. I decided to spend my last night on shore in the Mariner's. I lay in my bed trying to imprint into my body what solid ground felt like. I didn't sleep a wink.

Who needs sleep when you have sunshine?

The next morning, I was greeted with beautiful blue skies, puffy clouds and optimistic sunshine that mocked my sleepless worry.

From the 02 deck, I caught a glimpse of a few of the crew arriving at ship yard driven by their friends and loved ones. Everyone was soaking in the last few moments together. I tried to do the same and started texting my family and friends.

At 9:30 AM, Matt and I said our own farewells. I thanked him for all his help. We posed gamely for photos in front of the ship, and he scampered off to enjoy the twelve hours he had left on Cape Cod before he'd fly back to San Diego.

An hour later, the ship's engines rumbled on. I dropped my tools and went to the deck to see the shore retreating. I leaned into the railing and waved goodbye to no one in particular. We were off.

Sunset, on the first day