On the last few days of the cruise, we continued our routine with coring and water column sampling. As the schedule became slightly less intense, some of us finally had time to write the cruise report. That resulted in a 140 pages thick report which includes the methods, core descriptions and the first results. On Friday, there was also another important event awaiting us; Lorendz turned 40! To celebrate this important moment in history, we made a special cart with pictures of all cruise members. These pictures, except Lorendz, were photoshopped with an aging app, so we could compliment Lorendz with his young look. We had a nice BBQ and ended the night with some fishing and dancing.
On saturday we returned to the Bosporus. Here, we were accompanied by playfull dolphins which kept on swimming in front of the ship. In the morning, we arrived in Istanbul. After packing and cleaning the whole day, we got a permit to go out of the harbor into Istanbul. Although it was quite strange to walk on land again, nobody was landsick. With the company of some beer and raki we watched the full moon in a bar located under the bridge over the Golden Horn. Afterwards, Mustafa guided us to the neigboorhood around the Galata tower and we went to a rooftop terrace in Kadikoy. We ended the night with some traditional Turkish soup.
Yesterday, most people flew back home. Unfortunately, Fatimah has issues with entering Turkey with her Nigerian passport and needs to stay on board of the Pelagia in Istanbul until everything is arranged. Hopefully, she can leave the harbor today to fly back to the Netherlands. At home, we can finally have some rest and time to look back on this succesful cruise. We obtained a lot of data during this cruise, which will tell us more about the ocean anoxia and it's relation with geochemical cycles. We would also like to thank everyone for the nice vibe on board of the ship. The labeling parties and dancing during glovebox subsampling sessions made the hard work much lighter.
Although our cruise ended, still check our blog next week
as we are trying to make a movie about the cruise!