We are now finally on our way! Now somewhere between Argentina and the Falkland Islands. Yesterdays transit was ok, but today there are more swells. The first week on the ship flew by. We have since we boarded the ship last Thursday conduct several ship, lab and safety tours and had plenty of science talks and discussions Contradictory to what it might seem like in the photos from the ship tour, we have had some strong winds which have caused us several delays of delay. While we waited for a calm weather window to be able to fuel and more problematically leave the tanking dock, we tried to make good use of the time. Writing down methods, familiarize our self with the lab equipment and protocols, preparing schemes, lab materials and more to make the work on the first cores on deck go as smoothly as possible.
We are now transit for two days towards the south of the Falkland drift slope sites. With tail winds we are making up some of the lost times. Later this evening and the coming 4/5 days will drill two sites at around 800m water depth, down to 350m below sea floor at the first site and 150m at the second. Amongst the objectives of these sites is to investigate the export of Pacific waters into the SW Atlantic varied through the Pleistocene and what impact this had on Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Afterwards we will head further south close to the South Orkney islands to drill in the Scotia Sea. We want to get down to the more southern sites before the sea ice starts creeping up on us.