Wednesday, November 30, 2016

First look at Tryoshnikov

Hello,
I finally figured out the platform for my upcoming blog.
A week ago I went to Bremerhaven, where I saw Akademik Tryoshnikov for the first time:



The weather was pretty gloomy and I have to say it was mostly raining during the week I spent in Bremerhaven.

The ship was much smaller inside than I expected, I have been on a cruise on Akademik Fedorov before and I was amazed how much smaller Akademik Tryohsnikov is. There's no big room - even the mess is quite small and consists of two semi-attached rooms. The lab space is also extremely limited, so we will become really close with all our colleagues during the cruise. But the thing that impressed me the most was the hold(трюм) - as the only access to it was through the vertical ladder from the outside (!):

After some deliberations though our science cargo was put into another hold, which has very steep stairs, but they are covered from rain and have railings. So all in all even the scariest part somehow became less scary.

My colleague Irina and I were busy finding space for our atmospheric equipment, while waiting for the ocean equipment to turn up. At the end of the day we were able to locate and secure all our cargo and find suitable places for the future instrument installation as well as cozy inside space for data loggers.

My friends probably know already how many unfortunate things happened to me in Bremerhaven, with me falling off a bike and my computer dying unexpectedly. But I survived the trip and came out stronger on the other side. The most amazing thing for me in adventures like this are always people I meet and connections I build. I am happy to report that while short and not quite "on board" - Bremerhaven trip was really productive in that regard. I look forward to reuniting with some of these wonderful people in Cape Town in a few weeks.

Till later,
Masha