27 June

How does life and work on board look like?

In one way life is different (normally you do not think about fixing everything as it might could move itself!), but on the other hand life on board is very similar to life on land. On board you really have to keep in mind, that things can move themselves. So better to store cups in a rack, lock the door of the fridge and fix your boxes.

But for the rest, not that much difference: you have a bed, a bathroom and your workplace. Oh, I forgot one more difference: there is a kitchen, but you don´t have to cook yourself. All meals are prepared, very tasty, very comfortable. It is just helping with clearing the table. I will for sure miss this luxury at home!

So you can really concentrate on your work, without any disturbance … maybe only by a better email connection than in previous times which also prevents you from the “being away” feeling, and for sure the great view. If you enjoy looking at the horizon and an “endless” amount of water, you can spend hours of just standing outside.

But the daily schedule gets you quite quickly back to the real life on board. Every morning the cruise leader comes up with the planning for the next 24 h, depending on a combination of the initial planning, actual weather conditions and just recent results. So being flexible is an important feature on board, no day is as the others, which makes life on board so interesting.  You have long and sometimes very broken working times, however, this is balanced by the experience of the unique working place. But for sure you also have some free time to enjoy, but this is private and private stuff is deemed to be private. So a golden rule on each ship is: What happens on board, stays on board! Respect for the privacy of each other is anyway essential, you are living and working together very closely. Space for being alone is limited (on some ships you also have to share your room with eventually unknown colleagues), you are eating together, you see your colleagues in good mood, in bad mood, in tired mood, and sometimes even absolutely pissed when things are not working (luckily this case is on rare occasions). And with colleagues I do not only mean your scientific colleagues but also your crew colleagues, who make your stay and scientific work happen. So embarking on a scientific ship cruise is always a unique experience with lots of unknowns! That makes it so enjoyable….