We had lifeboat drill yesterday afternoon, and as a newbie I paid particular attention. I made my way to the muster station through one of the water tight doors, as I would should some emergency require it.
RRS James Cook is a lovely ship and I have confidence in her crew, but it is good to know that the skills and equipment are readily available should we need them.
The ship has changed to GMT overnight. It is usual to record of times of data collection in GMT, so it will be simpler if we are all living in that time zone.
We are expecting to arrive on site by 15:00 GMT. and the first activity will be recovering the PAP1 mooring which has been in place sending data to www.eurosites.info/pap/data.php since July 2011.
We have arrived; the weather is still rough but improving, so we are planning to pick up the mooring tomorrow and do a deep CTD cast in the next hours, and the analysis work has started using the direct feed from the sea, so the scientific effort is getting into its stride.