Sleepless nights

I've been thinking to write another blog post for a couple of days but not really found the energy too. I suppose it is part to the weird work hours that I currently have during the long duration station (LD). It makes me really tired when I have to get up at 03.00 every morning for sampling and water filtration. The other part could be that not much has really happened on board the ship these last few days. Work is slowly becoming a scheduled routine and the space on board starts to feel rather cramped.

Or it might just all be rambling by a tired mind. Getting up so early gives no night time sleep what so ever and I have to go to bed fairly early the day before. Thankfully I can sleep a few hours after breakfast the following day but at that time the harm is already done and I wake up before lunch feeling like a heavy night out drinking.

At least there are laughing matters on board even though a lot of stuff is not running smoothly for anyone at the moment (or so it seems). For example, I had requested a phone card for the satellite phone earlier this week (no idea how I'm going to pay for it since apparently I was lied to when being informed that they accept pacific francs, but that will have to be a later problem to deal with), so the guy responsible for giving me such a card approached me earlier today.
Me and some other "English speakers" were having a beer on front deck when he came by and told me in no uncertain fashion that he could not sell me a phone card. Naturally I asked why, to which he replied that I can't make calls to the US (yep, that's right).
There was a brief moment of silence and weird glancing around until he, noticing the awkward situation, continued by saying that I can only make calls to France or Europe.
At that very moment I had no clue how to save the situation, and I don't think my "as a matter of factly" reply helped to save his face when I just stated: -But I'm swedish.
I should stop hanging out with the only american on board or the french should just quit assuming that every non-french is american, thank you very much.

Tomorrow I will spike my SIMS bottles with 15N2 and 13C-bicarb for the nutrient amendment experiment that started yesterday. I was also given bottles for RNA and DNA filtration by the team responsible for measuring the bulk nitrogen fixation in the experiment. We will have plenty to do these coming days, even during day time.