Back in Sweden

I've now been home for a few days, settling in with the family life once more. It feels really good to be back again, although the climate in Sweden this time of year is horrible when you've gotten used to tropical heat for two months. It actually snowed two days ago...

It seems that all our equipment and samples are en route to Stockholm right now and are estimated to arrive at the lab either tomorrow or on monday. For the moment it seems like all my persistence and hard work that last day on the ship payed off.

I have a few more days off back home with my family before I have to get back to Stockholm for work and even though I have some things, private and professional, that needs immediate attention I will make the most of it.

I realise that I never said much about my few days of vacation in Tahiti and my updates during that time were non-existent. Needless to say, I had a great time and that's why I never wrote anything on my blog during that time.
In summary: me and my Italian friend stayed at a rather fancy hotel for the entire stay, which was awesome. We were fortunate enough to get a huge discount on our stay, so in the end way paid less for our 4-star room than our colleagues did for their 2- and 3-stars downtown. The only downside to it was the 10 min taxi ride from downtown Papeete.
Overall we didn't spend much time at the hotel anyway, but what little time we did was great (the pool, the breakfast and the bar/dinner) and they had a fair internet connection which meant that I could call home on a regular basis.

The first couple of days we rented a car and went around the island, exploring the beaches of Tahiti, which are black in the north and east and white in the west and south (Tahiti, just as most of the small islands in the Pacific is a volcanic island). We also tried to locate some of the natural scenery like waterfalls, lookout points and the famed Teahupoo surf spot with its massive waves.
The waves were not as big as you might see on TV but they were still impressive and we were fortunate enough to see a few brave surfers master the barrels out by the reef.


One of the best parts of arriving in Tahiti was good beer (from the local brewery), although sweeter ale than I would prefer, and food other than French. It may sound like I would have been happy with whatever but truth be told, the food (especially the street food) was really tasty (not always cheap though, but still well worth it). This meant that we spent almost every evening in Papeete, which is a tiny city even with Swedish standards. Needless to say, I quickly got fed up with it.

The final day off we went to the small sister island, Moorea (which apparently is older than Tahiti). Prior to arriving in Tahiti we all got told that this island was a must, and I couldn't possibly agree more. Pristine white beaches like taken straight from postcards greeted us as soon as we set foot on the island after a 45 min ferry ride. The whole island felt less exploited and not as run down as some parts of Tahiti. There was no town on the island just a few clusters of buildings and the occasional luxury hotel on a long stretch of white beach and the shielding reef making the water closest to the shores turquoise. Further inland, if you can even say that about an island which is 60 km around, remnants of the old volcanic crater rose up like rocky needles. Some were fortunately large enough to climb with a car so we could easily get an awesome view of the island and the surrounding barrier reefs.
The main purpose of the trip to Moorea was for me to finally scuba dive again after seven years out of the water. I did two awesome dives, even though the second reef dive was nothing special, it felt great just to be back in the water. The first shark dive though was really cool and I swam around with lots of black tip reef sharks and a couple of impressive lemon sharks.
Before heading back to Tahiti we also had time for a sightseeing tour with a crazy Italian, Mario.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the perk of my profession.

Shipping back to Stockholm

This was officially my last day at work on this cruise.
In between I've at least had a few days off to see the island and have some kind of relaxing vacation, although it has meant some early mornings and late evenings.
Most importantly I've had a good time and I suppose these three days is one of the perks of my profession.
This last day, which only entailed getting our equipment shipped back to Stockholm, was just as messy as I had presumed.
Many decisions had to be made in short order and with limited options and time. In the end I just hope I made the best possible choices I could, at least it feels like I did, but I guess I won't be fully content before I see all our equipment and samples safely back at the lab.

OUTPACE 2015 done!

We have just finished packing all our equipment, attached the proper labels and sealed them with zip ties. Science-wise OUTPACE 2015 is officially over. Being my first cruise it has been so many new impressions and I've learned a lot, but it has also been challenging and with quite a few ups and downs. All in all, I'm happy with it and I'm satisfied with what I've accomplished on board these past 6 weeks. The language difficulties on board have of course not made things easy, but at least I'm one experience and many confirmed stereotypes richer for it.

At this very moment we are in transit for Papeete, Tahiti, and will arrive in harbour tomorrow morning, local time. Being a foreign lab on board we have to disembark first thing when we arrive and get all our boxes to the storage facility awaiting shipping back to Sweden after the Easter holiday.
This means we have to be extra mindful of our samples which will be stored on the ship during this time and then shipped back to Sweden in a dry-shipper and on ice-packs (styrofoam box).
We started preparing our dry-shipper yesterday so hopefully it will be nice and cold once it's time for shipping, otherwise we have to refill it in Papetee, and I rather avoid that hassle.

I litterally did science until the very end of the last day of science. I ran a final qPCR just to see what we had in the water column at this third desert-like station. My hopes were to find a pattern which could further support my planned presentation at the SAME conference in Uppsala.
What I found was basically nothing, which in itself is a result, and in this case I suppose is neither good or bad for my findings so far.
Below you will see a picture of the results of the qPCR as they are displayed upon the completion of the run. This is just an example, but it is what I have to analyze afterwards to procure the final abundances of my targets. The picture is divided into an amplification plot (left side) and the plate layout (right side).

Finally, we had a small party on front deck tonight, I suppose our PI's wanted to get rid of any excess beer and wine that they don't want to take care of once we reach Papeete, haha.
Either way it was nice, and it was also a nice end of the concluding day of the OUTPACE where we finished our cruise report and held a short presentation on our work on board (and our findings so far) for the rest of the team (and crew).