Almost Christmas

It’s almost Christmas, and we’re almost done! We’re currently finishing our last station and will be arriving in Tahiti by Friday morning.

The scientists are lucky, because we all get to leave the ship and go home (or stay on vacation in Tahiti) for Christmas. Some of the crew also get to leave, but a number of them are staying on (and more crew are joining them) because the next group of scientists is meeting the ship and sailing for Samoa on the 27^th. To boost their spirits as well as our own we’ve been busy decorating the ship for Christmas for the last 2 weeks.

Remember those Jack-o-lantern turned turkeys? Says hello to their latest reincarnation!

The ship has 2 trees, one in the lounge which Claire and I helped to decorate, and another smaller one in the mess:

Plenty of lights are strung up around the lab spaces:

Spike in front of “Café Thorium”, named because of the espresso machine they installed in their lab van (and because they measure thorium).

The inside of the GEOTRACES sampling van at night.

And AB Michele has gone around turning things into a paper-y winter wonderland (very similar to the scene from the movie Elf):

Inspired by the Advent calendar from my mom, I re-wrote the classic poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and sketched scenes to accompany it. This proved an excellent activity when waiting for casts that ran late or when unable to sleep.

It tells the tale of St. Nick visiting the ship in his canoe pulled by his 8 flying fish, and below are 2 of the sketches:

“When out near the bow there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my van to see what was the 

 matter.”

“When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature canoe and eight flying fish.“