Smooth sailing and wildlife spotting

We’ve now spent two full days negotiating the busy waters of the Malacca Strait as we make our way to the first coring site. After the initial raininess of Singapore, the weather has been extremely calm and the ocean looks like a millpond.

    

Excellent news for those of us with a predisposition to sea-sickness (very much me).

We’ve been spending the last few days preparing ourselves for the sediments we expect to find out here, by training on the specialist equipment and by looking at “practice cores” we have on the ship. When the first core arrives it’s going to be fast and furious in the lab, so we need to have our ducks in a row before it all kicks off.

Workwise, we have decided on our nomenclature for the sediments (borrrring) and chosen which symbols we want to represent all the sedimentary structures we expect to encounter (slightly less boring). So not the most exciting activity in the world, but it’s very important to make sure we’re all on the same page before the precious cores actually arrive. We don’t want any mistakes!

But in between the work, there is time to appreciate the beautiful surroundings and admire the local wildlife. I saw a pod of dolphins yesterday, and a few people even saw some giant leatherback turtles! No turtles for me, but I did see a rather fetching jellyfish and a whole bunch of flying fish.

    

I love how those little guys skitter across the water, sometimes for upwards of 30 m at a time – truly a wonderful sight.

Right, enough enjoying the wildlife for one day – back to the lab!