This morning, the focus shifted to packing up all of the scientists’ equipment—filters, bottles, machinery, basically the entire contents of the laboratory— in order to leave the space clean and ready for the Robison group. Although much of this equipment is expensive and must be handled with care, the truly precious items are the hundreds of tiny vials, only about one inch tall, that contain the samples we’ve collected over the past 12 days. These samples, the heart of the scientists’ research, had to be packed up and kept safely frozen until they make it back to the laboratories in California and, in Ryan Paerl’s case, Copenhagen.

These samples are what we came for. We went to sea to collect as much data as we could and now it’s time for the scientists to get back on dry land and see what all that data can tell them about the ocean’s biological and chemical processes. Although it was a lot of work for everyone, it’s still hard to believe how quickly our leg of the expedition came to an end. It was a true team effort to meet all of the trip’s objectives and it couldn’t have been done without the cooperation of everyone onboard, scientists and crew members alike. It was incredible to see each every one of them come together in the name of ocean research and I hope I was able to convey some of that experience to all of you. Thank you all for reading!