24/7 Science!

It's been a few days now since we stopped at Palmer Station to drop off everyone not staying aboard our research vessel.  And since then it's been science 24/7!

With really only three weeks to collect all the data we hope to gather, we are taking full advantage of every hour of every day.

All 22 crew members, as well as the 10 scientists that make up our team are working alternating shifts so that there are people up and working at all times.

Some people's shifts schedule them to sleep during the day and be awake through the night, while other people's shifts schedule them to sleep in the evening and start their day at midnight.  Some people get lucky and have a normal schedule where they sleep at night and work during the day, and some people work odd hours throughout the day and night.

Crew members deploying a temperature sensor in the middle of the night

Although this really helps to maximize how much data we can collect, it can definitely get confusing as to who is awake and who is asleep at what times.  So, in order to decrease the amount of confusion, our outreach team made a crew board with everyone's picture, name, job title, and shift time which is hung in two different hallways on the ship.

Crew board hanging on the wall.

Although it might seem like it would be difficult to work through the night in the dark, it actually is only dark outside for about 7 hours a day.

Because we are so far south, the sun is up for nearly 17 hours a day! So even the people that work the night shift get to see some daylight.

The sun sets around 10:30 pm down here!

Working 'round the clock has definitely been worth it since our team has managed to collect a lot of data in just a short amount of time!