Happy weekend, everyone! Unlike the typical 9-5 schedule, ships don’t have days off – to keep the ship running and to maximize on sea time, the crew and science party work 24-7. This means all on board need to adhere to a strict schedule that ensure everyone gets enough sleep and mealtimes are predictable. When ships travel through multiple time zones, it can get complicated. Depending on the ship and the track, they can either choose to stay in their local time zone for the entire cruise or change to the time zone of wherever they currently are.

Sometimes, the crew decide to time change in each new zone they enter, while sometimes, if moving through multiple time zones in a short amount of time, they wait until they reach their final destination to make the time change. This means a sudden time change of 6 or more hours! Another unique place, like the Antarctic research stations, choose to remain in the same time zone as where they are from -  meaning multiple groups in the same area are all on different time zone, so you could potentially get breakfast any time of the day if you know which camp to show up to!

One time zone that can always be depended on is UTC or GMT, a time constant that isn’t affected by daylight savings and is used as a standard.

- Carmen Lawrence (JASCO)