So we’ve thrown the dock lines and have secured the R/V Armstrong back to the dock at WHOI.  After living in very close quarters, eating meals together, telling and hearing stories, and all the other aspects that make ship-board life a unique experience, we are saying our goodbyes and the science crew is traveling back to their lives on land.  We had a very good cruise and continued our streak of collecting wayward vessels aboard the Armstrong (we’re now up to 3: an autonomous sailboat in 2017 and a dinghy and glider on this trip).

On behalf of the ADEON team, I want to thank the Captain and crew of the RV Armstrong for a great trip. We had good weather and were able to complete nearly everything we had planned to do.  The vessel operations went very well, the food was excellent (as evident by how often we had to visit the gym this trip), and in the final of our cruise cribbage tournament the crew (Amy) defeated science (me).

I also want to thank everybody on the science team for their participation and effort this trip.  We had a lot of things to get done (sometimes in a very short time period) and we were successful in collecting a great set of data. We had a lot of first-timers on this trip and I hope the voyage made them appreciate the challenges and rewards of field-based oceanographic research.  The people on this project (both science and ship’s crew) have to work together to get the job done – it isn’t always easy, but we’re able to do a lot of fantastic science because of everybody’s hard work. So thanks again to all.

Can’t wait to be back on the R/V Armstrong next year for our final cruise on this project.

Joe Warren (Chief Scientist).