That is exactly what happened, and we had more wind and waves than we had experienced the whole time in Baffin Bay. Myself, along with many others, got seasick again. One day was especially bad and we were riding waves that were around 8-10 feet. I just happened to be on the bridge deck when we hit a really big wave. The ship rolled quite a bit, all the papers, hardhats, and coffee mugs that were on top of tables came crashing down, and we had a big mess to clean up. The cooks in the galley were just finishing up dinner, which all went crashing to the ground. Just imagine – dinner for 100 people all over the floor! Thankfully everyone was not harmed, and the captain even announced “Attention onboard, dinner will be served late tonight."
Before the expedition, there was also eager anticipation of the potential scientific discoveries underneath the ocean floor. Many people also worried about whether the expedition would be successful. Just a couple weeks before arriving at our drilling sites, the entire area was covered with a very large sheet of ice, which was several miles wide! Would the ice move before we got there? Even if the large sheet of ice moved, would smaller icebergs threaten our ability to stay in one location for several days and drill for sediment cores? According to many polar scientists onboard, glacial sites are often very difficult to drill because of the mixed rocks, boulders, and other materials dropped by glaciers and icebergs over millions of years. At the beginning of the expedition, there were so many things that could go wrong, but there are also so many new discoveries waiting for us to uncover.
