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August 18, 2016

It’s great to be here!

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Allow me to me introduce myself. My name is Floris and I’m the other volunteer from the Netherlands’ Anemoon foundation and I’ve come onboard for the last two weeks of the expedition. I can’t say I am one of the youngest here but it is my first time on such an expedition. What strikes me most is this community of friendly and highly specialized people on-board. Being a biologist I am interested most in the biological work carried out by Cecilie and Hanna.

The video coverage from the ROV is fantastic for larger animals but to investigate the biodiversity of the area we need to know the smaller species as well. So the grabs of the North Sea bottom are indispensable. After the actual grabbing, the sand or silt is filtered with two meshes and what is left is meticulously inspected. The organisms are neatly sorted in a Petri dishes, logged and photographed. And that’s only the beginning! Back on land the species will be identified. To do it thoroughly would take a year. Marine expeditions take more time on land than on sea!

But for now it’s a nice mixture of underwater monitoring with the ROV and grabs. In the meantime we search for shipwrecks to dive and see what lies there.

It’s great to be here!