May 30, 2018
‘Tiramisu’ dal fondo del mare
We’re in the land of the “tiramisu,” a dessert which literally means “take me up” (due to its coffee and sugar), and also reminds me of the orders that come from the ROV pilots below deck as the ROV climbs back up again whilst being maneuvered down below in the Aeolians depths — “two up!, five up!”
Another oceanographic instrument that climbs meters upon meters up from the depths is the Van Veen grab, a metallic claw that catches 12 L of sediment, from where, after the sediment is sifted, we rescue sea snails and shellfish (bivalves, gastropods, pteropods…), otoliths (calciferous formations produced within the ears of fish), foraminifera (small organisms that can be used for dating the seafloor) and polychaetes (bristle worms).
It’s also noteworthy mentioning a tiny sponge we found, barely a few millimeters across, that turned out to be quite similar to a sponge that was found in the deepest parts of the ocean, precisely at 9000 meters, in the Pacific ocean.
So to finish off the day and this diary entry, I made a tiramisu for the whole crew to perk us up on our last day of work before returning to the expedition’s base port, on the island of Salina.