At the Marisco Shipyard in Kapolei, Hawaii, we don our boiler suits, steel toed boots, hard hats, and safety goggles. With our team properly outfitted in matching protective gear, we load into a large transit van and take a short ride across the port. When we unload from the van a few minutes later, the colossal red hull of the MMA Valour greets us, its bright red paint glinting in the sun. We stare up at it, eager to explore the vessel we will call home for the next two months.
While our team includes several experienced seafarers, few of us have sailed on a ship like this one.
Navigating a new ship is always exciting, but also a bit exhausting. As we make our way around the Valour, we strain to open heavy doors, go up and down five flights of stairs, and absorb a tremendous amount of new information.
On the bridge, the captain gives an overview of safety guidelines, protocols for our 12-hour shifts, and rules for living comfortably and safely. On the main deck, we meet Chloe, our medic, who collects our medical forms and extends a warm welcome. Like the captain, she emphasizes that our safety and well-being is a top priority.
We sit down for lunch and enjoy our first official meal on board – the galley has prepared a diverse spread including sauteed vegetables, soup, fried chicken, French fries, salad, and fresh fruit. Every meal also includes a giant pot of white rice and homemade spicy sauces.
After lunch, we venture onto the back deck to take a tour of “Main Street”, a row of shipping containers, where we will spend most of our working hours.
The Valour is a multi-purpose platform supply vessel with an enormous back deck that can hold just over 5,000 tons of cargo. For this expedition, the back deck is housing over a dozen shipping containers, each outfitted with mission critical technology and equipment.
The containers include multiple lab spaces – each dedicated to a specific process of element of the cores we’ll come. One container is the curator – the person who determines what the core contains, and how it will be recorded and divided. Other containers house labs that include instrumentation for examining material properties of the cores or conducting geochemistry. And then there is the container that houses the ESO office, which is home to one of the most critical pieces of equipment on board – the coffee machine.
After a long first day, we all crawl into our bunks and sleep hard. The next morning everyone on our team wakes up early. We organize tools and gear, and doublecheck to make sure fragile equipment and valuables are secured before we leave port. We take our official group photo in front of the ship and try to make predictions about what will transpire over the next two months.
The MMA Valour pulls away from the dock at 6pm sharp, and just as we begin to officially set sail, a beautiful rainbow appears over the harbor – we hope it’s a good omen. Everyone is smiling, taking photos, or staring at the bright blue expanse of open ocean in front of us.
“It’s exciting and emotional,” says Marisa Rydzy. “So much work has gone into the preparation of this expedition, and now we’re crossing our fingers that all the hard work will pay off.”
Blog of IODP Expedition 389: Hawaiian Drowned Reefs 