Marine–Casein Composites and Cephalopod Biomass Metrics

Once we reached the open ocean, the waves grew rougher and more unpredictable. There was a note posted next to the galley reminding everyone to secure loose items by February 9, but the calm seas we’d enjoyed for most of the voyage likely bred more than a little complacency. That complacency was corrected in the wee morning hours, when many of us were jolted awake by the ship’s violent pitching and rolling.

The starboard list returned as well. The ship’s inclinometer showed rolls of 16 degrees to starboard, compared to a modest 10 degrees to port. As fuel and supplies are depleted, the ship’s weight distribution shifts, causing it to lean one way or the other. In theory, this can be corrected by pumping fuel or water across the ship, which makes me wonder why it isn’t managed more aggressively. I gave up on showering for the time being — water would just flow away from the drain and across the floor. Meanwhile, the Araon busied itself carelessly rearranging furniture, equipment, and any possessions that hadn’t been tied down.

Post-voyage plans now occupy much of everyone’s attention. Many people intend to spend time in New Zealand or Australia, with ambitions ranging from visiting Lord of the Rings filming locations, to surfing, hut-to-hut hiking, or simply relaxing in Christchurch. Jason plans to go work on a sheep farm. I’m not sure what inspired that idea, but I wish him well in his career as a shepherd-slash-volcanologist.

Some of us, myself included, are simply looking toward home. We’ve all been gone since before Christmas. There’s a part of me that would love to stay and explore, but home sounds more appealing. Watching everyone wrestle with New Zealand travel during the peak of the summer tourism season only reinforces that feeling. I’ll get back to NZ another time, hopefully when Christine and I can make a proper vacation of it. It really is a beautiful place.

The mix of post-expedition plans reminds me of just how many disparate people and perspectives have combined to make this voyage memorable. The pairings run the gamut from ridiculous to profound and permeate nearly every aspect of life aboard the Araon.

One such pairing is “Western Wednesdays.” Naturally, the cuisine on a Korean vessel staffed by Korean cooks leans heavily Korean. As I’ve written before, it’s generally excellent, but there’s only so much kimchi one can enthusiastically consume. About once a week, they seem to appease Western palates. Steak, spaghetti, hamburgers, baby back ribs, lobster tails, king crab — and it almost always falls on a Wednesday. We’re not sure if this is deliberate, nor do we particularly care. We’re also happy to overlook odd combinations like pulled pork and lobster. Somehow, the combinations work.

Other food combinations are more dubious. I’ve mentioned the “fish gut soup” before. Soup, it turns out, is not the only inappropriate vehicle for fishy flavors on the Araon. We’ve begun evaluating snacks by their “squid content,” since a disturbing number of them contain a non-zero percentage of squid. The packaging for what we’ve dubbed “squid nuts” appears to describe the snack’s squidification process in some detail. I’ve added that to my list of things I never needed to learn.

Then there are “fish nuts” and “fish cheese.” Both are exactly what they sound like. Fish nuts are a kind of trail mix with precisely two ingredients: almonds and rice-sized dried fish. Fish cheese, meanwhile, is a term Westerners have adopted to describe a particularly questionable product. It looks vaguely like the string cheese snacks most Americans grew up with — but the name really tells you everything you need to know. “Fish-cheesing” one’s fellow shipmates has since become a popular antic. It is not unlike the infamous “icing” prank of years past, in which an unsuspecting victim was ambushed with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.

I sometimes lament the way PhD candidates are educated — a sentiment that still feels fresh, having completed my own doctoral degree about a year and a half ago. For five or six years, you toil away on a niche research problem, becoming the world’s foremost expert in something a dozen other people care about. You learn to navigate technical, political, and financial challenges largely on your own, guided by only a small cadre of advisors. It can feel isolating. Like being on an island.

The Araon — literally a floating island in the middle of the Southern Ocean — turns this model on its head. The Korean Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) fosters collaborations from around the world. To a casual observer, the network of projects they support might resemble the Island of Misfit Toys. The schedule always feels ambitious, occasionally bordering on wishful thinking. At times, tensions arise and interests compete for limited resources.

But somehow the whole combination works. KOPRI’s leadership seems to operate with a clarity of vision, unencumbered by unnecessary complexity. Their only real agenda appears to be simple: get shit done. We pitch in on one another’s work whenever possible, share data freely, and exchange ideas without reservation. Things happen on this boat that simply aren’t happening in a lot of other corners of the scientific community. While few, if any, projects achieved everything they hoped for, no one walked away empty-handed.