Sept. 18, 2005
Jim Cowen

This morning’s increasing wind and seas contrasted with yesterday’s incredibly calm day. We did have a beautiful sunrise, however, and the conditions still allowed our last dive today, albeit a short one due to the deteriorating weather. Those not diving worked up data collected during the cruise, copied dive videos and started the packing process. There will be a pizza party for dinner. We are heading home now. As always happens, this cruise gave us a renewed appreciation of the challenges of deep-sea research, and especially that of studying the biosphere of deep sediment-buried basement (rocky ocean crust).