On Sunday, 18th October 2015, we arrived to the Maldives islands. Even though we could only admire land from the JR, it was still a great sight to behold aside the plain ocean. I have been tracking the JR on Google Earth and it was rather exciting to see the ship pick-up a pilot from Malé and being redirected to the anchor location.
The ship will be anchored for about 12 hours before transiting to our first site to pick-up Maldivian observers and also restock the ship with dairy and vegetables. Food (YAY)! As usual, upon arrival, I took some rather interesting photos of the Maldives and some excited scientists!
The JR was greeted with hot and humid conditions and absolutely blue calm waters. In addition, a good view of the airstrip could be seen from the JR and it is the island right across Malé, the capital of the Maldives.
On Malé itself, I could see that the island was densely populated with buildings. On top of that, everything was flatter than Florida! At least there is a 6ft elevation in Miami – not in the Maldives though! Malé is an island that is less than 8km in length. I am pretty sure it would be possible to run around the island in 1 hour.
While we were anchoring, there were already tourists on the cruise soaking up some vitamin D the good ol’ fashioned way.
I cannot wait until the JR leaves for our first drill site tonight and hopefully the first piston cores by morning.
–Anna Ling
Anna Ling is a Ph.D student in the Centre for Carbonate Research in the Department of Marine Geosciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
