The preparation of a cruise is diverse. From the very first idea of the cruise are plenty things to organize and after more than five years we are finally here. The preparation include planning and ordering, to packing and containerize of material.

When all the ordered material and tools arrived, we had to pack them into boxes. A mission that sounds easier as it was and is not to be underestimated. Patience is needed as well as essential pro-skills in Tetris, sometimes with five people trying to pack one box. The biggest challenge was not to damage anything and that no one has to search every component part on board under the premise that the box still closes. Sometimes it was very demanding but at the end everything worked out well and it will be easy to pack one´s bags.

After all boxes were packed, closed, labelled and lashed they had to wait for the containers. As time went by our rooms were loaded with boxes on palettes. Some of us had a great view before and then a view on a lot of lashed boxes which reminded us every day that the cruise was nearing. As the container arrived the rooms emptied very rapidly.

Now we had to stuff the containers. We measured the height of the stacked boxes and the heigt of the container but we forgot to take into account the elevator´s height. Luckily everything fitted! The container loading went out well with 74 boxes, a lot of equipment for sampling, winches and other stuff.

The pick up of the container was spectacular. A crane heaved the 5 t container on trucks, and now our six container are on the way to Hongkong. As from then we will discharge our boxes and start with the transit to our working area.