Steaming along at 12 knots towards Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica we are proud to have accomplished so much on this expedition. With more than 300 sonar maps of the seafloor around the western Galápagos, a 20-foot shipping container full of deep sea lava samples, and 1,350 photographs of a young seafloor lava flow we have collected data that will help us better understand how the Galápagos Islands formed and what they can tell us about the Earth’s mantle.

All of this has been possible only through the hard work of the officers and crew of RV Revelle, the Scripps technicians on board, the Hawaii MR1 group and the terrific scientific team on board. We can’t thank them enough for all they have done to help us with the data collection and for providing the setting for Dive and Discover’s Galápagos expedition.

As we pack up our data and equipment, the crew is busy laying out the forward and aft mooring lines in preparation for our arrival tomorrow morning. The main lab is converted from the data analysis and planning center into packing headquarters. CDs and Zip disks are being passed around like trading cards as we make sure all the sonar and other data are backed-up multiple times. The ping pong table has computer equipment wrapped in pink bubble-wrap spread out all over it. It will get cleared off so the doubles tournament can be finished before we arrive.

The MR1 sonar tow-fish is put to bed under its tarp, but the HMRG computer equipment is a tangle of wires as Paul, Steve, Todd and Jenny pack it up for shipping back to Hawaii. All will be done before we arrive at the dock tomorrow at 0800 hours local time.

In the analytical lab, Rhian, Kate and Joe pack up 241 animals representing 76 different species. Twenty pounds of dry ice will keep the frozen specimens at nearly -60 degrees C as they travel with Dan, Mark and Josh back to Woods Hole.

We no longer have the Humboldt Current cooling the air so the weather is hot and steamy. “It’s wonderful,” Kate says. Revelle has been our home for the past month, and a terrific one it has been. But with less than 150 nautical miles to go to get to port, we are thinking of really being home - with family and friends.

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