Due to rough weather, wind and wave conditions (you might have heard about that), we couldn’t  fill the mesocosm gas samples on Wassermann as usual, but transferred our work to the pier for the last few days. As this spot is also exposed to the wind, there were some new challenges we had to deal with. Here, I’d like to show you some useful instructions:

1) First of all, forget that it’s almost 20 °C and that you’re on the Canary Islands! It’s indeed wintertime. Grab your rubber boots, a warm pullover and a rain jacket.

2) If you have a car, use it as a shelter.

3) The stable table: Use a robust box to elevate the samplers, this will facilitate the bottling procedure. Depending on the exact wind force, a second person should additionally hold the sampler.

4) If you do not speak Spanish, find some useful words. Local people might ask you what you are doing with all the bottles sitting at the pier doing some crazy scientific stuff. If you don’t have the time: “Yo no hablo espanol. Hablan inglés?” is also very helpful.

5) The most important thing is never ever let go of empty bottles or (even more importantly) the gas sampling tube! Otherwise you will spend your time running after your gear.

Keep these things in mind and everything will work out fine.