Hope is the last thing to die, and for me as an eternal optimist, hope and its best 2nd cousin - preparation - partly saved our summer field trip; despite lockdown since middle March, and the cancellation of our spring trip, the ever growing @DeepPurpleERCSy team discussed and planned for every eventuality despite not knowing if we will be able to go at all, or for how long. Thus, unsurprisingly we made plan A, B, C, D ….X … Should one plan and pack for sampling and in-field experiments for 1 week or > 1 month? Invariably we took the approach - plan for everything and react to the situation.
The @GFZ_Potsdam @DeepPurpleERCSy team could not have done this without the tireless help of Marc Paje – our lab technician; he and I had many discussions and exchanges through endless Skype, Zoom, WhatsApp, Slack and you name it e-platforms; together with @Chris_Trivedi and @knutkonopke and our team's PA Sandy Herrmann all in lockdown in Potsdam and with @Rey_Mourot stranded in France, we slowly managed to not just plan for every possibility and order the needed consumables and field gear (including having to purchase new Zarges boxes …grrrr – that is another story) but do this while fine-tuning our field sampling, sample handling and sample processing procedures to be as flexible as possible. Not to forget the help from all members of with @AlexAnesio's team in Denmark.
Naturally plans are good but … nothing prepared me for the storm of activity once we decided to pack and ship even if in the end we could not go. To do this at the best of times in 3-4 days is a tall order – to do this in 3-4 days while under “only essential presence at work return rules” and while wearing masks and following all social distancing rules was even harder but ultimately the glorious sight of our 9 boxes all packed, inventoried and labelled was a good reward;
To get our gear/consumables to Greenland we needed to first ship it to Denmark where it was combined with @AlexAnesio team’s consumables and the very important camping and safety gear for all of us; they will tell that story next …
I don’t know if we have managed to pack all we need but ultimately that is irrelevant – if we will manage to go we will do great science together. I could not have done this without the fabulous team effort and inputs from all our early carer scientists and project managers who despite these weird times have all done a fabulous job. Thank you all, and chapeau! 
