by Eva Doting
While we were enjoying our best meal in weeks served by NiNu's in Qaqortoq, Greenland, on our last evening with the complete fieldwork team, the wise Martyn Tranter warned us about the post-fieldwork blues. We had just come back from almost three weeks on the ice and were feeling all kinds of exhausted and grateful as well as a little confused about returning to a world where COVID-19 was still very much a reality. Somehow, I had been expecting that the world would have returned to normal and sensible while we'd been off the grid, and it was a bit of a disappointment to find out the opposite was true..
Beers and big smiles after a successful expedition, several showers and amazing food at NiNu's.
Now, almost 2.5 months after returning home from the first DEEP PURPLE expedition, I can safely say that, at least in my case, Martyn's warning was definitely warranted. As per his advice, I scheduled in some rest; five days to visit my parents in the Netherlands. Lesson learned: I need more than five days to rest, get rid of all the tight knots in my body from changing-clothes-in-a-tent-manoeuvres and carrying odd-sized items across an ice sheet or heli-pad and to come up with a post-fieldwork game plan. Once back in the lab, I got back to work on a whole bunch of samples that needed my attention, both from 2020 fieldwork but also things that I had abandoned when we rushed into the first COVID-19 lockdown back in March. While I really love my PhD research and my colleagues, my head was still somewhere between Greenland and the lab. I feel a little bad about the number of times I told my supervisor Alex: "I really want to do this, but I just DON'T want to do it right now...!!!" After spending crazy hours preparing for fieldwork during a pandemic, not knowing if we'd be able to go, COVID tests, traveling with masks on, an incredible sense of relief once we landed and days on the ice filled with science, fresh air and focussing on staying warm and fed, it was overwhelming to have a constant stream of news and indoor work again.
It took a while, but I am finally back in the swing of things: I have exciting samples to analyse, intimidating data to process, planning of new lab work to look forward to and amazing colleagues to discuss data and science with. Lots more fun to come!