{"id":11174,"date":"2017-11-03T11:39:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T10:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=11174"},"modified":"2024-11-29T16:55:51","modified_gmt":"2024-11-29T15:55:51","slug":"science-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/science-at-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Science at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s the weekend. You\u2019re sailing in sunlit waters. You moor your boat and take a dinghy to the shore, where you have a beer with your friends. You\u2019re on one of the Marquesas Islands, part of French Polynesia in the South Pacific. You\u2019re here to meet Bernard \u2013 a local tattoo artist \u2013 who has already tattooed some of your friends, and today will give you a tattoo as well. Your first. You sit on the terrace of Bernard\u2019s home, the jungle all around you, as he inks the design into your foot. Two figures riding a wave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how EMBL\u2019s Steffi Kandels-Lewis<\/a> spent a Saturday morning in August 2011, when she was a crew member on the schooner Tara<\/em> as part of the Tara Oceans expedition<\/a>. She\u2019d arrived a week earlier, joining Tara<\/em> in the harbour on Nuku Hiva, the largest of the Marquesas Islands. \u201cWhen I got there I was told, \u2018Oh, everybody\u2019s off getting a tattoo, and when are you getting yours, Steffi?\u2019\u201d she explains. \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m not getting a tattoo, no way!\u2019\u201d Her friends kept working away, however, saying they\u2019d buy her a tattoo for her birthday, which was just a few days later. \u201cIn the end what convinced me was the feeling that I wanted something to remember this journey by,\u201d she says. \u201cSpending a month on this boat in the South Pacific was a huge challenge for me \u2013 I thought, \u2018I\u2019ll probably never do something this crazy again in my life!\u2019 And I didn\u2019t want to get a tattoo just in a studio somewhere, so this was a unique place and gave me a story to tell. It\u2019s a very special thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In French Polynesia, local tattoo artist Bernard prepares the design for Steffi\u2019s tattoo. PHOTO: Courtesy of Steffi Kandels-Lewis<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Filling in the details<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Launched in September 2009, the Tara Oceans<\/a> expedition was a four-year project that collected around 35,000 seawater samples from various depths and locations around the world. Analysis of these samples, including imaging of the organisms present and sequencing their genomes, has provided an unprecedented insight into ocean biodiversity \u2013 particularly at the microscopic level \u2013 allowing scientists to better understand the role of plankton in regulating the Earth\u2019s climate, and to observe the effect of climate change on marine ecosystems such as coral reefs. Steffi Kandels-Lewis was the operations manager for the project, a role that involved coordinating the collection of samples from the boat and their subsequent distribution to research labs in Europe and the United States. Every six weeks she travelled to meet the boat in whatever part of the world it was located, collecting the most recent samples and bringing new equipment and consumables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to manage this process, often in very remote parts of the world, was no easy task. Some of the samples needed to be kept at low temperature, so Kandels-Lewis often had to arrange for several hundred kilos of dry ice to be shipped there with her, since many of the places where the boat stopped had no local supplies. Then there were the challenges of dealing with customs paperwork, which typically had to be completed three weeks in advance. \u201cThe people in customs want to know how many millilitres of seawater you\u2019re sending, how many millilitres of ethanol, how many millilitres of formaldehyde, so you need to know all of that,\u201d explains Kandels-Lewis. \u201cAnd if you tell customs you\u2019re sending 32 boxes and you end up with only 30, you have to create two fake boxes because otherwise they won\u2019t let you send any of it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Steffi
Steffi on board Tara. PHOTO: Sibylle d\u2019Orgeval\/Tara Expeditions<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dreams and reality<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Trained as a molecular biologist, Kandels-Lewis came to EMBL in 2001 to manage the lab of Eric Karsenti<\/a>, then head of the Cell Biology and Biophysics Unit. \u201cEric loves sailing,\u201d she explains. \u201cHe\u2019d read Charles Darwin\u2019s book about the voyage of the Beagle<\/em> and he was telling me for eight years that he wanted to do something similar.\u201d Finally, in 2008, Karsenti announced that he\u2019d found a boat: Tara<\/em>. Kandels-Lewis saw it for the first time that year, in the French port of Villefranche-sur-Mer, where she met some of the team Karsenti was assembling. She recalls the doubts she had about getting involved. \u201cEric told me, \u2018You just need to do what you do for the department.\u2019 Well, the department was not so difficult to run! I knew how to set up a lab, but I\u2019m not a marine biologist and I felt like I had no idea about this project. Then, after a while, I realised that no one had any idea!\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cSo I thought, \u2018Well, I\u2019ll just keep doing this until someone tells me to stop.\u2019 And no one ever did \u2013 I think they were just happy that there was someone there to start organising things. It\u2019s a miracle that we got our act together but everybody was very motivated and we made it work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t just have a Plan B, but often a Plan C, D, E, F, and G<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Alongside her work on the logistics of collecting and distributing samples, Kandels-Lewis ended up organising many other aspects of the project, including meetings, contracts, finances, team rotations, and flight bookings. \u201cI would get phone calls in the middle of the night,\u201d she says. \u201cSo-and-so is not at the airport or not on the boat. I arranged the flights, I knew where everybody had to be and when.\u201d Though she insists that she\u2019s not a qualified project manager, it\u2019s clear that Kandels-Lewis is a formidably organised person. \u201cI don\u2019t just have a Plan B, but often a Plan C, D, E, F, and G,\u201d she says. \u201cI don’t want to end up in a situation where I’m confronted with a problem and I don’t have a solution, so I always have at least three \u2013 just in case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she discusses the challenges of coordinating the project, it becomes clear what a good pairing she and Karsenti make. \u201cEric had been talking to me about this for many years. I just thought, \u2018Oh yeah, let him talk!\u2019\u201d she says with a smile. \u201cBut, to be honest, you have to be a dreamer. You need to have someone crazy like Eric, because if you\u2019re organised and structured like me you just think, \u2018We can\u2019t do this \u2013 there\u2019s no money, we don\u2019t have the right people, we don\u2019t have a boat, we don\u2019t have this, we don\u2019t have that.\u2019 Eric was always over-optimistic \u2013 he\u2019d just say, \u2018OK, let\u2019s go!\u2019 You need people like that to move forward. Everybody trusted him and believed in him and somehow it all worked.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psychological depths<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Kandels-Lewis, the most fascinating thing about Tara Oceans was not finding out what was hidden in the deep sea, but rather what was going on beneath the surface of the project\u2019s human relationships. \u201cOf course I\u2019m interested in the discoveries we\u2019ve made, and I\u2019ve learned a lot \u2013 I know that if you jump into the water you\u2019re entering this soup of viruses and bacteria and other creatures,\u201d she says. \u201cBut for me the real curiosity is the relationships between people, and how they work together. I\u2019ve learned a lot about psychology \u2013 it\u2019s not something I have any training in, but I\u2019ve gained a lot of life experience, let\u2019s say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me the real curiosity is the relationships between people, and how they work together<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

When she visited the boat, people would often see her as someone to whom they could vent their frustrations. \u201cThey weren\u2019t really connected to people on land \u2013 they received orders and often didn\u2019t understand the context because the communication was all by email,\u201d she explains. \u201cEvery time I went there, people wanted to know what\u2019s going on, or there were problems because not everybody liked each other on the boat. It was a community with its own dynamics, confined in a very small space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unexpected turns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This was a significant concern for Kandels-Lewis when she herself spent time as a crew member: once for four weeks in the South Pacific, sailing from Nuku Hiva to Papeete, and another time for three weeks sailing from Savannah, Georgia, to New York City. \u201cI was worried about being with so many people in this small space,\u201d she says, \u201cbut actually I really liked the sense of community on board. I made some good friends I never would have met otherwise. But it\u2019s very difficult to explain \u2013 it\u2019s something you have to experience.\u201d When they sailed the boat to Manhattan it was New York Fashion Week, and everyone on board was invited because the expedition was sponsored by the French fashion designer agn\u00e8s b. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019ve been completely isolated, and then suddenly everybody\u2019s looking at you, everybody\u2019s talking to you,\u201d explains Kandels-Lewis. \u201cWe\u2019d all grown together as a community on the boat and then all of a sudden we were mingling with these fashion types and photographers, feeling totally exposed. It was very strange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these occasional problems in adapting to life on and off the boat, Kandels-Lewis makes clear how much the experience of working on Tara Oceans means to her. \u201cIt\u2019s left me with so many incredible memories. I never would have imagined getting involved in something like this because I\u2019m not an adventurous person \u2013 this is really not me at all. I\u2019m not someone who takes a backpack and hikes through the Andes or something. I need to be pushed, and I\u2019m very happy that I got certain pushes because this project has given me enough experiences for three lifetimes and I\u2019m so grateful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n

\"\"Curiosity is a profoundly human trait. We start asking questions almost as soon as we learn to speak and continuously redefine our understanding of the world by questioning it. This is the driving force behind science, technology, engineering and maths. As part of our curiosity editorial theme, we are exploring what EMBL is curious about.<\/p>\n

Read more articles about curiosity and where it can take you.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A talent for organisation has taken EMBL\u2019s Steffi Kandels-Lewis across the globe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":11188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[80,87,538,43,817,816,190],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-11174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-alumni","tag-biodiversity","tag-curiosity","tag-heidelberg","tag-ocean","tag-tara","tag-tara-oceans"],"acf":{"article_intro":"

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