The past 24 hours have been slow in terms of collecting samples, as the weather has taken a turn for the worst. Having accomplished the majority of the sampling at this station, Station B, the drifting sediment traps were the last piece of equipment we were able to deploy . The drifters were supposed to stay in the water for 2 days, but the weather turned foul before we could recover them. The drifter traps are new equipment for this cruise, as Andrew McDonnell from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute has joined our team to study particles settling from the sea surface to the sea floor. They communicate to him remotely by sending latitudes and longitudes so we can find them and collect them from the water. Unfortunately, the winds have been too strong and the seas too big to recover them, so we are hanging tight in their vicinity until we can pull them from the water. We are currently experiencing 12 foot seas and 50 knot winds, which makes the back deck too dangerous to conduct any operations. Most of the scientists are antsy to get the wrap up the last science operation, and are hoping for a break from this weather system soon. On a positive note, we have finished analyzing all our samples in the lab and have begun packing away our lab equipment for the last time. We are all very happy for all of our accomplishments over these three cruises, but are also quite sad to see it come to an end.