Helgoland Diaries II

Week 2 (and a half)

The days slide by here, bathing the red stone of the island in plentiful sunshine while the gulls, razor-bills and gannets glide in the blue skies above. Work proceeds slowly but surely. In my case my PCRs and, now, DGGEs keep me busy  in the lab while RC trudges out in the field (where no insurance company elects to extend their policy) trapping algae and doing unspeakable things to the little primary producers.

Due to some rather disturbing geology helped along by the British attempt to blast the island out of existence last century, Helgoland is divided into an upper- and lower-land. Transit between the two is done either by a healthy number of stairs or by an elevator service which happily benefits from the charred lungs of tourists trying to smoke themselves into oblivion with duty-free tobacco. A narrow road is another possibility, but the electric vehicles whizzing around the island, carrying this or that make it somewhat of a risky choice.  There's no obvious difference between the upper-landers and their earthward kin, but appearances can be deceiving and I wait every night for the locals to perform whatever cult rituals they've been concealing so well until now. Their secrets will be revealed.

Large clumps of rain clouds are tumbling over the island today, bringing intermittent showers which I find quite welcome. A pot of tea at the AWI guest-house with conversation from RC and an amicable halocarbon researcher from Tasmania are in order I think. Perhaps a walk to the cliffs to watch the birds scour the intertidal zone for various shell-bound morsels after dinner. The light clings on until half past ten these evenings, but doesn't deter the dolmen of a lighthouse watching over the shores one bit. For now, I'm still waiting for the agarose gels I've set into electrophoretic motion to stop complaining and give me good news about the bacteria in the North Atlantic!