Chloé Easterling

**Rectangle Life:** A view of the back deck of MMA *Valour* during IODP Expedition 389. These shipping containers comprised all our space to process samples, log data, hold meetings, take photos, drink coffee, and exercise.

Container Culture

November 08, 2023 in Ocean Exploration

Living and working at sea is all about adaptability, and it usually doesn’t take me long to adjust to a new ship – but many things about this ship are awkward, uncomfortable, or just plain bizarre. I’m about to learn that life aboard a Malaysian supply vessel is very different from an American or European research vessel.

**Embody resilience:** Chloé Easterling stares at the horizon from the bow of the MMA *Valour*, just off the coast of Kona, Hawai’i.

Don't Settle

September 26, 2023 in Personal

When I was 28-years-old, I got on an airplane for the first time in my life. I flew from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Houston, Texas, then to Dubai, then to Kandahar, Afghanistan. Before that trip, I had never even been inside an airport.

I was working for Remote Medical International, a private company that had been contracted by the U.S. air force base in Kandahar. I spent almost a year there. As a girl from Small Town, USA, it was my first dose of real culture. I was interacting with Kenyans, Indians, and Afghanis on a daily basis.

It taught me a lot about resilience. In the book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes you can let fear sit with you, but you tell it to get in the back seat. I told my fear to get in the fucking trunk.