Sitting in the Data Lab aboard E/V Nautilus, I feel a flurry of emotions: excitement, exhaustion, nervousness, and a bit of disbelief.

My shipmates and I have been at sea for the past three weeks, conducting seafloor exploration and maintenance operations off the coast of British Columbia with Ocean Networks Canada. It has been a long, busy, and highly productive expedition, and everyone on board is tired and looking forward to wrapping up our work. In two days, we will return to port in Sidney and the entire science/engineering team will disembark — everyone except for myself and Lead Navigator Lynette Davis. We are staying on board for the next expedition.

And we just found out we’ll be leading it.