English is the common language, but our crew is international so we also have Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Japanese, Hindi, Russian, Mandarin, Afrikaans, Tagalog, Norwegian, and Greek. People come from all over the world, making this ship an exciting opportunity to meet people from different countries.
We are currently at sea for two months, so there is nothing for us to buy except for the JOIDES Resolution shirts (if we want a souvenir for when we go home). We use our credit cards instead of cash because the lab specialist can't accept different forms of payment from everyone.
We don't buy water on the ship — we make it! The JOIDES Resolution uses incredible technology to turn salty sea water into freshwater that everyone on the ship uses for showers, drinking, cooking, and many more key tasks. The tool is called a desalinator, and it boils the seawater and collects the water vapor to make our fresh water. The residual salt in the water is left behind as crystals. Because the water vapor doesn't carry the minerals and other elements that we need to stay hydrated, we have to put them back in so we don't feel ill.
