Today we finished the first leg of our expedition, reaching the port of Ponta Delgada on São Miguel island in the Azores. Shortly after lunchtime, the island came into view like a big grey lying giant slowly crawling out of the distant haze that likes to engulf all the islands around the Azores.

However, once you have a reference point on the horizon it is possible to get a sense of speed and you realise that a ship is generally not as fast as a plane or even a car. It took us another four hours to reach the port. But approaching an island, even with such a long duration, can be very exciting. More and more details and colours are added to the image, you start to see the landmarks and villages. The initial grey turns into all kinds of greens – the Azores are incredibly green islands. And all the time the mountains keep rising. But that is not all. We were also lucky to be greeted by two large dolphing welcome committees. That joined us for quite a few minutes, swimming with the ship.

All in all, the first leg has been very successful. Due to the amazing weather conditions we were three days ahead of schedule by the end and, therefore, had the chance to alter our plans and already deploy the first few stations of the second leg. We were also lucky to finally receive the missing six batteries that were not delivered to the ship in Lisbon before departure – and an OBS without a battery is not going to work…

Right now, however, we will rest for a few days in the port. For a few days the constant movement and engine noise of the vessel will stop. I’ve heard you can get landsick because after two weeks the body is used to counterbalance the motion constantly – we will see. Also, some of the people from our science team will leave us here but we will get new ones and then, hopefully, will continue as successfully as we started. Whatever will happen, you will read about it on this website, as well as on Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

• More by David Schlaphorst