Wind picked up strongly and the wave crests became foamy on the afternoon of February 27, 1995. The JOIDES Resolution steamed at full speed up the West African coast, heading northward for the Canary Islands. We had just finished operations on Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 159, the first drilling campaign devoted to a unique continental margin in the Gulf of Guinea. With fascinating science and intense work, this cruise was both a stimulating and challenging experience for a novice like me.

Pletsch, T. 2006. Roseate views on a dusty ship. Oceanography 19(4):143, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2006.23.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.