After a long break while we waited for parts to arrive from the States, we tried to resume operations over the weekend. However, it seems that the problems were not fixed, despite the efforts made by DOSECC and the drill team. A decision was made to temporarily shutdown. Coring at Site 2 will resume on March 1st and continue for around 2 weeks. During the interim period, the engineer that built the rig will be flown in to work out all the bugs. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Beau Marshall, Steve Cole, Rich Szentmiklosi, A.J. Vecchiarelli, Joe Bolin, Joe Hammond and Eli Driggers for their tremendous dedication, hard work and for helping us achieve our scientific goals. We hope to see you back for Stage 2. Special thanks also goes to Sylvie Gonen and the maritime logistic support team of the RV Taglit: Gideon Amit, Dubi Klein, Ofir Zukerman; as well as our spokesperson Avital Baer, the staff at the Ein Gedi Guest House and at the Kibbutz; Yael Dagoni, Elitza Hadzhiivanova, Elisa Kagan, Lisa Coianiz, Ina Neugebauer, Emily Goldstein, Jason Jweda, Paul Neitzel, the enthusiastic student volunteers; the PIs and scientists: Amotz Agnon, Daniel Aritzegui, Achim Brauer, Steve Goldstein, Uli Harms, Gerlad Haug, Emi Ito, Hiroyuki Kitagawa, Yoshinori Yasuda, Yossi Yechieli, Nicolas Waldmann; the logging team: Jochem Kueck, Matxalen Rey Abasolo, Martin Toepfer, and Christian Carnein; and other visitors and friends who put in time and helped us along the way. The list goes on and on ...