Cas Price Day 1: 27.02. 2013 0645 Wake up to the sound of cupboards and doors opening. Aggrh? . The cabin is still dark, I?m on the top bunk with the curtains still pulled. Surely it can?t be time to get up. I don?t feel as though I?ve slept a wink. I mumble from behind the curtain to my roomy ?what?s the time?? expecting it be 0530. A bright chipper voice responds ?0645?. Left foot, right foot- It?s time to get up, as breaky is served at 730 followed by a morning of safety inductions. 0800 Move to the upstairs lounge for safety inductions. The ships like a rabbit warren with tiny stairwells and steep stairs. The pungent smell of diesel and oil seem to be following us where every we go. We definitely not on a cruise- there?s nothing glamorous at all about the S.S. its basic, old and seems a wee bit tired- it?s a working ship!. As the briefings continue, the Sydney Harbour Bridge captures our eye, we run out and wave goodbye to Sydney as we set out to the open ocean. Afterwards more briefings, food grazing, and a chance to get horizontal and catch up on some zzz?zzz? 2045 I?m on the PM shift so our first CTD (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth) and XBT (eXpendable BathyThermographs) launch is at 2100 followed by 0200. It?s pretty exciting, as we are in a massive warm eddy. It?s quite a large operation and we each have different roles. I?m in the operations room, communicating by radio with the ship?s crew where and when to stop the CTD. There are also live cameras linked around the deck so we can see what?s happening and for safety purposes. The CTD is drop to a pressure of 1000. On the way down it gives a profile of the salinity, temperature, fluorescence (which measures the chlorophyll). From the profiles the sampling depths are determined, placed in the computer and collected on the way back up. Once the CTD is on deck we take oxygen, nutrient, salinity and chlorophyll samples. We prepare the samples for analysis. After the CTD is on board we also tow plankton net for 5 to 10 mins to collect zooplankton and phytoplankton. Under microscopes we can categorise the phytoplankton and zooplankton to determine the community structure. As it 0430 this will be done after some shut eye.