Sara Keltie Day 2: Stormy seas and her secrets The East Australian Current (EAC) chose to keep its mysteries to itself today. Rolling waves and gushing winds prevented us, multiple times, from launching our equipment designed to reveal her deepest, darkest secrets to us (quite literally as we are surveying waters down to 1000m, well beyond the range of sunlight or the epitrophic layer as it is known.) Out of the four sampling sites we had planned only one was able to be conducted successfully and even then it required our scientific crew braving the cold wind and rain. This procedure involved lowering a large piece of equipment called a Conductivity Temperature Depth sensor (CTD) from the side of the ship down to 1000m. Various cylinders are programmed to shut at a variety of depths, allowing us to target specific layers within the water column of the open, or pelagic, ocean. Providing information on salinity and temperature this tool is an invaluable ally for the scientific community in conducting vital research into climate change. The heavy seas and strict orders to remain inside the ship freed up other crew to begin analyzing and classifying zooplankton samples from the day before. These are obtained by dragging a large net alongside the ship as she moves at a leisurely pace of a few knots, targeting fauna ranging from a few milometer to a mere half milometer in size. During my undergraduate degree a lecturer, in an attempt to draw out an affection for plankton usually reserved for the larger megafauna, stated "Looking at plankton through a microscope is no different to looking at a whale through a telescope." I took that to mean that just because these animals are so small and swim around us generally unseen does not make them any less beautiful, important or fascinating than those we are familiar with. Peering down a microscope one encounter creatures designed in the most unique fashion that even the greatest minds of science fiction could not dream them up. Take a moment to google such words as 'copepod' and 'fish larvae' and you will surely understand the fascination. That is one of the true beauties of science in that it opens up to us unknown worlds within our own, and through expeditions such as this we are able to understand how their lives are intertwined with the EAC and in turn with our very own.