Tamara Bartholomew Day 1 The Serious Science on the CSIRO Southern Surveyor At 0800h we left Sydney under the Sydney Harbor Bridge and passed the Opera house heading to the blue waters of the off the coast and following the East Australian Current (EAC). After a ship tour, safety brief and muster drill it became apparent that the ships movement proved difficult for some to navigate the direction of their breakfast. With scientist grid (and help from the crew) we battled through the day to complete 4 stations (sampling sites). Stations 1to 4 consisted of the deployment of a CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth recorder), XBT's (eXpendable Bathy Thermographs) and only 1,2 and 4 had a plankton net deployed. The XBT is a useful piece of equipment that measures the temperature profile of the first 1000 metres. Unfortunately the depth accuracy of the XBT's is in question with different manufacturing techniques causing it to fall faster or slower in the water column. To mitigate this we are using the highly accurate depth records of the CTD by launching 3 XBT's when the CTD is first deployed and 3 more when it descends downward. There appeared to be some problems with the XBT's registering from time to time and the common cause was thought to be a problem with the equipment and/or software. This was fixed and we hope there will not be complication the next day. The importance of watching the CTD cable as it surfaced proved useful as the copper wire used by the XBT's was found tangled around the cable (apparently a common problem). Lessons learnt and data gathered on a barmy day and night on the EAC, tune in tomorrow for another update on the CSIRO Southern Surveyors serious science.