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Overnight, we continued our long northwest transect, known as leg 6, doing MIDOC & RMT trawls as well as CTD and Trace metals casts.
The CTD (Conductivity Temperature Depth) team have complained that they aren't getting enough coverage in the sitrep and so I asked Senior CTD Jockey, Stewart, if he could provide a little drama to spice up the daily report. The best that he's been able to come up with is that constant handling of subzero seawater demands a really solid skin care regime. But he is doing the team an injustice; there is definitely more to the CTD operator’s life than choosing the right moisturiser. On a typical full depth CTD operation, we are deployed in over 3500 metres of water, and the objective is to ultimately dangle the instrument within 10 metres of the sea floor. This demands a certain amount of commitment and concentration when providing instructions to the winch operators; especially when the dreaded “false bottom” comes up on the altimeters and you know that there is really 100 metres to go even though the instruments are telling you that there is only 20. So far, Katherine, Stewart, Delphi and Christine have successfully managed to navigate this minefield and avoid contact with the sea floor which is better than other far more experienced teams have managed to do on previous voyages.
We will continue north-west; making observations along leg 6 for a few more days.
Lloyd and Brett
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.