“….as the time of our long-anticipated research voyage to the Southern Ocean is approaching, we should be exuberant that this voyage will happen after all, given the times we live in.

A bit over two weeks remain before we sail towards the Macquarie Ridge on Research Vessel Investigator. So here I am, with an open bottle of this superb Tasmanian sparkling delivered on the first day to my tiny quarantine room, courtesy of my friend, Mike Coffin, from whom I will soon be learning the ropes on my maiden research voyage.”

CSIRO’s flexible platform that enables multidisciplinary teams of researchers to voyage into the region's oceans to undertake full ocean depth oceanography, map and study the geology of the seafloor, collect data to monitor and better understand our fisheries, and, study weather patterns, large ocean processes and climate change. See where she is now.

Thuany Patricia Costa de Lima (PhD student) expertly demonstrates the immersion suit experience.

CSIRO invites us to visit the ship experience from the deck in real time. Jump over here to check it out!

“Despite a continuously strong wind of about 30-40 knots and gusts up to 60 knots (like today), yesterday, we found a window of opportunity, and successfully deployed the first two ocean bottom seismometers, one of each kind.

The first one was sunk on a wire, to the depths just about 100 m above the ocean floor. The depth precision is critical, so before each deployment, we had to measure the speed of sound in the ocean at each location to avoid underestimating the distance between the acoustic release depth of the instrument and the ocean floor.

This instrument was then released to free fall and it finally landed at the depth of 4525 m.“