Thursday 10th January 2008 I woke to the jolting and whoosh of the ship going through pack ice. We are working the CASO grid south again but the ice has forced a change, so we head westwards to skirt the pack and come in on a parallel that offers open sea. Icebergs and floes are the habitat of the beautiful, pure white Snow Petrel. It is hard to say which of the Antarctic birds is the most captivating but this small bird is a striking sight against sea or sky. The Cape Petrel (someone called it the 'magpie' of Antarctica) has careless splodges of black and white across its wings while...

Written January 10, 2008 Position: , 3350 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 27 to - 32 °C For the first time in weeks, strong winds and blowing snow were with us all day. In these cold, dry snow conditions, it takes a wind speed of approximately 5 m/s (10 miles per hour) for the snow to start being transported by the wind. As the snow particles bounce and roll along the surface they are exposed to the dry air above and continually sublimate (go from solid ice to vapor) as they move along with the wind. The snow particles can be blown about 3 km (2 miles) before they sublimate/disappear completely. ...

Wednesday 9th January 2008 The emergency stations muster signal is seven long and one short sounding on bells and whistle. The ringing alarm today marked the passing of another week on the 'Aurora Australis'. These musters are held regularly so that everyone on the ship knows exactly where to go, how to get there and what to bring. On hearing the bells I scramble into the freezer suit, stow the first aid and field manuals in my pocket, lace the big Canadian Sorell boots, drag the lifejacket over my head and grab the red survival bag with warm clothing. Now at twice my normal size, I make a clumsy beeline for my muster station starboard side of the helideck. ...

Definitely no plans for today. But life on board is sometimes surprising and unexpected things happen. And today is one of these days. Just during breakfast time I received wonderful news… “at 9 o’clock there will be an AGT”…and only in a few hundred meters of depth…this means…Cnidarians!! I was really delighted and hopeful…maybe this time I will find the missing genus, the object of my PhD studies. “Antarctica’s gorgonians. Evolution and biodiversity. Distribution and reproduction patterns.” This is the title of my research, focused on the family Primnoidae and mainly on the genus Thouarella, the best represented in the Southern Ocean. Around half of the species have been described from Antarctic waters, and most of them were found below 800 m depth. T...