Firstlly a big thanks to BB who spotted a broken link on the last blog. We are having technical issues viewing the website on the ship and can't view what I uploadc- so if you spot any problems please let me know via questions@rrsjamescook.com

So we are back into science and it’s been an exciting 24hrs! ISISS was deployed yesterday at 6am after the weather dropped away to nothing. In no less that 12 hours it went from 4m wave height down to a millpond as the storm passed us by.

Will’s team put the ROV in and began the dive to the seabed. At 6ish I got a call that one of our GPS systems had gone down – the system had been up and running reliably for over 400 days and just needed a reboot – all fine! The rest of the morning was spent doing the daily backs und making sure all the IT coverage was up to speed.

At 12pm we took over the ISIS watch. Will’s team had found the elevators which we deployed before the storm and had made sure that they were free from obstructions for when we sent them the message to drop their weights and return to the surface.

Our job was much more interesting! We had to collect 25 holothurians for Teresa who needed this to study the bacteria inside their guts. Basically, these little critters play an important role in eating a lot of the really small stuff that falls to the seabed. However, very little is known about how they do this and the bacteria found internally inside these beasties which help them break it down. So by studying their, errr guts and ultimately their poo Teresa can begin to look at how these Hoovers of the sea process their food!

But first we had to catch them! They are very light and they can swim – although not very fast! We used our suction sampler to suck these delicate creatures up from the seabed and then into special storage containers. Ben was working ISIS’s arms and I was in the pilot seat. After two hours work we had collected all the holothurians that Terresa needed. On the way we also found some other interesting beasties which Prof Tyler got very excited about and ended up in our big storage boxes to be docmuented. These included some truly large sea slug like creatures which Ben struggled to get in the sample boxes.

It was more like listening to a crowd at a fireworks party with lots of “Oohhh”, “Ahhhhing” and sharp intakes of breath and finally clapping and laughter from the scientists as we caught the holothurians.

Next we undertook a search for one of the experiments that fell off the elevator during recovery earlier in the cruise. We had planned a search pattern and using our collision avoidance sonar we flew above the seabed looking for any objects that protruded above seabed level. Whilst we can only penetrate 8 or so meters into the gloom with our lights the sonar can see about 50m. Much to our disappointment we didn’t find anything (except a few more biological samples for Paul!). With the search complete it was time to end an extremely interesting and exciting dive.

The ascent to the surface took over two hours and no-sooner had the vehicle been powered down and secured on deck the scientists were all over her exclaiming at the samples and removing them to the controlled environment room.

Once the throng of scientists had removed all the samples the ROV team swung into action running post-dive checks on the vehicle. Ben did a bit of planned maintenance and changed some filters, I had a practice using the manipulators. I haven’t used them since the last cruise and wanted to practice using them when we weren’t collecting important specimens.

After that it was midnight and time to go to bed…………