The first two days of this leg were spent taking temperature and salinity profiles in a region of fairly open drift ice. This is bread and butter oceanography and with ideal weather conditions we’ve been quite relaxed. The water is about 2.5 km deep so it takes roughly two hours to lower the instrument to the bottom and back -allowing plenty of time to ponder the data. The water is extremely clear here as there are very few plankton and almost no suspended sediment. As a result it’s often possible to see the underwater part of ice floes which appear bright turquoise. The second photo shows Laura preparing the instrument package to be deployed, and the last hand photo shows the instrument package abut to surface after a trip to the bottom.