Hello again! It has certainly been an exciting day!

The people manning the scanners finished their scans late last night, and I’ve been locked up in a room with the rest of the team, discussing the best possible routes of navigation across the ocean floor. As this is not really my area of expertise, what with me being a biologist and all, I mostly sat around and listened to the others discuss things. I did strike up an interesting conversation with one of the chemists, Dianne, who was similarly unable to contribute much.

From what I could understand, though, the ocean floor is indeed very odd where we’ll be going! A massive chasm apparently rips the ocean floor in two, with a single towering spire of rock sticking up out of it. We’ll be touching down a mile or so away from the chasm, but we will be making our way quickly towards it. The flora and fauna here should prove interesting, especially around the chasm, where the water temperature fluctuates wildly, to extremes that shouldn’t really be possible; the survival mechanisms of the creatures that live here will be utterly fascinating.

My next entry might be a few days from now, as tomorrow morning we’re casting off, and I’ll probably be busy for a little bit getting settled into Hubie – which is almost the size of this boat, with rather comfortable cabins for everyone – and doing my initial surveys of the area. I even have my own dedicated mini-sub that can wander independently of the larger sub, connected via hose and wires to Hubie!

See you all in a few days with my first reports!