As you can see we saw a lot of interesting sites in Antarctica, but we also got to spend time before the cruise in New Zealand and after the cruise in Australia. I went on the 2007 I8S cruise as a graduate student researcher. We worked 12 hours on and 12 hours off, 7 days a week, for 6 weeks, but it was a lot of fun. We spent most of time controlling the water sampler that we used to collect samples from the bottom of the ocean to the surface. This takes a great deal of time because the ocean is typically 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) deep, and to get accurate measurements we lowered and raised the instruments carefully. Overall it takes about 4 hours to drop the instrument, and then about 4 more to raise it back to the ship, and then about 4 more hours to drive the ship to the next location. When we moved the ship, the science part could relax for a few hours...