Hello from a few hundred miles off the coast of Mexico! We finally arrived at our first sampling station today. This will be a short (test) station before moving onto our first of two long stations of the cruise. We successfully deployed our CTD and rosette of Nisken bottles to collect the first water samples this afternoon. Today marks a week that we have been at sea. There is little sun here in the tropics as we have been in the shadow of tropical storm turned hurricane turned tropical depression Kiko, but the seas are much calmer than they were a few days ago. Dolphins have been sighted everyday during our transit here, and I saw my second manta ray leap clear out of the water a couple of days ago. This remains a wonderful experience, but I am all the more eager as the real science begins and I get to work both as crew assisting with the MOCNESS (Multiple Opening and Closing Net Environmental Sampling System, a large plankton net which will collect zooplankton at various depths), and as a Ph D. student conducting my own experiments here at sea. Wish me luck!