The clear sunrises that we have been enjoying for most of the expedition have suddenly become rather rare. Instead the sun arises into a bank of clouds which yesterday had a rather dark and menacing look about them. As you can see in this photograph the clouds are black and low and full of rain. The wind from the Northwest has become much stronger and together these signal the arrival of the South Asian monsoon which I guess should be no surprise to a cruise focused on understanding its long-term development. Let’s just hope that the seas don’t become too rough too quickly so that we can complete our operations and have a successful end to our drilling operations