Our specialised fluid sampler made from chemically inert titanium enables us to collect the extruding fluids from two black smokers. The fluid sampler are gas-tight, which means that gases cannot escape when the ROV rises and the pressure drops, and we are able to measure the gas concentrations on board in a gas chromatograph. The snorkel of the fluid sampler, which is used to collect the hot fluids from the opened orifice in a much-directed way, is linked with a temperature sensor, so that we can measure the precise fluid temperature. The first sample was hot and contained in its gas phase high hydrogen and methane concentrations. Only about half of the former gas concentrations were measured in the second fluid sample, which was collected from a site with an exit temperature of 344°C. These high temperature measurements are only measured in the fluid flow directly in the exit orifices, while the surrounding seawater is only slightly warmed up. The off-vent seawater on the seafloor of this oceanic region has a temperature of 0°C, which can rise up to a few degrees C depending on the proximity to focused and diffuse flow exits. Next to the fluid samples, we also collected rock samples of the chimneys, which were taken with the manipulator arms of ROV QUEST; these contained, next to anhydrite, shiny metal sulphide minerals, like chalcopyrite, pyrite and sphalerite. Overall, it was a very successful dive, actively followed by our colleagues in Bremen as the telepresence link enabled this. The following night was used for surveying the area for suitable sediment corer positions, which we discovered in different water depth in sediment-covered basins between tectonic high blocks of the magmatic crust. Two sediment-coring positions were selected, which we sampled on Tuesday, 30th April, with gravity corer and multicorer (Fig. 2). The investigation of the pore waters in these sediment cores and in those of the past days, together with the chemistry of the iron minerals, will contribute to the charting of the “plume”-like drift of the iron minerals originating from the hot springs in the surrounding. In the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, we surveyed the seafloor on a line from the spreading centre E2 to the East, crossing the island arc of the South Sandwich Islands north of Zavodovski Island over the fore-arc area into the deep-sea trench of the South Sandwich subduction zone. This zone is in its northern part especially deep and reaches a depth of 8264 m in the so-called Meteor Deep. The German survey vessel Meteor I discovered the deep on its southernmost West-East transect during its expedition in 1925-1927 and mapped it as deepest area of the South Atlantic.