STAFF Sergeant Logesh Sockalingam, 30, awakes 100m below water, staring up at the wooden cupboard less than a metre above his head.
He draws open the orange curtains next to his bed, revealing the fluorescent lights of the submarine, and slides off his upper bunk, ready to start the day.
SSG Logesh is a sonar specialist. For the past two years, he has been training in Sweden, to learn to operate and maintain submarines from the Royal Swedish Navy.
Singapore bought two Swedish Vaastergotland-class submarines in 2005. They were then upgraded, refurbished and tropicalised to suit Singapore waters, and renamed the Archer-class.
SSG Logesh began training as a submariner in January 2006, after serving on three different surface ships in the Navy.
'I wanted to see what's happening beneath,' he said simply.
He is one of 28 crew on board the lead-boat of its class, the RSS Archer, which was launched on Tuesday.
In the meantime, SSG Logesh has been training on board the Swedish Navy's HMS Ostergotland, where he spends about a week out at sea each month.
He walks towards the submarine's toilet and shower cubicles, each the size of an airplane toilet.
There's a shower roster onboard for water rationing, so he gets to bathe about once every three days.
At the mess, he has a simple breakfast of bread, cheese, kaya and Lipton tea, before heading to the heart of the submarine - the control room, at 6am to start his shift.
The submarine operates on a two-watch system. Work for six hours, rest for six hours, then repeat.
There are about 12 people on duty at any one time. SSG Logesh is one of four sonar specialists to report for duty.
In the small crew, everyone multi-tasks. SSG Logesh likes working at the sonar best.
Here's where he monitors and identifies the sounds picked up by the submarine's sonar system, and accesses their threat potential.
Noise is the enemy
He says: 'You get to hear all kinds of noises, what's happening outside.'
After years of audio training and listening to sample recordings, he can paint you a picture of what's happening from the blips, bloops and pings.
'It's more an art than a science,' said Commanding Officer (CO) LTC Jack Nyeo, 36, the big boss on board.
Noon arrives. SSG Logesh's first shift is over, and his six-hour break begins.
It's back to the mess for lunch. There are two tables, which can seat 12 people.
Staff sergeant Derick Koh, 28, an award-winning hotel-trained chef, cooks anything from chicken rice, nasi lemak and Hokkien mee, to Western food.
After lunch, SSG Logesh moves on to his 'homework', his individual personal theory training given to him by his operations officer.
When he finishes, he contemplates watching a DVD in the mess or exercising on the static bike in the back area, then decides instead to read Dan Brown's Angels And Demons that he had brought along.
Silence is one of the key disciplines on board a submarine.
The sound of metal on metal - even a five-cent coin dropping on the floor - can be deadly and give your position away to the enemy.
So when wearing the steel capped safety shoes to protect his feet, SSG Logesh is careful not to accidentally knock into anything.
When he closes a door, he pulls the handle down before release, so there's no click sound.
Even when the crew watches DVDs - usually comedies, to relax - they don't turn up the volume too high or even laugh too loudly.
Noise discipline drills are done about once or twice a month and repeated if the CO is not satisfied. There are also attack drills, flood drills and fire drills.
Said LTC Nyeo: 'In an enclosed environment, the smoke will spread faster than you can ever run. You can't open all hatches like on a surface ships, to air the submarine. So our reaction needs to be very, very fast.'
It's almost 6pm. SSG Logesh wolfs down his dinner, then goes back to the control room for his second six-hour shift.
The light in the submarine starts to dim. It's the crew's way of simulating sunset, using the lighting condition in the submarine, so there's some semblance of day and night.
Midnight approaches - the end of the day.
SSG Logesh goes back to his bunk, which he shares with another crew member.
They call it 'hot-bunking', to minimise bed space on the cramped submarine. It's literally hot too - one leaves when the other arrives, so it's always warm.
He wakes his crew mate (no alarms or digital watch beeping allowed), who gets up and removes his bedsheet and pillowcase for hygiene purposes.
SSG Logesh puts his own bedding onto the bunk, and slides his 1.75m frame into the narrow space.
'Initially, I used to bump my head (on the cupboard). But now I'm used to sleeping like a prawn,' he said.
It helps that some of the crew's families have moved with them to Sweden for the two-year training.
In the Swedish city of Karlskrona, there are now more than 100 Singaporeans, including wives and children. Most of them rent homes in the Polhemsgatan estate, earning the place the nickname of 'Little Singapore'.
SSG Logesh's wife Chandar Prabah Rai, 27, a housewife, is there, along with their 'made in Sweden' son Aditya Aaren Om, who is 8 months old.
SSG Logesh said: 'Many people have this misconception that submarine operations are dangerous. Naval ops have their own risk, but on a submarine, the dangers only come when the crew don't know what they're doing.'
