An account is given of experience with the use of a buoyant sounder to measure the vertical structure of the temperature and vertical conductivity fields in the thin surface layer of the ocean. Use of the buoyant sounder equipped with transducers having high spatial resolution has yielded new data on the microstructure of the thin layer near the ocean surface. Calibration of the electrical microconductivity recorder and methods for introducing the necessary corrections are described. The potential of measurements in the flotation mode for studying other parameters of the thin surface layer is pointed out.