Made it out to Woods Hole the weekend before starting my land-based portion of the internship. I had a couple of days to settle in, get what groceries and supplies I needed, and explore the area before heading into work on Monday, October 9th.
The first week kicked off with orientation videos, paperwork, and trainings. I received my WHOI badge so I will have access to required locations while working in different lab locations throughout the WHOI campus. Once the introduction basics were completed, I was able to dive right into work and the first afternoon I was disassembling Jason’s thrusters and detaching hydraulic lines from the system. The goal of the first week was to detach and remove all lines, cables, and hoses so that Jason’s main frame could be separated from the heavy-lift sled, then placed on a pallet so we could then remove the large piece of syntactic foam for repair. The process was slow and calculated, to ensure there would be no hang-ups when moving these large structures, and it ended up working perfectly! By Friday, the foam was off and on its way for inspection, and we then reattached Jason’s mainfram ontop of the heavy-lift sled.
The second week we focused on clearing out the inner area of Jason’s mainfram so the frame’s lift points and welds could be inspected next week. I was tasked with draining the vehicle’s junction boxes (including the main transformer j-box), detaching and capping all of the hoses and cables so the inner transformer j-box could be removed. Once we lifted the j-box out, we got to work unbolting the lift-point and brackets securing the central lift-point of the frame. This ended up taking a bit of time, and we had to heat the hardware to get it loose enough for removal. I also focused on untangling and removing all of the flexlink cables and bottle from Jason, removed and detangled cable wiring from the top of the control van’s racks so they could be moved into a storage location for further work, and clear all hoses and cables from Jason’s mainframe for sanding.
Jason was then lifted and secured onto dollies so we could move the vehicle outside. On Friday, October 20th, I spent most of the day sanding the frame so next week it could be inspected for any damage and repairs, if needed. These last 2 weeks have gone by very fast! I am excited heading into work each day and getting to learn so many new things about the ROV that I was unaware of before. Working at WHOI so far has been wonderful. The people I have met are all warm and inviting, love sharing their knowledge, and really take the time to explain things to me. Also….WHOI is very dog-friendly! I was able to bring my dog Emma out with me, and some days she spends the whole day in the office/garage with me.
I am so grateful to be out here for the remainder of the year! Not only am I interning at my dream organization, I am renting a guest sweet with my dog out on a private island! I could not be more lucky, and am making sure to take every moment in while I am here.