Month: October 2017

There are only a few days left of science operations in this cruise. Mooring recoveries took up the first half of the week, and CTD casts filled the rest. I got to operate the mooring release deck box again for some of the recoveries. This time, we released the moorings from their anchors after establishing contact with them. The first release did not operate as smoothly as we would have liked. It didn’t respond to the release code, which was concerning. Turning up the deck box’s transmission power didn’t help. Fortunately, the mooring released after resetting the deck box and turning the transmission power down instead of up. Rather than help, the increased transmission power may have been causing echoes and confusing the release. Live and learn. With this experience, the remaining releases functioned much more smoothly. They all responded and released after just one or two tries, and the bridge spotted them soon after.

Some of the moorings didn’t have working releases, so they couldn’t be brought to the surface with an acoustic signal for retrieval. Instead, the deck crew lowered a grappling hook off the stern of the ship to drag for the mooring’s cable. As the ship was dragging, all eyes were on the winch’s tension display, waiting for the spike in the graph that would indicate we had caught the mooring. It took a few tries, but soon enough the hook was back on deck with the mooring cable attached to it.

On Wednesday, there was a holiday trivia night on the mess deck as a morale event. I was on a team with three Coast Guard crew members. A pair of socks, a trick-or-treat bag, superhero capes, and a plastic frog were the prizes for the winning team. There were Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas question rounds, along with more general ones. For most of the game, our team led by a significant margin. We were already talking about how we would split up the winnings. Unfortunately, we lost by one point in the final round. I’m still kicking myself for forgetting about the traditional Festivus Feats of Strength from Seinfeld, which was the answer to one of the questions we missed. Hopefully, we can get the team back together to redeem ourselves next week. There’s still time for a Festivus miracle.

Other than the next trivia night, there’s a lot to look forward to. Once the CTD casts are complete, we are scheduled to head north of the operating area to take measurements on sea ice! When the cruise began, the ice was still far away from our planned course. Satellite images show that it’s moved up significantly since then, and is now only a few hours’ journey from where we are. I’m excited to see the ice, but it also means the end of science operations and the beginning of the transit back south. There’s still a few weeks left in the cruise, but we’ll soon be leaving the Arctic.

My first week aboard Healy has come and gone, and a lot has happened. Our departure from Dutch Harbor was delayed by a day due to bad weather, but it soon passed and we could leave port. The STARC technicians showed me around Healy, and after a few days I could confidently navigate around the ship. After leaving port, Healy headed north towards the operations area, where we would be recovering submerged moorings and performing surveys. There was plenty to do in the days leading up to our arrival in the operations area. I spent the time reading up on the ship’s installed equipment, continuing the Niskin bottle lanyard project started by the previous interns, and taking pictures outside the ship. I even snapped a photo of Big Diomede, a Russian island, in the distance as we transited through the Bering Strait. Considering the time of year, the weather has not been too bad. However, it has been very cold since we left Dutch Harbor, and at several points there was snow collecting on the deck. Interestingly, the ship’s time was shifted back by two hours to better align normal working hours with the limited daylight. I’m not going to complain, since this effectively gave me two extra hours of sleep.

Early this morning, we reached our operating area for this cruise, and the scientists could begin their operations. They started the day by triangulating the location of some of their moorings. The scientists needed to take multiple range measurements at several points around each mooring, and I was given the opportunity to help. I operated the deck box used to interrogate the moorings’ acoustic releases. We used the box to send acoustic signals through one of the Healy’s transducers, and the mooring would respond with its own signal. The box would measure the time between these signals and use the known speed of sound through the water to calculate a range to the mooring. Although the deck box amplified the response signals, it wasn’t necessary for us to be able to hear them. The box’s transmissions and the moorings’ responses came clearly through the hull. It was very strange to hear what sounded like a giant telephone being dialed somewhere in the ocean. Although this system worked very well for multiple moorings, one of them gave us trouble. Unlike the others, this mooring would not send the correct response when interrogated, so the deck box could not provide a range value. However, we found that we began to receive return pings from “something” near that mooring’s expected location when we tried again from farther away. There may be hope for this mooring yet. 

My first week as an intern has been very enjoyable. I am fascinated by what I have seen so far on this cruise, and I’m looking forward to the next week aboard Healy.

Photo credit: Kristin Beem

As week two finished with the Healy wrapping up the science for cruise 1703, week three ended similarly with the extra objectives we picked up for 1704 coming to completion.   Apparently the next cruise (1704) is looking at extremely rough weather and a heavy work load to boot.  So the Woods Hole science party used the extra time to recover some of 1704’s shallow moorings as well as some mapping survey work too.  This actually turned out to be quite fortuitous as I’ve always wanted to learn more about bathymetry and the multi-beam sonar.

The mission parameters had us navigating a grid of swaths we were to survey.  Using the Knudsen echo sounder to map and delineate the sub-bottom and the EM-122 multi-beam sonar to render a topographical 3-D model of the ocean floor, we began tracing the gridlines from waypoint to waypoint.  One of my supervising techs, Mike Coons had some extra time and kindly gave me a tutorial on the operation of the Knudsen.   I had never seen this instrument before arriving on the Healy, and had only developed a basic understanding of it.  After a couple of hours and some frenetic note taking, I now had acquired a working fundamental ability to operate and adjust the echo sounder to bottom conditions as they change.  This instrument works like what is most commonly referred to as “ground-penetrating-radar (though it’s sonar).  Drawing a distinct line at the seabed’s surface as well as shapes and layers of sentiment and rock beneath it, the Knudsen determines what the underlying matter is by the strength of the echo return. 

Mike repeated this one-on-one lesson with the multi-beam a day later.  The multi-beam is fascinating.  For those unfamiliar, a multi-beam sonar works just as it sounds (not a pun, really!).  Multiple single sonar pings working in concert with each other, focused at slightly different angles, render a swath that actually gets wider with depth.  It then composes a 3 dimensional model of the features of the seabed.  Boulders, seamounts, shelves all appear in a color-coded video model.  (If you’re still confused just watch the movie, “Tron” [either the original or Legacy]).  Our major hurdle was that the EM-122 was designed for great, abysmal depths, using lower frequencies so it did not always function optimally in these relatively shallow (200-300 meters) waters.  However, we were able to get great results most of the time.  We were even able to possibly locate a mooring that was considered missing.  The science party knew its approximate location and had even communicated with it.  We then found an image in this general area that gave strong indication that this was indeed the wayward, misfired mooring.  This would aid the next cruise should they attempt to rescue it from the bottom.

Anyone familiar with my previous blog (or who even glanced at the title!) would have to admit that I’m beginning to sound like a broken record or at the very least that a theme of “things getting stuck” is taking shape on this voyage.  I must wearily concur.  For the other morning, I awoke to my alarm as always, with a troubling exception.  Where was this electronic clanging coming from?  It seemed my phone had slid from my bunk down into a half-inch wide gap between the steel (attached to the wall) bedframe and the ships bulkhead!  Yes, dear readers.  Once again I had managed to get something inexplicably stuck in a tiny portal of doom!!!  Luckily, I spend my days surrounded by the most talented troubleshooters I’ve ever witnessed.  The theories of rescue were many and varied and all destined to fail.  However, just when I was about to dismantle the entire steel bunkbed, a very McGuyver-esque hybrid of many of the plans took shape.  And using a very long screwdriver, a plastic wedge and (of course) the obligatory coat hanger – all of them mummified in duct tape- I was able to first lift it to where I could see it.   Then with a desperate jerk- I popped it up into the air where it fell unceremoniously onto the waiting box spring.   Phone rescued!  Cue the triumphant music (Wagner or something)!

I did also mention in a previous blog that I was assigned two projects at the outset of this mission, the first of which I detailed in my last offering.  The second project was related to this installments title.  The Niskin project.  A Niskin bottle is a container used to collect samples of water as it rides upon the rosette (or the cage containing the CTD).  They come in 12 and 10 liter varieties and are open at both ends.  Located at each end is a spring-loaded cap and when fired, the bottle closes, trapping the collected water inside.   This apparatus is all held together and manipulated by a series spring-torqued lanyards fashioned from heavy monofilament line and even string trimmer refill line.  My assignment was to optimize and standardize these lanyards for both versions of the Niskin bottles.

Royhon Agostine (hope I spelled that correctly, my friend), the MATE intern before me (cruise 1702) had worked on this as well and had left an excellent manual on the top, bottom and middle lanyards construction.  He had pretty much laid out a standard for their lengths and construction, even going so far as to leave templates for the 12 liter bottles.  This was an extremely important precedent in light of the fact that, standardizing anything is difficult with a vessel where different techs constantly rotate in and out.  So many people with divergent backgrounds lends itself to 24 bottles rigged 24 dissimilar ways.  The goal was a single recognizable, efficient, effective lanyard system.  Royhon had done a great job.  My task was to test and improve if possible, any portion of this bridle of line and springs.  And then apply this to the 10 liter bottles as well.

After a great deal of testing, very few changes were made.  The bottom lanyard received the most redesign due simply to the fear of losing the attached hook.  It was hoped that tying the hook in with a strap hitch would make for a swift hook change out should a malfunction occur.  However, after some trials, Mike Coons and I concluded the hook could actually work itself free and be lost.  In the end we basically shortened the lanyard and formed a simple loop with no tail to trim from crimping.  This made for a much quicker change-out based on simplicity alone.

So, the project continued in that fashion with minor tweaks to lengths here and there.  Once I had outfitted the entire compliment (24 with 7 back-ups) of 12 L Niskin bottles we sent them down on several CTD casts with perfect results.   The Niskin bottles are now standardized and optimized.  I tangled with a generous amount of string trimmer line and worked and re-worked an army of Niskin bottles so now I’ve no doubt, you understand why I entitled this tome thus.

Life on the Healy remains fun-filled as well.  Saturday night the crew staged a Sumo wrestling tournament in the helicopter hanger.  They had those huge inflatable suits that simulated a typical mammoth Japanese grappler and no matter who donned it, they looked hysterical.  Some of the crew could barely get their hands to stick out of the arm holes!  Some of the most historic mismatches of all time transpired in that hanger.  One particular bout that comes to mind involved an absolute tree trunk of a man vs. this tiny petite female sailor.  She bounced around him like a balloon in a tornado and he stoically stood, unflinching in the middle of the ring.  It was the old comic formula of the toy poodle savagely barking at a bear.  He even went as far as to pratfall and concede the middle round.  In the final round, she charged at him and with barely a shrug, he sent her glancing off him into the out-of-bounds.  Handily one of the funniest moments of this whole trip!

It has just begun to sink in that this journey is nearing its end.  As sad as that makes me, I am so grateful I had this opportunity.  It has been a fantastic immersion into a world where I hope to thrive.   One more week remains and I’m going to squeeze every last drop out of it.  

Next week, I will be heading to Alaska to meet up with the USCGC Healy. For five weeks, I will be living onboard the ship and working as an intern! This will be my third experience this far north, and my second time in Alaska, but this will be first time being there this close to winter. I am excited to work on such an impressive ship, and reading about the experiences of the past interns has made me even more eager to get started. I anticipate gaining a lot of hands-on time in the next few weeks, and I hope you will follow along with me on this cruise though my upcoming blog posts.

My second week on the USCGC Healy has drawn to a close with even more great learning experiences and moments of awe!

It began with us on-station and hard at work with the mooring retrievals.  The Woods Hole science party had now fallen into a rhythm and began to really crank through the long days of deck work recovering and deftly securing the instrumentation of the deep sea moorings.  We in turn continued with our twice daily CTD casts, also finding our own swing.   With each cast, I became more and more comfortable with the software and the routines involved with prepping, cleaning and storing the rosette.  We did receive word from the Scripps Institute that because we were not firing any of the Niskin bottles (used for collecting water samples) we should remove them from the carousel.  This would save any needless stress and strain placed upon them when descending to significant depth.   Since most of our casts were done in 3500 to 4000 meters, we complied and removed them.   We then had to place three 100 pound weights on the cage to compensate for the missing Niskin bottles.   Sending it down too light could cause it to tumble and tangle in the winch wire, so the addition of these weights would avert any such calamity.

This was also were I encountered the fantastic sense of humor of my coastguard shipmates!  During a certain evening CTD cast, they secured a rubber chicken (we named him, Steve…., I don’t know why) to the cage and sent him down 3900 meters.  Steve happily came back to us unharmed.  It made for a fantastic photo that I will forever treasure.  The whole CTD crew are an awesome group of people and have really added loads of laughter to all of the learning that I have done.  Apparently, another tradition I was able to participate in, was the “cup cast”.   This occurs when the entire crew decorates 20 oz. cups and then secures them in a dive bag to be sent down to the depths.  Cups colored with names, hand drawn flags, messages, you name it, become compressed at those depths.  Reduced to the size of a shot glass is how the once-20 oz. cups emerged from the dark ocean floor.  With all their glorious artwork intact and unmarred.  I guess they make fine Christmas tree ornaments.  It easily made for the most colorful CTD cast I’d ever worked on.  Like I said, a truly great group of people.

Week two also saw my first project come to full fruition.  I did vaguely mention these projects in my previous blog installment, but allow me to elaborate on the first of these.  The week past, Mike Coons (one of my supervising techs) had assigned me a project where I would install a float switch/alarm in the overflow sink of the ships Flow Through system.  The Flow Through system is common on many ships and is basically (so my mom will be able to read this) where a ship intakes sea water and pipes it through a series of sensor instrumentation, such as: a Fluorometer (measures chlorophyll and phosphorus), an air-seawater equilibrator (a holding tank for the PCO2 system), a dissolved O2 sensor (oxygen) and a flowmeter.   These all provide real-time water condition data constantly to the lab.  Water flows through these sensors and spills into a large 6 foot trough, which resembles an elongated industrial wash sink.

The problem with this set up is that water is constantly running through the system at a relatively high volume and once the ship enters the arctic, there is a potential for it to turn into slurry.  Even though it is running swiftly, as it cycles through, it often slows down enough in a section called the de-bubbler where it may quickly solidify.  This in turn can clog the system causing the slurry to build up in the sink and eventually leading to a spill-over into the hallway.  The float switch, by design, will trigger an alarm far before it ever reaches the point of flood and give the technician time to remedy the impediment.

I wish to note that when installing the termination strip into the control box some considerable modification to the plastic had to be performed.  This required the use of a Dremel which is, next to a soldering iron, my favorite tool of all time!

So after wiring in a converter to step the voltage down from 10 to 5 volts and also adding a pull-down resistor to the original circuit design, it was time to permanently install the float switch into the sink.  Now, for the layman, this could best be described as taking a small version of the float you would see in your own toilet tank and bolting it to the side of the wash sink in your basement.  (Providing you have a basement.  But I think you know what I mean.)  This was easier said than done.  This part of the project fought me every step of the way.  The cordless drill I grabbed did not have the proper bit or the power to penetrate the aluminum sheet splashboard that attached to the wall.  After swapping out for the proper drill and bit, I easily punched holes in it and was able to fit the bolts.  However, securing the bolts was a completely different story.  If I had any moments of this internship on video, this would definitely be in the comedy section.  After carefully choosing the materials and meticulously measuring everything, I somehow managed to get my arm stuck in between the aluminum sheet backboard and the unistrut of the bulkhead!!!   Yes.  It was a very tight fit and I had cleverly worked my arm back there and had no trouble securing the bolts.  However, during this, I had unwittingly wriggled my arm in there so far that neither my elbow nor wrist could seem to remember which way to bend in reverse.  Removing it was going to be quite a trick.   Now, it was only stuck for a couple of minutes but with that section of hallway being the main thoroughfare from the labs to the galley and cabin ladders, it seemed like an eternity.   I was very visible.  The last thing I wanted was everyone strolling by snickering at the intern!  I actually played it very cool and made it look like it was part of the task, but inside my head, I wanted to crawl in a hole.  As the clock ticked, I patiently, covertly choreographed it free of it’s entrapment.  And with that, the USCGC Healy had a new float switch.   The next day, Mike received the coding from STARC and our display in the lab had a new warning light!!  Project successfully completed!  Leaving only a tiny dent in my ego.  And this is how we learn, right?  Absolutely.

Last Wednesday morning, I had just rolled out of my rack when the ship piped, “Two polar bears off the port rail!!”   I excitedly grabbed my boots and threw them on.  I started out the door and realized I forgot my phone (for pictures), so I retrieved it.  I started out the door and realized, I wasn’t wearing pants, so I kicked off my boots and threw on some pants.  With boots back on, I headed out to the rail and there, swimming beside the ship were a mother and her cub!  Incredible!!!  I could not believe my eyes.  Breakfast had just been served so I am assuming they smelled food and approached the ship.  I’ve seen so many new and astounding things on this cruise but this took the cake.  Polar bears in the wild.  I’ve only seen them on television.  They were now moving away from the Healy but apparently somewhere between my phone retrieval and my pants they were once right beside the ship!!  I snapped so many pictures and then just watched them in awe.  Everyone was.  In all the surrounding conversation I suddenly heard someone say, “They won’t make it.”  My elation immediately crashed into an awful gut twist when I realized we were out almost 250 miles from any land and about 150 from the ice.  What were they doing out here so far?  I sadly watched them turn and head away from the vessel.  Like a somber parting glance, the mother looked over her shoulder one more time and swam away.  Cub in tow.  It impacted me heavily.  In all my life I’ve never watched a creature so resolutely turn and head for impending doom.  All day long I had the worst feeling.  Until at dinner, I spoke with one of the science party who obviously knew a lot more about polar bears than I and he assured me that not only are they incredibly buoyant but they’re also known to swim hundreds of miles.  I do know that bears are formidable, stout creatures.  And being who I am, I simply chose to believe that they made it and are enjoying a meal of seal meat and doing what makes polar bears happy.   The gift of seeing them in their element was just too amazing for me to think otherwise.

A truly profound week indeed.