Month: September 2018 Page 1 of 2

First on the list of science operations for this week was to initiate the deployment of the main SODA and navigational moorings. There have been some setbacks regarding the SODA moorings and battery packs are being built to complete the sensor array in the stablemoors. Once these are done, we will then be able to continue with SODA deployments, but for the time being we are going to be deploying the navigational moorings first. These moorings are not equipped with the same amount of sensory equipment as the SODA moorings and also do not require as precise of a depth measurement. The SODA moorings need to be in an exact spot in order for the multi-beam data to be as they expect and to ensure the data is at the resolution they want. Thus, the navigational moorings should overall be trial runs for the SODA moorings, but also very important in terms of the big picture. These moorings are going to be integral parts of the glider/mooring data streaming back to University of Washington. Usually I watch the mooring process from aft conn with some of the crew and pay attention to how everything is working out and the safety the boatswain is taking into account. Once they get to the main line (about 3700m) there’s really nothing more to see until the anchor goes in.

As for personal projects this week, Tony taught me about CTD cable terminations and tests you should do to make sure the cable is in good shape for a next cast. We also did a full termination and re-termination so that I could get some good practice if I ever have to cut some off myself. The process begins with stripping down and peeling back the outer layers of the cable, which prove to be quite difficult, and then getting down to the wire in order to solder it to another connection cable. This was a great experience to learn because it involved a lot of techniques for underwater cable splicing and making sure that everything is water proof. We wrapped the soldering job in multiple layers or protection including shrink wrap, scotchkote electrical splicing paste, and rubber splicing tape. We did about three layers of each and then the main waterproofing was complete. We just were using an old piece of wire to get some practice in, the actual CTD wire onboard Healy is in great shape and didn’t need anything to be fixed. I also removed an extra dissolved oxygen sensor from the CTD and re-plumbed the main pump back to the temperature and conductivity sensors. Quick and easy job, but I enjoyed it. We also launched many expendable bathymetric thermographs (XBT) in order to assure the multi-beam has the best possible sound speed profile for accuracy in the data. We had a lot of trouble getting the XBT’s to perform the way they are supposed to; which it seems the environment is partly to blame. Sometimes the wire can get hung up on ice or blown far to the side and affect the outcome of the data or completely terminate the XBT producing no data. Basically an XBT is dropped over the fantail and then falls at a calculated rate until 1000m where it has then collected enough data in the water column to produce a sound speed profile of that area.

Couple of cool nature events occurred this week as well! We got the chance to see a polar bear as we were heading out of the ice and there was a small falcon that somehow found its way to the ship.

There’s a lot of new software to be learned aboard the Healy so I try to test things out everyday and see what I can do. I have been playing around with ice imagery on QINSy which gets relayed to the bridge and I have been cleaning and exporting multi-beam data from mooring locations in Qimera. If this group of scientists were interested in the multi-beam data other than a secondary measure of depth, I could do some great things for them and be able to get them good clean data very efficiently. Not a skill I will be using on this cruise too much, but definitely good to get used to these programs for future cruises or science parties that may want to use multi-beam data for other purposes.

As we get closer to deploying the ice stations, more meetings are taking place about the logistics of the sites and specific coast guard procedures that need to take place before we can do anything. We have been looking for a site to deploy a Weather, wave, ice mass balance and ocean drifter (WIMBO). We will be deploying four more of these in the future as well. I am going to be helping out with the ice tethered profiler (ITP) team and drilling holes for lower the gear down. We had a couple small side meetings about those procedures and things to watch out for while deploying the instrument. I volunteered so that I could secure a spot in getting out on the ice. It’s pretty amazing to be able to stand on the Arctic Ocean around 80 degrees north latitude. Not many people can say they had that opportunity.

I have been reading Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen, watching a lot of movies and playing some cribbage with my roommates in my free time. I am on call from 0600 to 1800 and have about 4-5 hours after dinner to relax and get ready for the next day before heading to sleep.

I will be back in another week with more ice cluster updates and how we are doing heading into the last stretch of being in the Arctic Ocean.

-Nick

3. En Route to Puerto Rico

By Maya Thompson

On September 28, 2018

In Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences & Arizona State University, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantic Explorer

Hello again!

I have now spent a week on the R/V Atlantic Explorer and one research cruise complete. Prior to the BATS-Val cruise, which I am currently on, heading to Puerto Rico, there was a 24 hour curise with a group of students from Oxford University. Once we leave the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Science (BIOS), the home of the R/V Atlantic Explorer, we run through some of the saftey drills. We practiced putting on the immersion suits, which would be used if we had to abandon ship. The immersion suit is a special type of waterproof dry suit that protects the body from hypothermia. The suit a bit big on me.

Maya in Immersion Suit

On this cruise we headed out to Hyrdostation “S”, a bi-weekly cruise to supplement for the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series Study (BATS). While at this station we deploy the Conductivity, Temperature and Depth (CTD) to monitor the physical and chemical properties of the water column. As the CTD makes its way down to the bottom (or another depth decided on by the scientists) a profile collecting the temperature, salinity, oxygen and fluorescence is created. On the way back to the surface water samples at certain depths are collected in bottles, which will then be sampled.

This was the first cruise I went out on with the R/V Atlantic Explorer and the first time I have been back out on the ocean in three years. I had to get used to the motion of the boat and deal with sea sickness for the first day. Luckily it only lasted one day and since then I have been fine.

It has a been a day in since we left Bermuda for Puerto Rico and we had already stopped at a station north of Bermuda to do CTD’s, zooplankton tows and put pumps in the water. During each of these deployments I was able to observe Nick and Jillon, watching the steps for each of the casts so that I would be able to do them soon. This week has been full learning and I am excited to become more involved as the internship continues.

Week Twenty-Two: Part of Something Big

By Emily Shimada

On September 23, 2018

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Sally Ride, UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceaongraphy

1930 Local time

Hiya!

We are one week in on the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Endurance Array cruise on the Sally Ride. If you have not looked up OOI yet, then let me encourage you to do so by giving you some handy links. The Endurance Array is just 1 of 6 uncabled arrays spanning the Pacific and Atlantic ocean basins and provide a wealth of data on climate variability, ocean circulation, ecosystem impacts from climate change, sub-seafloor and ocean-atmosphere interactions, plate dynamics and more! The great thing is that there is a lot of outreach to the science community and public alike, and all of the observation data is available 24/7 through the OOI data portal.

Thankfully, while we were out at sea, NSF awarded $220 million to Woods Hole, University of Washington, and Oregon State University (the team I am with) to continue to operate and maintain the OOI system for the next 5 years. Woo hoo!

This past Tuesday saw us off the coast of Washington deploying and recovering shelf and offshore moorings. The offshore moorings are over 500 meters in length, so we can only average 2 per day with these. At each site, we also do a CTD cast to collect water samples at the depths of the sensor packages as well as a good water column plot. This helps the OOI team to calibrate their various instruments as a reference.

This pattern repeated through Friday, at which point we transited down to Newport, Oregon and docked on the OSU pier in order to offload the recovered moorings and pick up more to deploy. Needless to say, there is an incredible amount of dynamic shuffling on the back deck to make way for hundreds of meters of line, EM cables, and stretch hoses not to mention massive flotation devices, anchors, vertical profilers, and sensor frames/anchors that weigh upwards of 11,000 pounds.

We always meet as a team before each deployment or recovery to assign positions and talk through the progressions of where things need to be and what block we will be pulling through to which winch and how many tag lines are needed to stabilize the various components. Communication and situational awareness are key! The rest of this week will see us finishing up the Washington inshore and offshore moorings and then we will be back in Newport one more time to do another offload and onload of gear. In total, it’s 3 legs of deployment/recoveries in just 16 days. I am confident that we can do it. 🙂

More soon!

– Emily

2. Arrival, but no boat

By Maya Thompson

On September 22, 2018

In Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences & Arizona State University, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantic Explorer

Hello Bermuda,

The day has finally come were I will take a plane for hour and a half and land in Bermuda! This is probably the shortest plane ride I have ever been on. By the time the drinks and snacks were passed out, the seatbelt light went back on. We were preparing for our descent and landing! As the plane was landing I could see the white caps along the surface of the clear blue ocean. Once we got closer, it became easier to see underneath the surface of the water.

Approaching landing at the BDA, Bermuda airport.

I have offically landed in Bermuda and made my way to the Bermuda Institue of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), which is home to R/V Atalntic Explorer (RVAE). Although on this day the ship is still out so I will have to wait until morning. Once I dropped off my bags in my room for the night I was given a tour of BIOS and then dropped off at the Marine Opperations Building where I met Jillon, the marine technician on the RVAE and the previous MATE-intern Emily. As I was waiting, Rick, the port captian, asked for Emily’s and my help, moving crates around in the warehouse, trying to make more room. There wasn’t much to move, but boy was it hot and humid out, quite the difference than this morning when I left Boston, MA. I was then on my own for the rest of the night, where I explored a few of the beaches and bays around BIOS.

The next moring, as I was eating breakfast, I saw the RVAE coming back to the dock! I will finally get to meet everyone aboard and begin to learn the layout of the ship. After breakfast, I went down and meet the ship and the crew (I am beginning to remember everyones name). Nick, my mentor shows me my room on board and then gives me a tour of the ship. I begin to explore and get my bearings of the ship. Since the ship just returned, there is not much for me to do yet, so I go and explore more the island. I took a walk into St. Georges and made it to another bay on the other side of the island. During this trip I got rained on four different times, but luckily it was warm rain and I was dry soon after the shower passed. It is the first night and it feels good to be sleeping back on a ship. Even though I have only been here for a day, it has already begun to feel like home. The first cruise departs Monday morning!

R/V Atlantic Explorer returning to BIOS

Week One: Underway from Dutch Harbor and into the realm of the Arctic Circle

By Nicholas Hukriede

On September 22, 2018

In MATE Blog Archive, US Coast Guard, USCGC Healy

This week shaped up to be filled with a lot of new experiences! USCGC Healy departed Dutch Harbor at 1300 local time on the 15^thand began the steam to Nome to pick up more gear on our way to the first mooring locations of the science cruise. The cruise is centered around Stratified Ocean Dynamics of the Arctic (SODA) and involves deploying a series of four moorings used for navigation as well as three more instrument heavy moorings equipped with upward facing multi-beams and CTDs to survey ice floe throughout the duration of the next year. There are also going to be 3 ice stations later on in the cruise where we will deploy multiple buoys and floats to survey ice floes over the next year. Our original plan was to steam to the first SODA mooring location and get going with those as soon as possible, but there were some slight delays, which eventually turned out to be longer than originally intended, that caused us to change plans. Instead we stopped off at a secondary mooring location for University of Delaware and the deployment was successful. This was my first time seeing a mooring go into the water and the process of getting everything together was really valuable to watch. The US Coast Guard does not allow much deck time, if any at all, so I will be mostly standing by to survey exactly what the boatswain and crew on deck are doing to safely deploy all these moorings over the course of the next 4 weeks and try to learn as much as I can from that perspective.

On our way to the Badiey (UDel) mooring location, my first project was to design and build a mooring release transducer conversion j-box so that Healy would be able to account for multiple types of deck boxes for the science party to use. The deck boxes are used to range and communicate with the moorings they are placing and also to release depth sensors and even the whole mooring if need be. I did not fully understand what my conversion box was going to be responsible for until I watched it be put to use. It felt good to know that I helped a main part of the science and shipboard technology improve and be capable of improving more in the future. Below are some good images of what the finished product and wiring look like inside the j-box. While transiting north to the first mooring location we crossed the line of the Arctic Circle which, if you complete a ceremony through the coast guard, registers you as a “bluenose” for having crossed the line on a ship. I do not think we will be able to do any such ceremony on this cruise, but still a great experience to have done.

Science operations are changing in what seems like by the hour so we are just ready for anything. We have been working 12 hour shifts in the lab to make sure everything is covered science tech wise, even though most of the ops are going to be happening in the daylight. We were now going to put in one of the navigational moorings and delay the SODA moorings even further. All the moorings from here on out will be over 3700 meters deep. Part of our job as STARC and science technology aid is to run multi-beam surveys over the potential mooring sites so that they are able to better gage the actual profile of the seafloor. Our EM122 multi-beam has been having a fair amount of trouble that we actively troubleshoot and relay to the bridge what needs to be changed to get better data. Brett and I found some great ways to clean the data and then give the scientists various data output formats for them and us to use later.

A day later, my conversion box was used to release a depth sensor off one of the navigation moorings, and then we proceeded to steam halfway to the next one to deploy gliders on the way. The gliders are going to collect data from the SODA moorings and be able to send it back to the University of Washington via Iridium satellites, that way they will be able to know just how well the moorings are functioning when we arrive back in port and further on into the year.

I forgot to mention! We hit ice around 0700 on 09/19. It is really amazing to see for your first time and it reminded me of watching a fire in that you could really get lost in the ice breaking for as long as you want, only it’s below freezing temperatures and extremely windy outside, not exactly as comforting as the fire.

Overall first week has been full of great experiences and the big SODA moorings are coming up soon a long with ice clusters. I will report back soon with how everything is going with the main part of the SODA mission and how we are travelling in the ice.

– Nick

Week Twenty-One: Hello, Old Friend

By Emily Shimada

On September 17, 2018

In MATE Blog Archive, R/V Sally Ride, UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceaongraphy

0100 Local Time

Hi there!

In just a few hours (0400 Pacific Time) the crew and science party of the R/V Sally Ride will be getting underway for the OOI Coastal Endurance Array cruise. The back deck and surrounding labs and staging areas are fully loaded for the recovery and deployment of 12 uncabled platforms and 6 gliders off of the Washington and Oregon coasts over the span of the next 16 days. As I mentioned last week, this project is directed at monitoring long-term environmental changes and impacts on ecosystems due to climate change. The program is planned to run for 20-25 years, so there is a real opportunity to identify episodic events on a meaningful timescale.

(Image Sources: OOI)

I met the ship this past Friday at the cruise ship terminal in Seattle. It is quite a busy spot with massive cruise ships offloading and onloading passengers most days of the week. The Sally Ride is tied up stern to stern next to the Roger Revelle, as both Scripps ships just finished a joint-effort science operation. This afforded me the opportunity to see familiar faces from the crews, technicians, and science parties on each vessel. It was a very fun reunion of sorts and the de-mobilization and mobilization of cruises for both ships has made for a very busy few days. Thankfully, we got everything loaded up and all major equipment tested for our first deployments near the Washington shelf, which will keep us occupied through Friday. At that time, we will head south to Newport, Oregon and load up the ship with new mooring equipment to be deployed off the Oregon and Washington coasts all through next week. We will then return to Newport a second time to load up for our third and final set of deployments. This sort of back-and-forth transit schedule may seem silly, but the sheer size of this equipment necessitates multiple loading as you can see by the photos below. Also pictured is a massive water weight that we filled via the fantail firehouse connection. This weight was suspended on a line strung through the A-frame block and run from the heavy-lift winch (HLW). It allowed the OOI team to weight test the winch and calibrate the tension values on the control panel and remote reader.

Honestly, it has not really sunk in yet that this will be my final science cruise of this internship. It is 5 months to the day since I set off on the first cruise on the R/V Neil Armstrong. That seems like a long time to be sailing continuously. However, I have learned so much since then and had the opportunity to work with some great technicians and a variety of hard-working science groups with very specialized equipment and mission goals. Each cruise has offered so many new learning opportunities and no two have been the same. This constancy of change is refreshing and I think is the driving reason why it is surprising that this is the last cruise (only for now, of course).

More soon!

– Emily

1. Time for an Adventure

By Maya Thompson

On September 14, 2018

In Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences & Arizona State University, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantic Explorer

Hello!

In one week I will be boarding a plane to Bermuda where I will spend the next six weeks aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer. I am a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor’s degree in marine science. This will be my second time out to sea, but a much different experience than my first. While I was an undergrad, I did a semester through the Sea Education Association where I spent six weeks sailing aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans. We sailed form Christchurch, New Zealand to Pape’ete, Tahiti. Along the way we made two port stops at Chatham Island, New Zealand and Raivavae, an island located in French Polynesia. Ever since experiencing what it is like to be out in the middle of the ocean, I have been itching to get back out on the water. This opportunity to be a MATE intern and learning to be a Marine Technician is an area that will combine my interest with the use of technology and working on a research vessel, participating in ground-breaking marine and oceanographic research. I am looking forward to doing reasearch in the Atlantic ocean.

I have never lived aboard a research vessel and I am looking forward to all the challanges, experiences and adventures that I will have over the next six weeks. Everything is laid out ready to be packed as I am going over my list of items to bring, making sure I am not forgetting anything. My excitment and anticipation of this trip has heightened as the days go by.

See you soon, Bermuda!

Maya

Pre-Internship Healy 1802

By Nicholas Hukriede

On September 12, 2018

In MATE Blog Archive, US Coast Guard, USCGC Healy

Hello and welcome to my blog for the next 6 weeks while I am aboard the Healy 1802 cruise out of Dutch Harbor, AK. I am a recent graduate of the University of Washington with a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics. I was pointed towards this internship by Dr. Fritz Stahr of the oceanography department at UW while on a study abroad program in Australia and thought it would fit my skillset very well and would also be a great opportunity to gain valuable experience. This will be an internship of firsts for me and will definitely be my longest cruise. Seeing the ice covered Arctic Ocean and being able to support the science that is taking place is what I am most looking forward to as welll as taking in anything I can. Overall I am greatly looking forward to getting aboard the Healy and to get things moving. I will be back very soon with another update of how things are kicking off here in Alaska!

Week Twenty: Last Days In Alaska

By Emily Shimada

On September 9, 2018

In MATE Blog Archive, US Coast Guard, USCGC Healy

2130 Local time

Hello!

(My apologies for the lack of images. The Aleutians are stunning, but our internet is not.)

We are two days in on our transit from Seward to Dutch Harbor, where we will mobilize for the next science mission. Our port call in Seward lasted most of this past week and was the longest port call we’ve had so far this season. We lucked out with beautiful weather and enough time to have a proper changeover between off-going and oncoming STARC technicians. Changeover included walking through updates and changes to equipment and lab spaces as well as getting everyone up to speed on ice imagery acquisition for the upcoming mission, which will be way up North in solid ice. Lucky them!

Seward is quite a lovely town and is also home to the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF) Seward Marine Center and research vessel, the R/V Sikuliaq. We met with their facility technician and picked up a variety of packages that were shipped there for STARC. This included, among other things, our two spare CTDs on loan for the remainder of the season. As you will recall, our only spare CTD had been having faulty pressure/depth readings and needed to be swapped out. One of the deliveries was a “purge kit” for the pressure port of the sensor. The kit consisted of mineral oil and a medical-grade syringe and tubing. Purging, for this sensor, rather simply involves inserting the tubing/syringe assembly into a very tiny well, sucking up any existing oil in there, and then filling it with new mineral oil. At the bottom of this small port we ended up sucking up two perfectly formed water droplets. It could be that the water contamination is what caused the initial bubbling when we last inspected the port due to emulsification and could also be responsible for the faulty readings. The true test will be the data quality that comes in on the first cast for the next cruise. Fingers crossed.

An extended stay in port affords a great opportunity to thoroughly inspect and clean the sampling equipment–namely, the two science seawater manifolds on board, which are a network of sensors, valves, piping, and tubing. Armed with a good audiobook, an armful of rags, my favorite set of wrenches and a bouquet of pipe cleaners, getting this equipment tuned and ready for its next mission is a straightforward and rewarding job.

Difficult to believe as we pass the amazing sunlit peaks of the outer Aleutian Islands, but I will soon be leaving Alaska and heading down to Seattle for my last cruise of this six-month internship. I have been to some far-flung places and think it’s pretty cool to come full-circle in a way. The very first cruise back in April was working within the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Coastal Pioneer Array in the Atlantic and this last cruise will be recovering and deploying moorings within the OOI Coastal Endurance Array off the coast of Washington and Oregon. The observational data provided by these moorings help in understanding how climate change is impacting the ecosystem here. It’s a really cool project and I recommend reading more about it here.

This last cruise will be on the R/V Sally Ride, where I have spent most of my internship. She’s an amazing ship with a great crew and I am looking forward to getting another trip with her.

More soon!

Emily

5: The turn of the tide

By Emily Cheung

On September 9, 2018

In Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences & Arizona State University, MATE Blog Archive, R/V Atlantic Explorer

When I wake up we are dockside in St. Georges. The wind, too, has shifted. Typically, there is a steady breeze coming in from the Northwest, or no breeze at all. But today, at sunrise, I face East and feel wind on my cheeks. The sky is pink and warm.

Even though the cruise is complete, there is still unloading of all the scientists and their equipment, which can take a couple of days if everything goes smoothly. After demobilization, there is usually some time to fix any issues that arose while at sea, maybe get a day or two off, and then prepare for the next batch of scientists.

Dockside in St. Georges

This week, Jillon returns! She is another technician aboard the Explorer, and once she is back I will no longer be the only female on the crew. Women at sea are a rare breed, tasked with forging their own space in a workplace that continues to be largely dominated by men. Life at sea is not glamorous or forgiving, and includes living on a boat with a bunch of boys. For these reasons, I have found that the women who have chosen this life are resilient, independent, and pretty incredible.

Jillon arrives and lives up to the expectation. She is all smiles with a bright and sunny disposition, a surfboard strapped to the side of her moped, a sticker-covered water bottle in hand, and the symbol for ground tattooed on her forearm. I spend most of the week with her.

We begin work with the waterwall. The underway seawater system is designed to pull seawater in at the bow of the ship, where temperature and salinity of the surface water are measured. Through a series of pipes, the seawater winds its way along the port side of the ship, past the steward’s stateroom (which it occasionally floods), through hallways, and inside the forward lab. The foremost wall in the lab is covered in sensors that measure the rate of flow, fluorescence, and dissolved carbon dioxide. A network of tubes connects the sensors and directs the water through each and subsequently into the sink and overboard. This allows for water sampling to be done at any time from the convenience of the lab and for constant monitoring of the ocean’s surface water characteristics throughout the cruise.

During the Sentry cruise, one of the fluorometers began to leak seawater, so we discreetly shut down the waterwall and removed the sensor. The previous group of scientists weren’t interested in the underway data, but the upcoming BATS team definitely is. Jillon and I remount the sensor, more securely this time, and tinker with the valves and water pressure until the flow meters spin.

We make other repairs and handle issues as they pop up. Jillon also teaches me how to terminate cables and solder electronics, which I am very excited about. By the end of the week it feels as if we have accomplished a lot. Jillon is driven to be productive, and in just a short time, I have learned a great deal from her.

Jillon on the back deck

In our free time we drive to the ocean side of the island and I swim while she surfs. The sand on the south shore is fine and speckled with rose-colored bits that have made Bermuda famous for its pink beaches. The surf isn’t spectacular, the waves are short and steep and crash all at once, but that doesn’t stop anyone from trying. Anyways, it is healthy to just escape the boat every once in a while.

I have completely lost track of time, and I suddenly realize I am just a couple weeks away from my departure. All of me wishes I could stay longer. This upcoming cruise will be my last, at least during this internship. Now, there is talk that the next cruise may be postponed; a tropical storm is inbound from the east. Jillon’s face brightens at the thought of the surf.