We made it back to port, after a very long transit from Mississippi Canyon to LUMCON. Due to the sheer size and amount of our equipment, we spent two days demobilizing. A crane and sixteen wheeler was ordered for the removal of the ROV and ROV tech van. The following days consisted of unloading equipment and preparing for our following cruise. Because our CTD was not used on our prior cruise, we had to reload and prepare our CTD with adequate sensors, reterminate our two CTD wires and regrip our hanging cable. In addition to CTD work, I flushed our MIDAS flow through system using pumps and a 10% bleach bath. I let the pipes sit over night and by the time we were finished demobilizing, the pipes were well-cleaned. The usual office duties and sensor inventory was also completed.
After a long few days, I made my way over to Gulfport Mississippi to board another research vessel- the R/V Point Sur. In between my time on the Pelican and Point Sur, I made a detour to Texas. The trip was very enjoyable and it was nice to stop and smell the roses after a long cruise. Feeling well rested and high in spirits, I docked the Point Sur.
Point Sur Endeavors:
I am admist my first Point Sur cruise: the mission is multi-coring and CTD work.
Our first day came with some variability with the multi-core system. Specifically, we had difficulty getting the MC800 trigger mechnisms to fire at depth. All the parts are functioning as they should- after some refitting, regreasing and some serious TLC- but we continued to perfect our bottom method throughout the week. With the multi-core, it is important to drive the core- with the winch- into the sediment properly, but depending on the sediment, you may not want to linger for too long or too little on the bottom. Attached to our multi-core system is a transducer- so we used HYPACK and the Tracklink software once again- a skill I am now more increasingly familiar with. Throughout the trip I learned a lot about multi-coring, its trigger mechanisms and how it works. The device can be finicy and it is important to test, test, test before deploying down to 2000+m.
In addition to multi-coring, I learned a lot on the mechnical and tech side of things. Mechnically, I began operating the a-frame, j-frame and crane on the boat throughout the entirity of the cruise. The experience was a good confidence builder, and while it requires a great amount of responsibility, I am happy to reach a point where I am capable of taking that responsibility on. In addition to a few wire terminations on the multi-core winch wire, I fixed a few CTD landyard bottles and even got to shrink another cup! I will post photos below.
On the tech side of things, this cruise enabled me to better my CTD software skills- specifically in using its data processing hardware and converting cnv, dat and text files! I also installed several VGA monitors, hooked them up with ethernet jacks, ran several cables throughout the walls and terminated a ADU800 (heading, pitch and roll system) connector. I am very thankful for the extreme welcome I was given on the Point Sur- they made my time away from my home ship more than comforting!