San Diego is here, and compared to the relative slowness and lull of the transit leading up to our arrival (we were out of packing boxes halfway through and couldn’t really get much offloading work done after that) I’m glad that things have started to pick up. We’ve been flitting around packing oceanographic instruments and Alvin hardware into shipping containers to be hauled off by the ship cranes.
On our way to port we spotted what I assume is a SpaceX rocket launching Starlink sattellites from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara. I’m pretty sure I heard the sonic boom go off as it was going into orbit. It was a neat coincidence that we were at the right place at the right time when this happened.
The captain and the chief mate let me pilot the ship for a little while which was a lot more difficult and nervewracking than I thought it would be. You can control the Z-drives that rotate the propellers 360 degrees from the ship’s bridge, and you have to manage your speed of rotation by angling them just right so that you can get to where you’re going. There’s a lot of things to keep track of, and even when you point the vessel in the right direction it’s easy for a large wave or swell to start pushing you slightly off course. Changing the rate of rotation isn’t super responsive either, so you have to be very careful not to turn too quickly and overshoot. I had fun though! It was an excellent experience.
In the San Diego port, there seems to be a navy dolphin training facility next to us, which is crazy because I genuinely thought they stopped training dolphins for military purposes after the Cold War. I assumed it was military dolphins anyway, considering the entire region south of us is a naval base and I literally saw dolphins hop around in these little sectioned-off areas in the facility. Insane.
After we fully docked, it was actually time to get to work for once. There was a lot of Alvin paraphernalia we had to haul on shore such as the two lead-acid batteries in the vehicle (as well as the one spare in our battery hold), various cargo containers full of cameras, scientific equipment, lights, metal frames and hardware, and more.
I did also get to explore San Diego a bit. The view from our dock is already pretty good, and the crew and I have gone into the neighboring towns and downtown districts a few times after work just to see what’s out there. It does take around 15 minutes by car to go downtown and we don’t have a lot of rental cars available, so going there is mostly reserved to special occasions or weekends. I can confirm Mexican food down here is as good as they say it is.
I don’t really have much more to say about our work since it is mostly just packing and shipping of various items until the finish line, but I’ll keep you all updated if anything of note occurs. Look forward to my final post (or penultimate post? It’s unclear).
Cheers!
Aidan