Author: Brianna Roberts

Tuesday May 2, 2023

The first half of the day consisted of A-frame testing. In the previous tests (see blog post…) it was noted that the A-frame warped while being tested with weights. 

These weights were approximately 4,600lb combined. When picked up by the dush 4 winch and A-frame, it would significantly warp. Today was to test possible causes for that. They did that by positioning weights and lifting on either side. This would isolate the problem. If the A-frame warped equal amounts with the weight lifted on either side. 

The hydraulic differential appeared to be a symptom of the problem. One of the differentials was struggling much more than the other. When the weights were tested on the Aft side, these differentials were the same, indicating that the problem lies with the bow hydraulics. 

After break Rory took me on top of the bridge where the satellites and antennas are mounted and I got to go inside one of the domes!

Apparently these are some really big domes for this size ship. You can see the picture of me inside them for comparison. We have to make sure these domes are turned off while working on them because of the radiation produced. 

After that I went back to working on the code from before. There’s always room for improvement with coding. The current task is to get the code to be able integrate with not just the TX520 sensor but all devices that produce serial data with an RX232 input. Technically the input should be easily changed but it’s needed to go into the code and manually change the pin ID’s.

The goal is to make this completely automated with no action required from the user. 

Essentially we want it to:

Connect to sensor

Cycle through baud rates until the correct one is found

Write the incoming data to a list 

Print these out on an LCD and update while new data is sent in.

This is an interesting project but it is definitely time consuming. Seeing as I only have 6 days left and 5 of them will be spent at sea I’m not sure how much more time I’ll be able to allocate to this. 

May 3, 2023

Today we had a day-long HYDRO station cruise with BATS. It consisted of a few CTDs at various depths along with a glider recovery. Apparently the glider notified land that there were a few leaks relinquishing it inoperable. Here you can see the glider (yellow) getting hooked so we can bring it in on the boat.

Very simple day. We docked at St. George’s and are waiting on the weather forecast to see if we’ll begin the mooring deployment tomorrow or wait until Friday. As it stands, it seems that we will be waiting until Friday to deploy in better weather.

The bridge notified us that the wind sensor was not functioning and so Oban and I went to see if there were any obvious disconnects in the wire. This lead to us going “Aloft” and Oban strapped into a harness to climb up. I wanted to do it but my inexperience would have just had me climbing up there for fun. You can see how high he climbed in the picture below. 

Nothing of significance was noted in the wire connection and so we decided to call it a day. 

May 4, 2023

Dock day! Today we did any last minute maintenance around the ship that can be completed in a day. 

Oban has contacted the company that made the weather sensor in order to get any guidance for possible troubleshooting. It seems that they might need to send it in for re-calibration.

Most of the day I was altering my code that I wrote to read out data from NMEA sensors. My goal today was to get it to automatically change baud rates once the correct sequence of data is found. I got a rudimentary code working but it wasn’t working well enough to put to use. At this point the code started having more and more moving parts in it and so I decided to move things into a finite state machine in order to get it to work. That’s a task for tomorrow though. 

May 5, 2023

Today we deployed from St. George for the mooring cruise at 7:30 am. 

We were in transit for the first half of the day and since there wasn’t much to be done I took the liberty to go down into the engine room and talk to the chief engineer to see if I could learn a thing or two. 

Afterwards Rory showed me how the satellites connect to the internet, and then how the internet is managed. It’s surprising how many components go into this but yet seem so simple. 

We deployed a CTD once we got to the approximate position of the mooring so we could do some samples at depth and again at surface. This will help to calibrate the findings on the mooring. After it was deployed we had quite a bit of down time so I picked up my code again in order to implement the finite state machine. It took a bit of testing but so far it’s working! I only have one sensor with one baud rate to test it against but Lydia might be able to get me another this evening or tomorrow. When we were docked I could use the GPS input sensors but since we’re deployed it’s not a great idea to mess with any coordinates that are imperative to the boats navigation system. 

We just recovered the CTD and are now done for the day. Finally tomorrow we will be able to recover the mooring! 

We have to get up before the sun rises to begin recovery because the first thing that we do after releasing the mooring is “see” where it is. Since there is a flashing light on it it’s “easiest” to see it when it’s dark. I’m quite excited. 

I will likely be on the first morning shift so I can see all the goings-on required for this, which means I also will likely get to break earlier.

Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong this time. 

We recovered the mooring!!!! It’s fascinating how long it is (over a mile in length) and it’s hard to imagine just how deep the water beneath us really is, but this recovery definitely helps put things into perspective. Interestingly, the way that the mooring is recovered here is to pick it up from the bottom and wind the wire in up to the top, stopping for wire replacements and instrument removal. Here you can see the final buoy and ADCP being recovered on deck.

In the morning (before daylight) the ship turns off all transmitting acoustics so that the scientists can turn on their own acoustic transmitter (this is what I helped set up in the straza tower a week ago). This is because they need to “communicate” with the bottom mooring release in order to tell the mooring to drop the weights and resurface. Having multiple acoustic transmissions going at the same time is similar to trying to hear one person when many are talking all at once. essentially messages consisting of:

 “Are you awake?” 

“Yes I’m awake” 

“Please drop the weights” 

“Ok”

Once the weights have been released, it takes approximately 5-7 minutes for the top of the mooring to surface and about 40-50 minutes for the rest of it to surface. Now everyone working right now needs to go up to the bridge and look for the mooring. One of the crew mates, Henderson, was exceptionally good at spotting it. Once it is spotted, the person that sees it will hold their arm with hand open, gesturing towards where they saw it and try and get as many eyes on it as possible. Each of the instruments attached to the mooring have their own set of buoyancy spheres that will raise and so it is important to see each of these segments (with different colors and numbered spheres) in order to know where to pick the mooring up. After we located it, the whole mooring surfaced, and we picked it on a grappling hook, then is where the winches and lines come into play. 

It took us a total of 7 hours (a little on the long side) but this was because we had to replace FOUR 400 meter long lines. We also had 2 tangles which impeded progress significantly. This is where things get more confusing, because you can have a whole mess of wires going in every direction with a bunch of tension on each of them and you need to decypher which ones go where. The scientists have each of the segments of wire labeled so that’s how we would tell where it’s supposed to go on the mooring. It was really cool to see all that tension transfer from one line to another in order to remove and repeat the processes. We had to replace a lot of the segments of wire which was done after a certain number of deployments or after significant damage from a tangle. In order to replace the segments, we had to reel it onto the big squid (large winch we were using), tie off the rest of the mooring with a deck line to hold the tension, unhook the line and wind it onto an empty spindle. Unfortunately, the spindle that holds all the wiring when loading and unloading it onto the mooring, is HAND OPERATED. 

It requires a lot of arm strength. Apparently they’ve got a compressed air powered spooler ordered but it won’t arrive for quite some time, and so hand spooling it is in the meantime. I had a critical job on this recovery- taking care of the diapers. Each of the links on the mooring need to be covered with a protective cushioned cloth so that when it’s tension-loaded onto the winch, the shackles won’t bend or pierce the wire around it. I’m so glad I got to see the mooring recovery as I was worried that our last trip cancellation might not allow me this. 

Tomorrow we will be re-deploying the mooring which includes dropping a 2,500 lb weight at the end of the line and having it sink down. Apparently this process is much more straight-forward and therefore runs faster. We will see if that rings true tomorrow. 

May 7, 2023

Today was mooring deployment day! It took us around 5 hours to get everything in the water. Similar to yesterday it was a lot of taking tension on and putting it somewhere else in order to attach different wires, buoys, and instrumentation. 

Tuesday April 25, 2023

Today I’ll be doing as much as I can. I’m continuing the cyber-security course that Rory directed me to and I’ll be doing some future job/ internship searching as well. 

Lydia gave me an Arduino to play with! 

I managed to get the ultrasonic sensor working and then moved to hook up the LCD monitor. I managed to give it a little test (it didn’t work) but by that time it was dinner so I decided to pick it up in the morning.

Wednesday April 26, 2023

Today I spent the day working with the Arduino Lydia had given me. 

LCD monitor worked

Lydia brought me a new bread board

Wrote code to integrate the two LCD and Ultrasound

Now the goal was to get usable data from the Sensor. This turned out to be more confusing than anticipated as I’d never done it before.

Here we have the Weather sensor Vaisala TX520 (it’s upside down because I didn’t have a mount)

I managed to get data by plugging directly into the Arduino- but it was unusable because it was just unorganized strings of numbers. I may have been able to go off of this to see if I could decipher the content but decided to try the RS232 Shield instead because the sensor has information on using a RS232 port (*SPOILER* This took an additional 3 days to fully understand and connect the RS232 Port with the sensor).

Also definitely spent much longer than necessary figuring out how to integrate the shield with the arduino… (Brianna the shield goes on TOP of the arduino and conveniently plugs into all of the ports!!!… Almost as if it was incredibly obvious and DESIGNED that way… In my defense… the plugs were covered by styrofoam and therefore I could not see them.)

Managed to get more data but this time it’s coming out as SYMBOLS. Ugh. At this point I had been staring at the screen for hours on end and needed to give my brain a break.

April 27-28 & May 1, 2023

I’m going to group the next 3 working days into one because they were all focused on the same thing, and the progress was painfully slow despite the immense amount of effort put in. Unfortunately, I’ve gone above and beyond implementing this sensor with an arduino at the cost of precious precious time, patience, dignity, and reputation (oops). Hopefully my mentors aren’t too disappointed. 

Some lessons that I have learned and utilized from this experience (that may seem obvious) I summarized below: 

Do as much research on all the components present as possible before sinking too deep in the problem.

Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions.

Keep good notes of the progress, and link to any useful information you’ve found.

Create a general plan of attack/ blueprint of method and change whilst you go along.

Don’t get hyper fixated on the one problem. It’s easy to just look at the problem at hand and come up with a specific solution. However, it’s innovative to see how this problem might be similar to other problems, and even more creative to adjust your solution to be applicable to many problems (Thank you Lydia!). 

And so without further ado I’d like to present to you… 

The Arduino LCD Output NMEA Sensor reader (TALONS (ignore the r)) 

(Yes I included more words so I could make a catchy acronym. As you can see that didn’t work great, but the initial alternative was “ANTS” which came out as “Arduino NMEA The Sensor”… which wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.)

Now if you say it’s silly that there’s an acronym within the acronym (NMEA, a legitimate acronym: National Marine Electronics Association) then I don’t know what to tell you other than I put blood, sweat, and tears (minus the blood) into this program so there.

Though anticlimactic, here is the result of all that work. A LCD monitor that displays sensor data! Note that this code is (hypothetically) integratable with all sensors that have an RS232 connection and NMEA formatting. Also, the string displayed is not the full data string output by the sensor and so options of either getting a larger LCD or having the data scroll will be explored. 

I will not be including the code here because looking at it makes my eyeballs sad.

Over the weekend (April 29-30) I took full advantage of the bike and went exploring blue holes, caves, and mangroves! 

ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF “Brianna On a Boat” (BOB)…. haha

We will see what adventures Brianna can find herself in with not one but TWO cruises this week. A quick day-long hydro-station on wednesday and then the MOORING CRUISE Thursday-Monday! 

 

Thank you for your time 🙂

April 17, 2023

Since we got back to shore we’re back to an 8-5 schedule. 

Today we didn’t have too many things to do. Oban and I were tasked with replacing one of the VHF antennas on the bridge which sounds easy, but was much more time consuming than we thought it would be. We only had to remove the old antenna and wire, and install the new one, but this took all day. Things just kept going wrong (of course). Taking down and installing the antenna was the easy part, it was the removing and reinstalling the new wire that was difficult and we’re still not done. This was mostly because it required feeding the wire through tight spaces and tubes and running it through ceiling panels which was cramped, and stuffy and took a lot of patience. We even had to drill a new hole in the ceiling so we could remove the old wire. The pictures below show the antenna we removed and the little “upside-down” U shaped wire tunnel we had to feed it through. 

April 18, 2023

Today was an important day where we tested all of the winches to make sure they can handle the weights that will be used for the next cruise, and just to make sure all is working well. Doing these weight tests also works as a calibration for the readout of the tension load on the winches. This works by using a transducer to relate voltage or current running through the wire to the force that is being ‘applied’. Essentially, the winch lifts a known weight of both small and large loads to create a linear relationship with the voltage, which is updated to the winch operating system for calibration. Below you can see some of the weights we used- which were 2,500 lb TRAIN WHEELS! So cool! We then loaded them on board the ship with the crane. 

There are a lot of winches on board the ship, and they take quite a bit of time getting used to all the names, their operation procedure (more how to handle what the winches will be used on), capacities, and maintenance. I’m still getting a hang of all the names but this is what I have come to learn so far:

DUSH 5: This is the winch that we use most often because it is used to deploy the CTD. It has an approximate load capacity/ application force of around 20,000 pounds (I think) but we have a safety margin of 5,000 pounds, which I believe is because of the capacity of the wire. The CTD weighs between 1,100 pounds and 1,600 pounds when it’s full with water. The low test for the winch was around 420 pounds and the higher test was around 4,600 pounds. The winch could handle this load just fine (which *spoiler* won’t be the case for the DUSH 4 even though it’s supposed to), however the A frame seems to be significantly strained- that’s a problem for another time. 

DUSH 4: The DUSH 4 is a hydraulic winch on the port side of the first deck. This had been strength tested to 4,600 lbs less than 6 months ago, however this time it could only lift approximately 3,400 lbs- this is not up to criteria. Lydia suggested they close some valves, and after that was done it lifted 4,100 lbs- which was better but still not what she expected.

COM7: We tested this first and began with the 460 lb weight, and then maxed it out at 2,500 lbs. This was the easiest and also the most successful.

Big Squid: This was tested with the full weights of 460 lbs and the full 4,600 lbs. 

Once all the testing was done it was about 1500- break time! After that Oban and I went to finish up the VHS stuff that we had done yesterday- this included plugging the wires that we had just run into their corresponding radios. All that was left was to attach the GPS to the radio, which is necessary for a distress signal, it will send a signal to all those within the field of view that can receive a distress signal along with the coordinates. 

April 19, 2023

Today I worked mostly on UPS testing. This was a bit more complicated than I had initially anticipated, yet the directions seem simple: 

Locate the UPS

Identify any electronics that are plugged into the UPS (each of these need to be shut down and unplugged prior to testing the UPS.

Determine the Power output limit (in Watts)

Consider known electronics with power inputs good for the test and plug in.

Unplug the UPS

Time how long the battery lasts.

The first UPS that I worked on had quite a few difficulties. There were 4 things plugged into this UPS. Interestingly the first one was a desk light, which I suppose is important in emergencies so it makes sense. The other things are, 2 navigation monitors, and a “Man Overboard” alarm system. This seems simple enough except one of the wires was not labeled and so I had to trace it back to where it was, which required going up through the ceiling panels and finding where it originated. 

Before I was finished locating the other wire, the scientists came on board today to begin “mobbing” (mobilizing) all their supplies and equipment. I helped them install a Transducer to send out a signal to communicate with an acoustic release- this is what releases the mooring during recovery. Installing it involved just a few bolts and some more wire feeding and management (hurray) but it was in a part of the ship I had not seen yet! It’s on the first deck behind a door that looks like it is sealed shut and hadn’t been opened in many years. This opens to a small cavity about 2ft x 2ft square that extends down to the hull of the ship. This cavity is generally called a “moon pool” but on this ship is called the straza tower. Here you can see a picture of the transducer that we installed. 

After we were done with that, I went back to the UPS’s and managed to finish 3 of them. You can see the chaos required to figure out sources for each of the UPS. Luckily most of these wires were labeled which made it relatively easy.  

April 20, 2023

This morning, Oban and I worked on assembling the wire after it had been unplugged from the CTD for the winch tests. Managing wires is especially important on the CTD because of the conditions it is sent to. Normal wire management is to keep everything neat and organized, but managing wires on the CTD is to minimize drag and force being applied onto the wire. The way to do this is by zip-tying the wire throughout the CTD and along the metal frame. 

Unfortunately later it was determined that we needed to terminate the wire so all we had done was immediately undone. However it was really cool to see a wire termination as there are a LOT of steps to make sure everything goes properly. We took off about 30 ft of wire. Wire termination consists of attaching the winch wire to a port that connects to the CTD and also keeping everything structurally sound. Since the wire is directly attached to the CTD, it is imperative that the load is taken off the bottom part of wire where it attaches in order to keep a good connection. Once we terminated the wire we did a quick weight test and connection test to make sure we can still communicate with the CTD and that the wire can hold it too.

During these tests, the A-frame was noted to have been a bit strained and warped by the previous weight testing and so the hydraulics will need to be checked the next time there’s heavy maintenance on the ship. 

Later I went and updated many of the computers aboard the ship. This entailed doing a windows update, a chrome update, and an antivirus update. Simple enough it was just time consuming. 

April 21, 2023

Deployment day! Today we are deploying on the “conte” cruise. This cruise we will be recovering and re-deploying a 4,500 METER LONG MOORING!! :O 

We had a meeting discussing the recovery and deployment of the mooring and apparently what we do is grab the bottom end first, and then pull in all the way to the top. Now this sounds easier than it apparently is- with the process generally taking approximately 4-5 hours with a possibility of another 6 hours if anything goes wrong. (Fingers crossed that it goes smoothly.) 

Today consisted mostly of transportation and a few tests of the conte machinery. 

First we tested their acoustic releases by sending them down to 1,500 meters and seeing if the transducer would communicate with them properly. Everything worked well! It was really cool to hear these machines communicating with each other. Essentially there are a series of patterns and codes that are sent at specific frequencies to the acoustic releases and once these patterns are recieved you can listen for the response- in this case it was 4 high pitched quickly repeated “chirps.” In order to do this test we obviously needed to turn off our acoustic echo sounder- which runs at 12 MHz, similar to the communicator. After the test was concluded, we prepared for a short pump deployment.

These are going to be very similar to the pump deployments of the bats cruises where they pump water through and collect the material in a filter. 

We will be doing a few pump deployments this evening and then first thing in the morning (even before breakfast) we will begin the recovery. 

Unfortunately the cruise was postponed so we’re heading back to port for the time being.

April 22, 2023

Today we made it back to the dock and since we got back towards the afternoon we got the rest of the day off as it was the weekend. Rory mentioned that the cruises might be postponed for a week or so, and if I can get my return flight postponed as well I might be able to join them still. Working out the semantics- fingers crossed!

April 23, 2023

Today was a very quiet day, it was Sunday so we had the day off and I took the opportunity to catch up on emails and rest.

We had a nice little barbeque for dinner. It was very fun and much needed. Towards dusk I pulled out the guitar and we all sang and played songs.

April 24, 2023

Today we’re working on demobilizing and each of the techs are working on a cyber-security certification. 

I hope they let me extend my stay so I can get on at least one more cruise. 

 

April 10, 2023

Today was a windy and rainy day, but luckily most of our tasks were inside the ship, so wet gear was not required.

First I helped Oban install a new PC for an existing CCTV camera that points towards the CTD winch. It involved wiring, updates, program installation, and a little bit of hardware to mount the PC and keep it from moving during deployment. 

Then I helped clean a net deployment latch that had gotten covered in glue and sponge for some reason, and thus didn’t function well.

Then Lydia had me go down to the lower deck to open up the Pinger to get diameters of the O-rings and check the battery sizes, so that the techs can order and replace them. It was heavy and hot down there, and I was down there for about an hour. It took much longer than anticipated because measuring the O-rings was not easy. Eventually I took a rough estimate, went back to the tech lab to look for the possible dimensions, and then went back down to see which ones matched closest. 

April 11, 2023

This morning Rory (Mentor) showed me how to check and replace batteries for the UPS’s on board. UPS’s (Uninterrupted Power Supply) are essentially a temporary backup power supply for when the main generators malfunction and the backup generators need time to turn on. Machinery and sensors are plugged into these so that when there is a power failure, the UPS jumps to battery usage and keeps the device powered up long enough for the generators to kick in. There are many already installed aboard the R/V AE, however there are a few old unused ones that need testing and battery replacement. You can see an opened one below:

Rory gave me 3 of them to work on as a side project for when the main techs don’t need any additional help. Once I loaded them on board, I had a side project with Oban.

I helped him install a PA system from the tech lab to the lab on the bow. This required wire management with zip ties and terminators with crimps instead of soldering. We also used an interesting insulation material that is gooey and sticky for internal wire insulation that we then sheathed with stretch tape. We initially were going to use heat shrink but it didn’t fit after the insulation was added. 

Once the PA system (a horn speaker) was attached to the bow lab, we had to feed the wire back to the tech lab. This required going from the outside to the inside which meant going through a watertight port. These ports need to basically have removable and accessible wire ports but also remain watertight when not in use. Unfortunately the removal and addition of the wires is not easy. It requires a lot of finagling. Plus, if the rubber material (seen in image) is at all decomposed or corroded, it makes it stickier and more difficult to remove. As can be seen are the little blue and black “rings” around each of the wires. 

Each of the rings can be either added or removed to accommodate different wire sizes. These rings are composed of 2 varying sized “rectangles” that are wrapped around the wire to create hollow cylindrical hemispheres. Interestingly, though I’d expect to use small bits of thin glue to keep the rectangular rubber pieces surrounding the wire in place, instead you use lubricant! Also, instead of building the rings around the wire, there’s a hemispherical “pocket” that each of the rectangular ring inserts will sit, and then once enough rubber material is built up, the wire is sandwiched in between and then forced back into the main component. For reference, removing and re-inserting required the use of a punch and chisel, as well as a big rubber mallet, and lots of patience and force. By the end of the whole debacle Oban and I were both red in the face and sweaty, no thanks to the perfect yet warm and humid Bermuda weather.

Throughout the day I also got lots of practice with finding where everything is in toolboxes which I’m sure will be very helpful. 

Towards the end of the day I took the 2 UPS with newly replaced batteries (the third is not turning on so requires further investigation) and set them on an overnight charge to test later.

April 12, 2023

Today we leave for a cruise! We will be departing at around 1300. Apparently we would have gone earlier but can only leave when the tides permit, so before then we started off with a safety briefing and fire drill. Apparently I have some responsibilities in regards to the fire- taking care of scientists and whatnot. I’m not sure who’s idea that was (just kidding.)

Oban and I then tested the audio system that we installed yesterday. 

I put on seasickness patch just in case.

On cruises techs have 12 Hour shifts instead of 8 hour shifts. I’m a bit nervous, hopefully I’ll be able to sleep and rest up plenty to have enough energy to be helpful. The tech’s schedule is 3am – 3pm. My schedule is set to overlap each of theirs by a few hours and is tentatively 9am-9pm, unless there is a significantly interesting operation on deck that the techs want me to be a part of lying outside of the 9 to 9 window.

I need to get everyone’s WhattsApp so I can talk to them later. I hope they add me.

Set off on the cruise and so far so good! I was feeling a bit queasy during our initial transit but since I used the seasickness patch it wasn’t too bad. I was also feeling exhausted, so after I took a quick nap, everything was fine! I think I can officially say that I’ve got my sea legs. 

We did 2 CTD casts during my shift today. I got to watch both of the deployments, Lydia is an old hat at this. The first cast was a shallow water cast at 500m. For the second cast at around 3500 m, we removed the PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) sensor because it is “only” pressure rated to 2000m. This sensor is used to record the light penetration at depth, and of course is only really useful for the first hundred meters or so. We then replaced it with a sensor that can determine how many rotations the CTD experiences on the way down and back. Lydia invented this device, and mentioned that it uses an internal compass. I think that it operates assuming that it is always positioned upright? The MT’s are unsure if the rotation of the CTD affects the data, but Lydia mentioned that this sensor is just to begin observing to see if it does affect it at all. I assume that the rotation of the CTD does not affect the integrity of the data too much, but likely does affect the load bearing that the wire holding the CTD can handle. 

We can still see the shore of Bermuda which is nice because it gives orientation. I was kind of hoping to go out so far as to not see it anymore, so as to feel entirely isolated and get the full “at sea” experience.

April 13, 2023

First night wasn’t entirely restful, but I did get some sleep. I kept falling asleep and then waking up again. I think both rocking and the goings on in the ship kept me awake with the occasional door slams and “bumps” in the night. Tonight I’ll try ear plugs.

The first thing I did was observe the PITTS deployment which was quite fascinating to see. There are a bunch of tubes oriented vertically with the tops open all held in a rack, 5 tubes per rack. All along a line these racks are placed in with a weight at the bottom of the line. There are many lines severed and strung together with proper connections, each break in the line is where the basket of tubes is placed. At the top there are large buoy’s that keep the line oriented vertically within the water column. The goal for each of the tubes is to remain suspended at different depths of the water column, and collect “marine snow” during the entirety of the deployment. At the surface of the water there is a floating buoy with a large pole extending up as pictured. This is satellite communication so that we can go and find it again.

After that we did another CTD cast to 1200m, and upon retrieval we could see that the containers 16 and 24 did not fire again. Apparently Lydia had isolated the problem last night and it was determined that the mechanism that triggers the magnet that closes the cylinder is no longer water tight. There are ways that this can be temporarily fixed, but it seems that that method had already been used, therefore Oban decided that we should replace the mechanism altogether. There is a website that is used to keep track of all the tools and equipment on board, and in what state they are in. Checking this we could see that there is another mechanism available for use in the lower deck MT storage compartment. Oban and I went and grabbed it and began working on replacing the one on the CTD with the one that was in storage. This required moving some of the cylinders and wrenching bolts in awkward positions, you can see the removed cylinders in the picture below.

There was a little confusion on how to remove the current mechanism but luckily we were able to remove and replace it without difficulty. All this occurred while they were also doing plankton tows, and so had to stop what we were doing every 20 minutes or so. 

Now all that is left is to see if we replaced it correctly, and the only way to do that is to wait for the recovery and look at it in person.

At around 900 ascending CTD, the scientist on duty Alfonso and I noticed that the secondary salinity sensor appeared to be misreporting data. The difference between the primary and secondary was huge. After that the oxygen sensor began to malfunction as well. Oban mentioned that likely the cap came off while ascending, and since the salinity and oxygen sensors are on the same casing, it makes sense that they are both misreporting data. Interestingly though, the secondary temperature sensor seems to still be functioning fine, which is strange because it is also with the oxygen and salinity sensors. Here you can see how different the sensors were reading data. On the left is the good sensors, and in the middle is the haywire sensors and the innacuracies represented by all the horizontal yello lines.

 I suppose it’s things like this that are why we have backups of everything. Apparently the fix for this is a simple one, but unfortunately it seems we’ll have to wait until the CTD is recovered to fix it, then plug in the cover again. 

CTD successfully recovered! Unfortunately they don’t know what the problem is with the sensor, so Lydia and I replaced it with one of the backups. This required crawling underneath the CTD and loosening some screws. Here’s a cool image from below.

It appears that all the bottles successfully fired which means Oban and I installed the center mechanism properly. One bottle didn’t close correctly, but that was due to the lid being askew rather than the latches misfiring. 

We then did a C-OPS with Matt, which I still don’t fully understand, but I believe it’s a callibration test for the sattelites, which involves letting a line trail behind the boat until the sensor reads 85m and then pulling it back up and doing it another two times. It’s quite rudamentary in that you just drop the wire in and then all hands on deck grab and hoist the wire back up. Deck hands are basically running back and forth in order to retrieve this wire. I think next time they’re debating trying this with a block on the big A-frame in order to make it easier to pull.

I plan on working on the UPS later this evening, because we have a deep core with the CTD and that takes a long time, so there should be time in between to work on the UPS.

We sent the deep core CTD down and I got to deploy it myself instead of just watching this time!!!! It was super cool. 

I started working on the UPS after the CTD deep cast deployment. However I stopped a minute and a half in because the noise was unbearable and people are sleeping downstairs. I even had first mate Emmy come check to see what the noise is. I tested the grey 290W-360W with two box fans which will take up approximately 200W-210W. A good test will run for about 20 minutes, but having the alarm blast for 20 minutes straight didn’t seem like a good thing at the moment with people sleeping. I may try this again if I can find a plug outside. 

Towards the end of the day I had an hour left and decided to open up the “junk” UPS again to see if I could further isolate the problem. This UPS is from 2011, and something in it doesn’t work. The past few days I’ve been taking it apart and testing it with a multimeter and batteries but it’s quite difficult to reach into, and we’re dealing with 120V AC power which can be quite dangerous. When plugging the UPS in, it doesn’t even turn on and there is no DC voltage coming out of the battery leads. Today I was able to determine that the UPS is indeed getting 120V AC power initially, but somewhere between the AC input to DC converter there seems to be a problem. An hour had passed by and so it’s time to clean up and try again another day.

April 14, 2023

Today started out with an already deployed deep cast where all there is to do is wait for the recovery so for the first part of the day was relatively uneventful. In order to pass the time I decided to test the UPS again. This is the smaller grey one that has a max wattage output of 300W. In order to get an approximate test I used 2 box fans of 100W each to make it a 200W test. Once unplugged the UPS lasted for 15 minutes and 53 seconds. This is decent, but not great. One would hope for at least 20 minutes but then again since this is such a low wattage it likely doesn’t need to keep things on for that long. 

We then did another C-Ops with Matt using a block this time instead of purely by hand. Interestingly I don’t think it helped much more and was quite a bit more of a hassle, but that’s why we tried it is to see if it was worth it. 

Today was my first exposure to a pumps deployment. It’s relatively similar to the PITS sediment trap but this time with pumps. We attached 4 pumps at varying depth to a vertically suspended wire and let them sit for 5 hours. 

Afterwards we did another CTD deployment and while we were waiting I worked on the UPS again. I did a quick test with the black UPS and a 1200W heat gun. This was a mistake however because although the black UPS is much more sophisticated and has a screen with settings, it doesn’t have the wattage output labeled and I had only assumed that it was over 1200W. This was not the case. A quick internet research showed that it’s maximum output was 700W. This proved to be a problem because that meant I had to go looking for different appliances that would ultimately add up to nearly 700W. Phone chargers only use about 20W, iPad chargers use 61W, laptop chargers can use around 1400W. All the things I found used either too little or too much power. Eventually I stumbled upon a “dusting fan” that uses 480W. Pairing this with the two fans would give me a perfect 680W. I also brought out a glue gun to test if the appliances I plug in do indeed use up 680W and if the UPS is rated to 700W output. I did this simply by plugging all the appliances in so the output power needed was 780W, and waited for it to give me an “overload” error, which it did. I then plugged in the duster and fans, unplugged the UPS, and immediately started the timer. Interestingly it only lasted 6 minutes and 41 second, which given the output might be good enough, but I was expecting at least 20 minutes. Because I don’t fully understand the parameters for power and time, I’ll be asking Rory additional questions to see if the UPS works or if it is faulty.  

Lydia is letting me off 3 hours early today so that I can catch an early morning production deployment, I’m not entirely sure what that means. 

April 15, 2023

Woke up at 5 in the morning to do a production deployment. Production is basically the measure of how much C-14 is consumed by the organisms in each of the flasks. These flasks were filled with sea water from the CTD at varying depths, and then injected with a concentration of C-14 and suspended back at those depths. 

Quick shallow cast CTD deployment to 1200. Oban let me do it myself today and said I also might be able to do the recovery. Everything went smoothly.

While we were waiting I went downstairs to help one of the scientists Rebecca with preparing the testing samples by putting filters on nozzles. 

Interestingly, earlier I had assumed that the CTD’s sensor data are what the scientists use for the individual sensor values. However, this is not the case. The scientists will measure the exact data from the water extracted at this depth and then calibrate the generated sensor data to what they measured. 

April 16, 2023

Got up early to observe the PITTS recovery. There were a lot of things going on at once, and everyone had to remain vigilant to make sure they didn’t get caught up in a line. 

It seems that the recovery might have taken a bit longer than expected, because with the following CTD cast, we seem to be behind schedule by at least 15 minutes. I think we have like 6 CTD casts today all back to back to back. A CTD deployment has a series of events that need to happen in concession with the other. First the deployment, you have to be on deck to deploy the CTD. Then you have to run all the way up to the bridge (3 flights of stairs) to begin communication with the CTD. After the scientist has finished the Niskin sampling and the CTD is brought to the surface, you then have to shut down the machine and download the data, then run all the way down to the deck to recover it. This is usually not tiring at all. However, usually there is time between the deployment and recovery, but today they are incredibly short casts. Instead of having one tech run up and down the stairs for deployment and recovery, we will be using walkie talkies to coordinate.

Today is the last day of this BATS cruise. I still need to get everyone’s information. 

Week 1 Arrival in Bermuda

April 2, 2023

Unfortunately, when I arrived in LA on the 2nd, my flight was canceled and I wouldn’t have been able to make it onto the connecting flight to Bermuda. The only flight that the airline company was able to schedule me on didn’t depart for another 2 days. And so I waited. Luckily the ship wasn’t scheduled to leave for another few days and so though I would miss the safety briefing I should make it for the first cruise.

April 4, 2023

Airplane departs at 11:50pm without any difficulties.

April 5, 2023

I finally managed to arrive and I came right when the staff was having an Easter party. There were games and prizes for different little events. For food there was traditional “Hot cross buns and Fish cakes” which I had never had before, nor would I think to have the combination of a sweet roll made with cinnamon and raisins and inside place a savory fish cake, but it tasted great! Lydia (Marine Technician) showed me to my cabin and said we’d be departing at 9am in the morning. 

April 6, 2023

Luckily even though I missed the safety briefing the day before, they still let me onto the first day-long cruise, and the first mate Emmy gave me a make up safety briefing. This included donning a full immersion suit made of thick neoprene.

This cruise was with BATS, and was only for the day. My goal was to get accustomed to the ship and its operations. There were two scheduled CTD deployments at 3450m and then again at 100m. 

The only problem that arose while on the cruise was the seawater intake pump filter got clogged. It was noticed by Matt, one of the scientists, who saw that the flow rate of sea water had significantly decreased. Oban, one of the marine technicians, knew exactly what the cause was, “the pump is clogged with sargassum seaweed.” When we went to turn off the pump and check the strainer, sure enough there was sargassum seaweed blocking the flow. It’s got small pneumatocysts that hold air. When chunks are broken off from the main organism they float to the surface. This is a problem for valves that intake seawater under the ship because the seaweed is floating at the top and will get sucked up instead. Once the algae was cleared, once the pump was turned back on we could see that the flow was moving smoothly again.

While we were checking the flow rate, Oban had noticed that the fluorescence of one of the sensors was significantly different than the other. Since the day was almost done he wrote it up in the to-do log to check on the next maintenance day. He mentioned that a good way to tell which one is off is to compare the values to the CTD fluorescent values and likely the one that matches is the one that’s accurate.

Once we got back to shore, some of the crew and I went to a local restaurant called “White Horse” where I got a ginger soda. 

When we got back to the ship, Emmy told me where the “soft” blankets are, and that there are a limited number of them so I should grab one while I can!

April 7-9, 2023

Apparently the marine techs have this weekend and Friday off, which leaves me plenty of time to rest up, adjust to the time change, and explore. 

Luckily one of the crew said that I could use his bike, and so I’ve been riding as far as my legs could take me. Rory also lent me some bus tickets for a bus that runs all over the island, though I’ve yet to come close to following the bus schedule.

P.S.

A lot of the people on the R/V AE have accents from all around the world, and I noticed myself inclined to mirror them. I remembered hearing that there’s a phenomenon that after you spend a lot of time with someone with a different accent you’ll pick up a bit of it. A quick internet search found that this is called the chameleon effect, and is a natural occurrence where we unintentionally mirror others in order to bond and feel safe in social interactions. So it stands to reason that I will eventually adapt an English, Australian, Filipino, and a swashbuckling West Country “Long John-Silver” concoction of an accent. I endearingly look forward to it. 

Hiya! 

My name is Brianna Roberts, and I just graduated from Cal Poly SLO with a BS in Ocean Engineering. 

Some of the hobbies I enjoy are playing guitar, Surfing, painting, hiking, and free diving.

I have been passionate about the ocean for as long as I can remember. Solving problems and helping the ocean are what I want to incorporate into my career. I have some experience working on boats for my senior project. We built and deployed a deep sea lander with a video and bait system pressure rated to 1200m.  

I will be leaving for an internship aboard the R/V Atlantic Explorer deployed off of Bermuda assisting professional marine technicians for all the cruises for the duration of the month of April and into some of May 2023. I expect to learn how to deploy the different equipment that is aboard the R/V AE as well as fixing and cleaning various components when needed. I am so excited to immerse myself into the role of a marine technician and make connections along the way. I hope that this will open the door to many opportunities in the future revolving around Ocean Engineering and discovery. 

Thanks to Maria Osiadacz for this incredible opportunity and to the people that have supported me to get here!