Author: Daniel O'Grady

Week Five: What a week, started in the Pacific Ocean and now I’m in the Atlantic.  Thursday was our second engineering dive and our last dive in the Pacific because come Friday we were on way to Panama.  Friday was a workday, the sub had to go through its quarterly checks and it was all hands on to get everything finished.  For most of the techs this was their last day for work because once we got to Panama the remaining people from the last cruise got to leave.  We got into Panama Saturday morning; I have never seen so many ships together in one place.  There was a staging area just outside the canal, were ships would line up and wait their tern.  The Atlantis is a large ship for a research vessel but it was nothing compared to the tankers, fraters, and car carriers that we were sitting next to.  Saturday was a great day because with a lot of people getting off there wasn’t much effort getting put to keeping everyone on task. This allowed for a late start and with being so close to shore I had a chance to make a few phone calls.  It wasn’t our turn to go through the canal till late that night but being able to sit outside with the cool night breeze, watching us go through the locks was still really amazing.  Sunday we started off to our first Atlantic dive location, lust off the cost of Jamaica.  There was one rather big problem with this plan though and would be the tropical storm forming in our way.  The storm wasn’t our biggest problem we had to face that day.  Wile we were performing our checks on the HP air system there was a discovery of water in the air tanks.  This means that there was a leak some were in the system and we had to now run through and check the whole system.  This continued on until late Monday night and because of a mandatory 24-hour period to monitor the tanks we missed our dive schedule this morning.  So now we are up to today, well today we did not get the chance to do our deep dive.  We can’t stay and wait till tomorrow because with our due date at Woods Hole being on the 30^th we have a schedule to meet.  So we are working out a new dive location among the islands just north of Haiti.  Well that about sums up the pass week.

I had some more pictures but due to a completely new issue I can only have one on the front of my post. This is why I didn’t have the post with pictures like I said.  I am working it out with people on my end but for some reason the ships network hasn’t been to friendly with MATE’s web page.  This has been a constant struggle.

The adventure continues…  Yes week four has come and gone with me still a little behind schedule and this time it’s my fault.  The time spent from my last post to this one has been buzzy.  Last Thursday we finished prepping the batteries as the last step before needing to swap them out on the sub.  It’s a good thing we got the batteries done when we did because it became all hands on deck for an early recovery on Friday.  After an average start to the day the sub detected a ground somewhere in the main hydrologic system.  This ground forced the pilot to shut down both manipulators and affectively canceling the rest of the dive.  We were able to get the sub on the deck by noon and thus the work to fix the problem started.   The work continued on into the night only to find there was never a problem in the hydrologic system but in the ground detector itself.  To top it all off we ended up blowing a serge protector in the port power bottle and had to get inside to flip the switch.  With Friday spilling over into Saturday and only a couple of hours of rest we got the sub in the water on schedule for science’s twenty first, and last dive of their cruse.  Most of us then nocked off early and proceeded to get some much-needed reset.  Saturday afternoon quickly came around and the cleaning started.  We needed to have everything cleaned and ready for post cruse once we got into port and there was not one second to lose.  By Sunday morning we were back into port in Puntarenas, Costa Rica.  Most of our day was spent cleaning and getting the sub ready for the up and coming engineering cruse but we still had a chance to say Good By to the science group.  Monday was our first day off and it was not wasted. Looking for something to do so I jumped in with a group that was heading to go and see the Cloud Forest in Montverde.  I had a grate time but I didn’t take the change in elevation as well as I hoped and struggled with some of the paths.  We got back a little later then we had expected and I was out as soon as I hit my bunk.  Tuesday was back to work.  We got our new crew for the engineering cruse and they had a new list of objectives to work on with the sub.   This cruse has most of the top personal who work on Alvin as they are needing different systems checked and requirements met so we can take the sub to its maximum depth here in a couple of days.  We ended up working most of the day and most people went to hit the sack early… I was one of them.  I had completely forgotten to do my blog hence the Wednesday post.  Today wasn’t so bad.  We had our first engineering dive and got down to 1400 meters we are planning on going to a site tomorrow that starts at 1100 meters but bottoms out at 1800 meters.  Shortly after we set sail for Panama and have plans for several more dives in the Caribbean.  We also picked up some navy VIPs who will be accompanying us on these dives.  

O one more thing because there is a significantly smaller amount of people on board I have been able to get photos to work now. So here is some to get started.

        This is me working on the batteries.                         Batteries being completed.

Two Images from the science dives.

Two images of me working on the sub.

Some photos from the Cloud Forest

I will have a dedicated blog post for pictures tomorrow

Now that the third week has come to a close and one half of my time aboard the R/V Atlantis is just about over I can really get a sense of what life is like working on a research vessel.  First off any standers of a normal workday are gone.  As one of my fellow Alvin workers said it best “everyday is like a Monday.”  We wake up early every morning barely coherent, look for that pot of coffee and go through the same routine.  With no weekends off and always have work to do you would think that this would make this life style unbearable but it is just the opposite.  For everyone out here the benefits out way the cost.  The biggest problem we’ll face is not the when the sub decides to misbehave but it is time.  When you’re working with a piece of equipment that is designed to withstand more then 400 times the pressure of earths atmosphere.  Along with having to have the sub ready every morning promptly at 7:30 so the science team can go down and collect the samples they need, time is not really on your side.  Though we have been very fortunate this cruse that there have been no major issues with Alvin, even something as simple as an unwanted ground in the electrical system can set us back.  When working in this type of environment the biggest key to success is work cohesion.  Being able to get along with your coworkers is so important in this filed because you have to spend so much time together under high stress situations.  As an intern the first thing I learned was to know when it was time to get in and help out and then when to get out of the way. 

We have had 16 consecutive dives now with 21 total dives schedule for the science cruse.  Keeping track of day-to-day events has been getting harder because everyday is the same thing and at this point it all starts to mix together.  One day can feel like a lifetime but one week can feel like a day.  Despite this I am still enjoying my time out here, I love the work and I’m enjoying the people.  We are all quite literally stuck in the same boat.  As the science cruse is coming to an end we are expected to be arriving into port either the 10^th or the 11^th.  Once then we will say our goodbyes and head back out for the engineering segment.  There are only 4 dives planed for the engineering cruse, were we will be diving to the subs current maximum depth of 4500 meters (14,763 feet).  For a better example most naval subs cat go below a 1,000 feet (304 meters).  At the depth of 4500 meters you will be experiencing 450 atmospheres worth of pressure.  With experiencing 14.7 PSI (pounds per square inch) in one atmosphere, Alvin will be experiencing 6,615 PSI at 450 atmospheres.  Once the engineering dives are over I will be staying on the ship for the 2-week cruse back to Woods Hole Massachusetts.  I am not quite sure what jobs they will be having me do during the transit but I know I will be put to work.

Now on to the more interesting topic of what did I do this week?  I am getting this blog out a little late again do to a network failure on Sunday and a series of unfortunate events on my behalf Monday night.  The week started out just like any other.  On Tuesday we had to take the battery that I have been working on out in order to begin cleaning of the battery hold for ship inspection.  The cleaning didn’t start till Thursday and lasted over into Friday.  Thursday was game night on the ship so a bunch of us got together and played some card games.  On Friday we had gotten to a new dive cite and this one was only around 400 meters deep witch is very shallow for this sub.  Strangely this became problematic because all the connectors on the sub are meant to perform at more extreme depths.  We ended up having to deal with a ground in a cable witch was caused by a small amount of water making its way into the connector.  We thought we fixed the problem the night before but the ground returned the fallowing morning and we had to postpone the dive till 11.  These problems continued and on Sunday the sub had to surface half way through the dive because we got a ground in the hydraulic motor connection. This completely prevented any used of the mechanical arms on the sub so the dive could not be completed.  We were able to quickly fix the problem and get the sub back into the water only 30 minutes later.  Sunday night we got a massive storm witch prevented any use of the network and with the only free time I have is at night I could not get the blog out then.  On Monday we moved the batteries back into the hold and I got to work prepping them for final assembly. Once returned one of the subs cameras stopped working and we’ve begun working on fixing that.   Monday night we begun transit to a new location and just as I was ready so send my blog post the ship changed heading and blocked the satellite dish once again taking down the network.  Tuesday, today I had finished prepping the batteries and we are planning to start assembly tomorrow.  That just about sums up what I did for the last week.

I also want to say I was suppose to have some images in the last blog posting but didn’t due to a complication wile up loading so I’m going to try again tonight.  If I cant get it to work I will post the images separately in an few days once we get back to port. 

It’s Week Two. Yes the second week has ended and this one snuck up on me.  We keep to a steady schedule of getting out of bed at five, prepping the sub and trying to get it out on deck around seven fifteen, and in the water by eight. This means we all need to on our game to get our task done the right way wile being the most efficient. Sadly this means finding time for pictures of the prep, rollout, and launch can get difficult. Now have no fear I have some pictures of all the other work I’ve been doing.

            Now I believe I left off on last Tuesday with describing my struggles of finally getting the network figured out. So were on to Wednesday.  Wednesday was s bit of a late start for various reasons we did not get into the water till eleven o’clock. The camera crew that I had briefly mention before had bee for a show on Vice. Now I never caught what the show was called and any other information for that matter. It was very strait forward, here is the sub, here is how it works, and then they got to go down for a ride and look around. Do to the work I was doing at the time I didn’t really see them too much.  The Vice crew had there own vessel that they would return to at the end of the day and by Thursday they were gone.  

            Thursday, well Thursday is the day when the weather changed from sunshine and smooth waters to rain, rain, and more rain.  It really wasn’t that bad because the storms didn’t last long enough to produce large waves.  I started a new side project were I had to rebilled the thermal couples on the sub’s ICLs (inductively coupled link).  An ICL interface allows for a non-contact serial communication with an instrument via a pulsed AC magnetic filed.  This allows the sub to use different interchangeable tools on one arm and not have to worry about wires. 

            Friday was a little more interesting. The sub went into the water at its normal time and I continued work on the thermal couples. In all it went according to plain until it was time to pule the sub out of the water.  We had a visitor land on the walkway we use to get people in and out of the sub wile it was on deck.  At the time we didn’t think anything of it, birds land on the ship all the time so it was nothing new.  So after a wile we are finally bringing the sub in and this bird had not left yet.  Well we tried everything short of pushing the bird off the walkway and it still wouldn’t leave. Lone behold it wasn’t until we got everyone out of the sub when this bird decided stop standing in the middle of the walkway and flew off.

            Saturday was a great contrast to Friday because it didn’t stop raining.  It was raining when we put the sub in and was raining wile we took it out. There were no problems with the sub and spent most of my work time that day soaked to the bone.  The one thing that was interesting was the thunderstorms that night. Lightning rarely touches down out at sea so most of what we were seeing would branch across from one end of the sky to the other.

            Lastly it is today, Sunday.  The day started off like all the others, wakening up at five and getting the sub into the water. The weather finally started to clear up and the day was going well. Then around One

O-clock a pod of dolphins came by the ship. There had to be at least one hundred of them.  They were chasing down a school of fish and just so happened to pass by the ship. It had happen so fast that it was over before most of the crew new what was happening.  When it came time to bring the sub up it had begun to rain again and once it was on deck we got it into the hanger as quick as possible and unloaded the passengers from there.  In all the day went really well, other then getting bogged down with work for the sub tonight I have been in a pretty regular schedule the last two weeks.

            I am going to try to leave more photos this time and I noticed that my last photo didn’t scale properly for my posting.  I don’t know it if the case for everyone but if it continues to happen you can view the photo by right clicking and going to view image.  I am trying to figure it out.

My adventure started last Tuesday. I had to fly from my parents place in Virginia to Atlanta and then on to Costa Rica.  I was able to meat another member of the Alvin team in Atlanta.  Hue has been working at WHOI for a long time now but has not worked with Alvin to often during his time there.  When we got into San Jose I got to meat Mike, one of the Alvin pilots.  Mike has been doing this for a wile and has had the opportunity to dive on numerous locations. One very notably of which was the Titanic.  There were several people flying in that night so instead of leaving for the port everybody stayed at the local Days Inn.  The fallowing morning we drove two hours to Puntarenas.  Then we took the 12:00 ride over to the Atlantis.  The Atlantis had been out at anchor because the tides and swells were so strong that it would lead to issues wile in port.  Once I was aboard all the introductions began and I got to have a tour of the ship.  Once that was done I got to meat the rest of the Alvin group, Pat, Todd, Josh, Drew, Jason, and Danik.

Thursday was workday, the Alvin team had to get the sub completely ready for operations.  For me this meant that I would be working with the ET shop.  I had to be checking the different cameras and making sure everything was set up correctly.   Friday Started out with a weight party.  A weight party is when you wake up and report on deck at 5:00am to setup the weights for all the cruses.  We had to make 82 stacks and each stack had 16 weights.  Each weight ways 16 pounds so there is 256 pounds per stack. In the end we moved 20,992 pounds of steal weights.  The science group came aboard that day and started to setup all of their equipment.  Some of the bigger items we had to go into port to get.   As Saturday came around we left the bay at 9:00 and transited for 10 hours to our dive location.  Once there we got the elevator set up and dropped it for the dive on Sunday.  The elevator is a platform that is sent down with samples attached to it so the sub can place them and recover old samples that were left on pervious dives. Finally Sunday was our first dive day and it went well. I had gotten a run down of jobs I had to complete in order for the sub to get in the water on time. Then when the sub was in the water we prepped for its return and went on to do side projects. I started work on the batteries one of the battery packs had been swapped out and needed work done.  The sub was out of the water by 5:00 and then began the post dive operations.

Now I was intending to send out a post that night saying look guys its week one and we just did our first dive. As you can tell it didn’t go according to plan. Internet wasn’t working out to well. There are two more groups that are working on this ship with Alvin. Sentry, which is a UAV (underwater autonomous vehicle) and Wire Flyer, which is a autonomous bot that operates by moving up and down a wire that towed at deep depths.  That doesn’t include the science group that is working with Alvin. Every one of these groups needs to be utilizing the network so it has become very limited.  We have had two more dives sense Sunday, one on Monday and one today. They went off like clockwork with just your typical post dive maintenance.  I have finished my work on the batteries and have moved on to a couple different projects.  Things have been going well and there even was a film crew that came out today.  I didn’t see much of them but apparently they have a dived schedule for tomorrow. 

I’m going to try and post every Sunday in order to recap on the week before. I also will post a picture with me in it next time.

My name is Dan O’Grady, I am from the great State of Ohio. Presently I am attending Stark State College in North Canton, Ohio. Originally, I’m from a town called Gahanna, just outside the city of Columbus. I was first introduced to MATE my junior year of high school when I signed up for the Underwater Robotics Class. That was an unusual class to have for a high school that was in the middle of farm country. The teacher of that class (who is one of my greatest supporters) was Mr. Donelson. He had created an afterschool club for students who were dedicated and enjoyed Underwater Robotics. As a club, we competed in MATE’s Rover competition. At the time, we were the only high school in Ohio who were competing so we to travel to Michigan for our regionals. We made it to internationals my first year but placed second at regionals my senior year. Now in college I am finishing an Automation Manufacturing Robotics Degree and have been interested in pursuing more with Underwater Robotics. I have been fortunate to be selected by Woods Hole to be an Intern on their Ship R/V Atlantis.

Five Days ago, I finished my last my last final examines for the semester and travel to Virginia where my family just moved for my father’s job in Washington DC.  I will be beginning my travels tomorrow, May 16, flying to San Jose, Costa Rica where I will be meeting up with the submarine pilot and electrical technician to travel to Puntarenas and catch a 10:00 launch to the ship. I look forwarding to this opportunity to experience life as an Oceanographic Technician.