Author: Mija Wheeler

Hey all, this is Mija Wheeler from the RV Atlantis with the Alvin Crew. Since my last post, the R/V Atlantis had the opportunity to host distinguished visitors from ONR, NavSea, the National Science Foundation, and WHOI. During this time, the Alvin Ops team was doing two “bounce” dives daily for a total of three days. This means that once the sub is in the water, there was usually about 30-45 minutes before the A-Frame (or the device that is used to hoist the sub off deck and into the water) had to start its warmups again. I’ve included a picture of the A-frame in action.

It’s safe to say that as tiring as the bounce dives were, the robust efficiency of the Alvin Ops team and the Atlantis crew were on point during this trip. I think one of the highlights of talking to the distinguished visitors was learning about all the opportunities that WHOI and the various government departments have for interested students. Another fun highlight is that during the required safety briefing with all the new people on the ship, I was pulled up as the practice dummy for putting on the emergency evacuation suit! So, I have included some silly photos of me being strapped into what I’ve been told is called the Gumby suit and attempting to do a shaka!!

Once we dropped the distinguished visitors off in San Diego, we left port the next morning on a transit cruise to Astoria, Oregon. At the time of writing this, we have been in transit for approximately 3 days and have experienced a couple of days of mildly rough weather to the point where we had to officially “secure for sea”.

Shortly after leaving San Diego, before leaving California waters, we made a quick stop to recover an errant elevator that was unable to be recovered from a science cruise on another ship a couple of years ago. Outside of that, transit hasn’t been busy, so I spent some time talking to the data people to learn more about how operational data from Alvin is processed and plotted for human use. I think I might even get to learn a bit of Linux so I can attempt to make my own so I’m very excited for the coming weeks.

Till then, aloha!! 

Hey all, this is Mija Wheeler aboard the R/V Atlantis from the Alvin Submersible Operations Crew. There was no post last week because the flu went around the ship which inevitably resulted in several members of the Alvin Ops Crew (including myself) being out of commission for about half the week. Thankfully, no one tested positive for Covid so for all things considered, I’m still in good spirits.

Since my last post, we have officially completed my first science research expedition and demobilized in San Diego.  During this cruise, I was charged with the setup and operation of two deep water underwater cameras called MISO cameras, which are effectively Go-Pros and an external battery inside a water-proof stainless steel casing. During this trip, I used these cameras to capture video footage of all the dives from the perspective of the right manipulator arm and take images from the brow of the sub every 5 seconds. The scientists used all the pictures to create a Timelapse of the dive, so that at the end of every dive they could have a 2-minute video to show all the surface members what happened over the course of the 5-hour dive.

Currently, I don’t have any of the MISO camera photos saved to my hard drive, but I did get some pictures of the animals and bacteria that were pulled up from the bottom of the ocean. I have included my favorite below.

With nearly half of my internship complete, I can confidently say I’ve had the time of my life and have learned so much. I’m excited to see what new things I learn or see next week, till then ALOHA!

.    

Hey all this is Mija Wheeler, I’m the MATE Intern aboard the R/V Atlantis working under the Alvin Submersiable Operations Team. At the time of writing this, we have been at sea for going on the 3rd day coming out of port from San Diego, California with a science party from CalTech and the University of Santa Barbra. 

What I’ve gathered from the scientists so far is that the goal of the expedition is to study invertebrates, bacteria, viruses, substrate, and the general composition of the water column near Methane seeps located approximately 1000 meters down. Using the Alvin Submersible, alongside the accompanying elevator, scientists have so far uncovered several rocks, sediment samples, and some bacteria; they’ve also found some neat crabs, sea worms, and sea spiders that were found at these dive locations. 

As an intern with Alvin, the last couple days has been a whirl wind of learning and experiencing new things. Outside of learning the launch and recovery process of the submarine, I’ve been having a blast talking to the scientist in my free time to see first hand what was being pulled up. I could go on and on but my break is about to end and I have to get ready to go help with the recovery of the sub.

Aloha all!

My name is Mija Wheeler. I’m starting my third year as a Computer Engineering major attending the University of Hawai’i at Manoa in my hometown of Honolulu, Hawai’i. 

I initially learned programming from my experience in high school robotics. Having grown up going to the beach and hiking,  I wanted to learn more about the application of technology in terms of environmental research when I graduated high school. 

So in my first semester of college, I landed an internship at a local marine conservation non-profit called Malama Maunalua. During my year with them, I got the wonderful opportunity to build and program low-cost marine habit cameras which have since been used to study coral nursery beds, invasive algae, and sea urchins.

I’m excited about the chance to work as a short-term intern with the Alvin Team aboard the R/V Atlantis this coming July to learn more about the technology used in environmental research.