Author: Roy Gilboa

The last full week of my internship did not disappoint. While we were in Juneau, I got to go on a hike to Mendenhall Glacier with the STARC technicians and some crew members. It was a very clear day, and we saw several bald eagles while we were taking in the glacier. I’m glad I was able to spend some time enjoying the surroundings.

Since this is the Healy’s last cruise of the season, the CTD rosette is going to be idle until next year. To make use of this downtime, we have been removing the sensors and other electronics from the rosette and packaging them for shipment and recalibration. This will ensure that the sensors are ready for use next season, and any drift that they experienced this year will be recorded.

Another ongoing project is the installation of new a new GPS system aboard Healy. The locations of the antennas will affect the system’s ability to resolve changes in the ship’s attitude, so determining their placement is important. I delved into the shipbuilder’s drawings of the Healy to try and find accurate measurements of the proposed install location. This ship was built a while ago, so it was difficult to navigate through them. Very little of the needed information was documented, so we took further measurements, which I’m turning into a CAD model of this section of the ship.

When you clicked on this blog post, did you think you would find yourself reading about a wedding? That’s right, there was a wedding on board the Healy this week. While the ship was in port, many of the crew had their family members come on board for the final transit to Seattle. This is an annual tradition called the “Tiger Cruise”. One of the crew members decided to capitalize on this opportunity and arranged for his fiancée to join him. The ship diverted to a snow-covered fjord, two of the crew members played “Here Comes the Bride” on their guitars, and the captain officiated the ceremony in the helicopter hangar. I never thought I would see anything like this during my internship.

We will be docking in Seattle in just a few days, so this will be my last post of the cruise. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to be out here, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it. Thanks for coming along!

Now that science operations are over, there was time this week for some interesting events before we docked in Seward. The Healy’s engineers gave everyone a tour of the ship’s engineering spaces. This included the engines/generators, motors, cycloconverters, and the control center. We started off in one of the two engine rooms. The scale of the engines was immense. They were so big, they needed catwalks to access all sides of them. Each diesel engine had twelve cylinders in a V configuration, and the valve boxes on each one looked large enough to sit in. These engines drive massive generators, providing power for the electric propulsion motors as well as the rest of the ship. The engineers then led us to the control center, where they spent a few minutes answering questions and showing us how they monitor the ship’s workings. From there, we went down to the motor room, where the two huge AC propulsion motors turned the Healy’s propellers.

Next up, the science party gave a presentation on what they had been studying on this cruise. Much of their talk centered around the moorings that had been recovered in the past few weeks. Some of the moorings recorded sound, temperature, and salinity for an entire year underwater. Others emitted sounds that were recorded by the other moorings. The data collected will allow the scientists to model the acoustic environment of the area. Although I had read about the experiment and its objectives, getting an explanation from the brains behind the project helped tie everything together.

The day after the presentation, the Healy docked in Seward. The science party left while the ship was in port. We had several days to pack up sensors, work on diagrams, and solve a few electronic issues that had come up on earlier cruises. It was good to spend time on solid ground and take a break from eating the ship’s food. The STARC technicians for the transit back to Seattle arrived from Anchorage, and the techs who I had worked with departed. This afternoon, the ship left Seward. We will be making one more stop in Juneau before Seattle, our final destination. It’s strange to think that my internship is ending in a little over a week.

At the beginning of the week, the ship moved north of the operating area so that the scientists could take measurements of sea ice. I woke up on Halloween to see pancake ice in every direction. The surface was covered in pieces of sea ice about one to two feet across. It was very strange to look at. Up close, the pancakes looked like bacteria under a microscope. From far away, the surface looked solid enough to walk on. The ice tamped down the short-period waves, so it was very smooth. However, there were still long-period waves that made the surface look like flowing cloth. One of the STARC technicians put it best when he said, “It looks like a Super Mario level”. We spent the entire day in the ice while some of the scientists went out on a small boat to take measurements. Once they were done, the ship turned around and went back to the operating area the way we came.

We spent another day in the operating area wrapping up some unfinished tasks, including more mooring retrievals. I was back at it with the deck box getting range values with a member of the science party. We had an interesting conversation about acoustics and underwater noise pollution laws. While we were waiting for the ship to get in position, the Healy’s bow thruster decided that it was a great time to break down. Violently. It looks like we won’t be using it for the rest of the cruise. The crew engineers are giving us a tour of the engine room tomorrow, so we might get to see its remains.

After wrapping up in the operating area, we put the Arctic Ocean behind us for good, and we are now on our way to Seward. As we moved south, the snow and ice that had accumulated on every surface began to melt. It’s nice being able to walk outside again without worrying about slipping. With nobody hanging around the CTD hangar, I managed to finish up the CTD lanyard project started by the previous two interns. We did it, guys!

It’s getting close to the end of the season for the Coast Guard crew, who have been out at sea for five months. They got to let off some steam on Halloween, when many of them dressed up in costumes for the day. There were superheroes, animals, and crew members impersonating each other. Spiderman tried to sneak up on me after dinner, but I noticed him before he could fire off a web. That night, everyone participated in a “Healy-ween” costume contest. The categories were “funniest”, “scariest”, and “most cobbled together”. We got to vote for our favorites by cheering. The impostor crew got the most cheers by far, in every category.

Trivia update: we didn’t win this week. Our team was missing a member and we came in second to last. All of the questions came from Snapple caps, so I’m boycotting Snapple in protest. We have two chances left to win, so I’ll keep you posted.

We’ll be arriving in Seward in a couple of days, and the current STARC technicians will be leaving then. I’m looking forward to being on solid ground again, but it will be sad to say goodbye to them.

There are only a few days left of science operations in this cruise. Mooring recoveries took up the first half of the week, and CTD casts filled the rest. I got to operate the mooring release deck box again for some of the recoveries. This time, we released the moorings from their anchors after establishing contact with them. The first release did not operate as smoothly as we would have liked. It didn’t respond to the release code, which was concerning. Turning up the deck box’s transmission power didn’t help. Fortunately, the mooring released after resetting the deck box and turning the transmission power down instead of up. Rather than help, the increased transmission power may have been causing echoes and confusing the release. Live and learn. With this experience, the remaining releases functioned much more smoothly. They all responded and released after just one or two tries, and the bridge spotted them soon after.

Some of the moorings didn’t have working releases, so they couldn’t be brought to the surface with an acoustic signal for retrieval. Instead, the deck crew lowered a grappling hook off the stern of the ship to drag for the mooring’s cable. As the ship was dragging, all eyes were on the winch’s tension display, waiting for the spike in the graph that would indicate we had caught the mooring. It took a few tries, but soon enough the hook was back on deck with the mooring cable attached to it.

On Wednesday, there was a holiday trivia night on the mess deck as a morale event. I was on a team with three Coast Guard crew members. A pair of socks, a trick-or-treat bag, superhero capes, and a plastic frog were the prizes for the winning team. There were Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas question rounds, along with more general ones. For most of the game, our team led by a significant margin. We were already talking about how we would split up the winnings. Unfortunately, we lost by one point in the final round. I’m still kicking myself for forgetting about the traditional Festivus Feats of Strength from Seinfeld, which was the answer to one of the questions we missed. Hopefully, we can get the team back together to redeem ourselves next week. There’s still time for a Festivus miracle.

Other than the next trivia night, there’s a lot to look forward to. Once the CTD casts are complete, we are scheduled to head north of the operating area to take measurements on sea ice! When the cruise began, the ice was still far away from our planned course. Satellite images show that it’s moved up significantly since then, and is now only a few hours’ journey from where we are. I’m excited to see the ice, but it also means the end of science operations and the beginning of the transit back south. There’s still a few weeks left in the cruise, but we’ll soon be leaving the Arctic.

My first week aboard Healy has come and gone, and a lot has happened. Our departure from Dutch Harbor was delayed by a day due to bad weather, but it soon passed and we could leave port. The STARC technicians showed me around Healy, and after a few days I could confidently navigate around the ship. After leaving port, Healy headed north towards the operations area, where we would be recovering submerged moorings and performing surveys. There was plenty to do in the days leading up to our arrival in the operations area. I spent the time reading up on the ship’s installed equipment, continuing the Niskin bottle lanyard project started by the previous interns, and taking pictures outside the ship. I even snapped a photo of Big Diomede, a Russian island, in the distance as we transited through the Bering Strait. Considering the time of year, the weather has not been too bad. However, it has been very cold since we left Dutch Harbor, and at several points there was snow collecting on the deck. Interestingly, the ship’s time was shifted back by two hours to better align normal working hours with the limited daylight. I’m not going to complain, since this effectively gave me two extra hours of sleep.

Early this morning, we reached our operating area for this cruise, and the scientists could begin their operations. They started the day by triangulating the location of some of their moorings. The scientists needed to take multiple range measurements at several points around each mooring, and I was given the opportunity to help. I operated the deck box used to interrogate the moorings’ acoustic releases. We used the box to send acoustic signals through one of the Healy’s transducers, and the mooring would respond with its own signal. The box would measure the time between these signals and use the known speed of sound through the water to calculate a range to the mooring. Although the deck box amplified the response signals, it wasn’t necessary for us to be able to hear them. The box’s transmissions and the moorings’ responses came clearly through the hull. It was very strange to hear what sounded like a giant telephone being dialed somewhere in the ocean. Although this system worked very well for multiple moorings, one of them gave us trouble. Unlike the others, this mooring would not send the correct response when interrogated, so the deck box could not provide a range value. However, we found that we began to receive return pings from “something” near that mooring’s expected location when we tried again from farther away. There may be hope for this mooring yet. 

My first week as an intern has been very enjoyable. I am fascinated by what I have seen so far on this cruise, and I’m looking forward to the next week aboard Healy.

Photo credit: Kristin Beem

Next week, I will be heading to Alaska to meet up with the USCGC Healy. For five weeks, I will be living onboard the ship and working as an intern! This will be my third experience this far north, and my second time in Alaska, but this will be first time being there this close to winter. I am excited to work on such an impressive ship, and reading about the experiences of the past interns has made me even more eager to get started. I anticipate gaining a lot of hands-on time in the next few weeks, and I hope you will follow along with me on this cruise though my upcoming blog posts.