Marine Technical Internship Blog

It has been a busy second week. This week I finally got to see the launch and recovery process of Alvin, which was amazing. The weather was ideal at first, with very calm seas—almost flat for the first couple of days, which is uncharacteristic of the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Later on, the swell returned to double digits, which took some getting used to. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to get my hands dirty with the pre- and post-dive operations alongside the mechanical team.

Most mornings during pre-dive, I helped flush the lines of any air or water with either Carnation, hydraulic, or Brey oil, depending on the system. This ensures proper pressure compensation in the junction boxes that house the electronics for the ballast systems, communications, etc. Brey oil, I learned, is used instead of Carnation to prevent arcing in electrical boxes that draw more current. I also helped load the sub after the pilot finished their pre-dive checks inside the sphere. During this time, I handed down CO₂ scrubbers, towels to remove condensation, blankets for comfort (since it gets quite cold), and lunch for the pilot and observers.

The sphere is very well taken care of. Before each dive, all passengers must shower and wear clothing made of natural fibers to ensure safety. Synthetic materials can be flammable and may wedge themselves in the window seals, which play a crucial role in maintaining the pressure boundary. Even when the hatch is inspected in the morning, the person conducting the inspection must be free of oil and dirt to maintain cleanliness. After the sub is launched, we scrub the hangar and refill the oil containers so that everything is ready for any evening maintenance.

Post-dive operations can be a little fast-paced. As soon as the Launch Coordinator indicates the sub is secured on deck, we quickly rinse down the entire sub to prevent corrosion, cover the windows, and remove access panels to begin inspections. I always do a general “mech inspection,” which involves walking around the sub and checking for any loose bolts, wiring, or abnormalities. This past week we had water intrusion issues with the port main ballast blow box. We spent a few late nights draining and pressure testing the box, as well as testing the check valve and bladder for leaks. Unfortunately, we still haven’t found the culprit, but hopefully by the next update I’ll have an answer.

Additionally, there was water in the port thruster—which is bad, but also good for me, because I got to help take it apart. First, we swapped the motor for a ready spare so the sub was dive-ready, then made the repairs. We drained the motor of hydraulic oil, replaced a damaged O-ring and crane seal, and then carefully refilled the motor. This was fun but tedious, since every bit of air introduced into the system has to be removed. You wouldn’t think it would be much, but it is—so we had to slowly fill the motor using a tube while shaking it to release all the air.

All in all, it was a great week. I was able to watch the recovery process from the bridge and see the captain’s role in retrieving the sub, and I even got to check out some of the critters scientists collected in a bio box from the hydrothermal vents!

Until next time,
Katie

It feels kind of odd to say that it’s only been two weeks since I left, but I found that being on a vessel tends to screw up your sense of time. I’m sure the other members of the crew agree with me.

We’ve had a total of five dives so far, and dredged up plenty of interesting things. The dives for yesterday and the day before were cancelled due to unfavorable weather conditions, but it went somewhat back to normal today so we got to have a pilot-in-training dive, albeit the deployment was later than usual.

There’s a wide variety of samples that we collect on this specific cruise – sometimes we take water samples of the hydrothermal vents using isobaric gas-tight samplers (IGTs) which help keep contents pressurized when the scientists are doing experiments on the nitrogen-cycling properties of the microbes in the water. Sometimes we also bring up freaky little creatures like tube worms and this scale worm in the picture below!

Depending on what kind of samples we want to collect, naturally we would have to change tools for the job. The basket in front of the HOV Alvin typically holds all the equipment needed to complete the dive objectives of the science team for a dive, and it is our duty as the maintainers and technicians of Alvin to swap these out as needed per dive.

As an intern, my daily routine usually consists of getting up early start helping the team with pre-dive checks – making sure that cameras are striped, calibrated and properly cleaned, ensuring parts on the HOV are secured, refilling CO2 scrubbers, etc. We roll Alvin out on the tracks leading to the A-Frame at the aft of the ship, where we attach stacks of ballasting weights to it and put the pilot and observers in before we send it into the water.

Once the HOV is in the water, swimmers on a smaller boat will go to it and do some last minute checkups like unhooking safety lines and verifying communications are good to go. The phone the swimmers use to talk to the passengers of the sub is actually not waterproof, so while they’re verifying comms they also have to be very careful not to get it wet. The design is kind of counterintuitive, but the fact that the phone does not need to be powered independently makes the drawbacks worth it. Still, it is pretty comedic to see the swimmers make their way back to the little boat raising what looks like an old landline phone above them the whole time.

After the sub goes down, we have someone in the top lab to monitor GPS position and to maintain communications with it every so often. Us interns usually take this time to clean up our messes from the morning of deployment, and then it’s time to muck around until we get the signal to get ready for retrieval.

During retrieval, we finish up with post-dive tasks like hosing down the sub to wash off the saltwater and securing him back in the hangar for safety and in case bad weather starts rocking the boat around. We usually get some sort of report from the pilot about equipment or components that didn’t work so well and may need to be fixed or replaced, and our evenings are pretty much occupied with post-dive and fixing up the sub for tomorrow’s dive.

Of course, if the weather conditions are unsafe for swimmers or pilots we may have to call off some of our dive days. The swells were pretty big yesterday and the day before that, and we used the time not diving to finish up any maintenance that we’ve been putting off – fixing of lasers, replacement of important wires to the propellers that route inside the sub, things like that.

I’m learning lots of things out here. I haven’t needed to do any of this in my daily work, but the crew and the Alvin team taught me a whole array of knot-tying techniques which I’m sure is going to come in handy someday…? During downtime I also try to see what the other departments are up to, like bothering the scientists in the lab to find out what they’re doing with the water samples we bring them, or pestering the bridge about navigation. It’s been lots of fun, but it’s also starting to feel like I already spent a month or two at sea. Time is not real on this vessel.

I’ll be back next week.

Aidan

I just wrapped up my first week with the Alvin Team, and it’s been amazing in more ways than one. Upon arriving in Oregon, I finally got to meet the team in person. Everyone has been wonderfully patient and kind, showing me the ropes of both their operations and, of course, the engineering behind Alvin. I also met the crew of the RV Atlantis during a Labor Day picnic and cookout they hosted on the dock before we set sail.

This week, I was introduced to the sub and its critical systems. Since Alvin hadn’t been operated for about a month, we spent three days on maintenance, which I was able to observe and help with when possible. Some of the tasks I participated in included ensuring pressure compensation in the junction boxes and tubing that house communication cables, pressure testing the check valves on the main and variable ballast systems, and installing the seawater filter for the variable ballast. I also learned how the team inventories and stores spare parts, as well as the strict protocols for replacing them. Their attention to detail is remarkable—every component must meet precise standards, and even the slightest thread damage can make a part unsuitable for dive operations. I also witnessed the installation process of the batteries; they provide 120 volts to the sub. We rolled out Alvin to expose a hatch between the tracks in the hangar that allows access to the hold where the batteries are stored and maintained. The batteries were lifted into the sub using hydraulics.

In preparation for the first engineering dive, I helped remove the coral-cutting claw from the robotic arm and replace it with a three-pronged gripper more suitable for this expedition, collecting high-temperature water samples at hydrothermal vents. We also held the “weight party,” where we stacked steel plates to aid Alvin’s descent on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. Unfortunately, our first dive was canceled after a recovery buoy detached from a Canadian mooring line. Since we were nearby, the RV Atlantis was asked to recover it, which we did.

Even so, I’ve already learned so much about plumbing and mechanics in just one week, and I’m excited to see the data and pictures that Alvin collects after all our dives are complete!

Katie

Week 1 is already over, and it still feels kind of surreal to be out here. There have been so many exciting things and interesting people that I’ve encountered that it’s difficult to recount them all in one post without boring everyone who reads this, so I’ll show the most important things.

I met up with the Alvin team after flying down to Portland from Seattle, where we drove down to Newport where the Atlantis was docked together as a group. When we got there, I got to take a quick tour of the premises. As someone who’s never been on a research vessel, the Atlantis felt pretty average from the outside but was way bigger on the inside – rooms and halls were pretty spacious to move around in. Onboard amenities were much more fleshed-out than I thought they would be (there was a punching bag in the science hold?!), and the galley cooks up meals way better than I ever did in my entire college career. Shoutout to the cooks who greet me by name every meal.

As for the HOV Alvin itself, it was also pretty big – maybe the size of a small whale or an orca perhaps. During our pre-cruise maintenance and housekeeping work I got to walk around the top of the sub and climb into the sphere where the pilot sits. Alvin recently got a refitting recently with an ergonomic seating area, and I have to say it was decently comfortable in there.

Most of my work on the sub has been checking in on little things like searching for air or water bubbles in the tubes of oil inside the HOV or draining said oil from junction boxes in the front so that we can wire scientific instruments to the electronics systems. I helped with loading provisions and stores to feed us during the cruise onto the ship and checked the windows on the sub for scratches or blemishes. The two most exciting events that I helped out with were replacing one of the fridge-sized lead acid batteries and distributing and stacking steel plates which will eventually be used for ballasting.

To access the batteries in the first place, we had to move Alvin forward in its hangar to operate a crane that would open the hatch in the floor that led to the room with the battery in it, which was process that took a little time to complete. The battery that was supposed to go into the Alvin didn’t come with a casing on it, so part of our duties during the pre-cruise was to get the casing off the old battery and slide it onto the new one – main issue being that the casing is basically filled with oil. One aspect of this job I learned very quickly was that literally everything is covered in oil since it helps mitigate the effects of pressure in the deep ocean, and that I should give up on the prospect of having any unstained clothes on this cruise.

The stacked steel plates are used for the sub used as ballast to control its buoyancy underwater, and it dives down or resurfaces by jettisoning some amount of these steel plates that we attach to it. As such, we had to prepare several stacks since every dive would have at least 3 stacks of plates weighing more than 300 pounds per stack. Picking up these rusty steel plates all morning was a decent workout for my forearms. I also got rust all over my clothes, but I brought all the clothes whose safety I didn’t care about so it was expected. It’s for that grimy mechanical engineer aesthetic anyway.

We left Newport yesterday on the 5th. Due to the size of the vessel the boat rocks pretty slowly, which is nice to fall asleep to but kind of annoying when you’re doing fine, detailed work with small instruments and tiny probes. It’s better than the smaller boats I’ve been on though. Seeing the vast expanse of water on every side of you with nothing to keep you company except the ship and the gray clouds overhead feels kind of surreal. Liminal, even.

I lied about that last part, actually. There were other things keeping us company – there was a massive pod of dolphins that swam up to the ship as it was traveling to our dive site, and they were just frolicking and being silly on either side of the ship and under the bow, racing the ship and jumping around. We guessed that they were Pacific white-sided dolphins based on their coloring and our location. Genuinely one of the most breathtaking experiences I’ve ever had.

I’ve been having a lot of fun the last few days, and I expect to have even more fun when we actually get around to Alvin dives tomorrow. It’s around 9pm when I post this, and I do have to wake up at 5am for deployment preparations, so I’m going to leave it at that for the time being. Will update next week.

Aidan

Hi! My name is Aidan Lee, and I am one of the interns working with the electrical team of the HOV Alvin through Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on the R/V Atlantis in early September. I’ll be boarding in Newport, Oregon after meeting with the team in Portland, and I’m excited to get to meet everyone there! I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, and joined a remotely operated vehicles robotics team competing in the MATE ROV Competition during my time as an undergraduate. I’m looking forward to seeing what ways my technical skills from developing ROVs can apply to the HOV Alvin at sea!

Below I’ve included a few pictures of me, some of which are during the 2025 MATE ROV Competition in Alpena, Michigan. I’ve got friends on the team who have previously been MATE interns who speak very highly of the program, so I want to make the most of my experience here.

I will be back with another update in approximately another week or so. See you guys then!

Aidan