Category: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, SOEST Page 1 of 2

Howdy all,

What a journey it’s been since my last post! We safely reached Tahiti, completed a mapping cruise while managing a suite of underway instrumentation, and concluded my long-term MATE internship. As this is my final blog post, there’s plenty to share.

Arriving in Tahiti marked the end of one of the most significant research cruises I’ve ever participated in. After so long at sea, it was a welcome change of pace. Our team of scientists and crew celebrated our successful cruise by unwinding in beautiful Papeete. I had the chance to relax with friends, go freediving in Moorea, and explore the islands. However, after just two days of recovery, it was back to work for our next cruise.

On our return journey to Honolulu, the Kilo Moana embarked on a cruise to map understudied seafloor regions. This survey utilized ship systems such as a multibeam echosounder, subbottom profiler, and magnetometer. For OTG, this suite of instruments operated fairly autonomously, requiring only light deck work for the magnetometer, consistent monitoring of mapping software, communication with the bridge about ship heading, and ensuring data upload to our remote researchers. In addition to mapping, this was also a cruise of opportunity for optical seawater measurements. Working alongside Dr. Ali Chase, Briana and I helped maintain and troubleshoot unique instrumentation measuring different spectral properties of surface seawater and the atmosphere. The primary goal of this data was to validate satellite-derived data. By the end of the cruise, Dr. Chase had collected valuable data, while Briana and I gained more troubleshooting and hands-on experience with high-sensitivity optical instrumentation.

The beauty of this cruise’s operational schedule was that it didn’t require 12-hour shifts. This allowed me time to work with Ben and James, learning about the ship’s network architecture and how OTG members leverage VOID Linux and the MQTT publish-subscribe communication protocol to manage the ship’s network and connected instruments. Over a few sessions, they taught me to operate a Void Linux machine, configure a network switch, interact with the ship’s network, and connect a sound velocity probe for data acquisition and storage. As IT and networking skills become increasingly important for marine technicians, this was an invaluable learning opportunity for me.

The remainder of our transit back to Honolulu was relatively uneventful, save for a rogue glider recovery. This successful multi-hour operation involved locating, backing down on, and tagging a glider with a dog catcher wire loop – a great way to conclude our cruise. Soon after, we returned to Honolulu and demobilized, marking the end of my long-term MATE internship.

So what can I say other than that the past several months have been nothing short of an amazing adventure.  Across two MATE internships sailing aboard the R/V Hugh R. Sharp, R/V Atlantic Explorer, and R/V Kilo Moana, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to grow as a technician and interact with a community of hardworking, passionate, and like-minded people. These internships provided more than just technical training; they offered lessons in adaptability, teamwork, and problem-solving. Working with exceptional technicians who encouraged initiative and provided constructive feedback, I learned to safely tackle challenges with attention to detail. Each leg of this journey was a unique learning experience that not only grew my technical skills but also developed and affirmed my passion for this field and the opportunities it holds. From performing deck operations to troubleshooting instrumentation, I gained hands-on experience that transformed me from a lime green novice to a more confident and capable technician.

As I transition into my current role as a SUBSEA project Ocean Technician at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, I carry with me the invaluable lessons and memories from this transformative experience. Over the last few months, I’ve traveled around the world, made new friends, gained a multitude of experiences, all while investing in my future.

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the amazing team who made this impactful opportunity possible. A special thank you to Maria Osciadacz for her constant hard work and dedication to the program’s success. Thank you to Dan Fitzgerald, Carolina Funkey, Tully Rohrer, Trevor Young, Ben Duncan, James Harris, Lance Frymire, Tim Deering, Christian Kernisan, Alex Dominguez, Rory O’Connell, Lydia Sgouros, Emily Tate, Jace Innnis, the crews of the R/V Kilo Moana, R/V Hugh R. Sharp, and R/V Atlantic Explorer, and all the scientists I’ve had the privilege of working with over the last year. My internship experience wouldn’t have been the same without any of you, and I am forever grateful for your mentorship and support.

Now, I look forward to contributing to this field as I work with the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Schmidt Sciences OBVI project to help research the unique biogeochemistry of the North Pacific and South Atlantic Subtropical Gyres. For those interested, you can follow this link to learn more about the OBVI and SUBSEA projects: Schmidt Sciences OBVI

Thanks for tuning in, and to any future MATE interns reading this – I hope to see you out there soon!

All the best,

Hunter

– View of Moorea at sunset
 

– The KM at dock in Papeete

– Day 1 of the mapping cruise. Troubleshooting the pySAS autonomous solar tracker and surface ocean radiometer system (ended up being a grounding issue for one of the relay boards).

– The KM’s magnetometer. Ben for scale.

– Troubleshooting the IFCB (an automated image capture microscope) for humiditiy warning

– Briana exploring the engineering spaces of the KM

– The last sunset of my MATE internship

Bubble Troubles: Week #9 12/02/2024 – 12/09/2024

On Nov 28th, we set sail back to Honolulu, HI. While underway, we’ll be mapping a remote corner of the ocean using the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler and a magnetometer for Dr. David Sandwell from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. His team is interested in studying gravity anomalies called Haxby Lineaments and seeks to figure out the origin of these features using Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR), the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP), and a magnetometer. The SONAR and ADCP are already on the ship, but the magnetometer is towed from the back of the ship in the regions of interest.

Dr. Ali Chase, Hunter, and I have also been keeping busy cleaning different instrumentation: AC-S, HYPER BB, ALFA, FRRF, LIIST, pySAS, multispectral radiometer, and IFCB. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around what each instrument does, but I do know that they are orchestrated together to help build a comprehensive picture of the properties of microscopic organisms like plankton and debris taken up by the ship’s underway seawater collection system.

Every morning, we clean the pySAS instrument, making sure that it is clear of salt crystals and debris that may have become entrapped on the lenses in the past 24 hours. Then we also climbed up to the top of the bridge and clean the Hyperspectral Radiometer with a 5-meter pole, sponge, and lens paper to fight the wind and also dust off any salt crystals on the instrument. In the evenings, we alternate between cleaning the AC-S, LIST, and HYPER BB every other day, and we clean the ALFA and FRRF instruments daily. While maintaining these instruments, we also clean the optics of each sensor with thin lens paper, alcohol, and Milli-Q water, as well as running Milli-Q water to hopefully push out anything that may be trying to grow inside the tubing.

Another thing to keep an eye out for is bubbles. I had never given much thought to bubbles or their effects until I hopped on board the RV/Kilo Moana. Although fun to blow, bubbles can be quite troublesome when they get into your instrumentation or experiments. In the case of Dr. Alison Chase, bubbles inside your instrumentation must be avoided at all costs. Bubbles can cause light to scatter differently, which is not what you want when you’re studying backscatter using the HYPER-BB. Bubbles can change the flow of things, causing instruments to overheat due to not receiving the proper amount of flow. This happened multiple times to the ALFA, halting data collection for a couple of hours each time. In the case of the Imaging Flow Cytobot, the resolution of the phytoplankton images for several samples shifted and was reduced. Thankfully, Dr. Ali Chase caught the issue quickly, and we were able to fix it by running a debubbling procedure. This entails stopping the IFCB, plugging the intake line with soap, and letting the soap flow through for about 5 minutes to pop and push through the bubbles.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading manuals of the different instrumentation we’ve been maintaining, learning to code in Linux, and starting to learn more about how the ship is networked. The days left on the RV/Kilo Moana are starting to dwindle, so I’m trying to learn as much as I can before departing. I’ve been talking more to the crew and asking them the specifics of their jobs as well as  taking in as many sunsets and night skies as possible.

Cheers,

Briana

– Magnetrometer profiles

– ADCP that remains on during the duration of the transit and later uploaded to Google Maps and other data bases!

– Magnetrometer after a succesful mapping session

– Hunter Adams and Briana Prado cleaning the Hyperspectral Radiometer ontop of the Bridge

– Dr. Alison Chase cleaning the pySAS early morning

– Top to Bottom: HyperBB, LIIST, AC-S and IFCB instruments which we clean regurlarly

– Hunter Adams and I receiving a tour of the inner workings of the ship by Chief Engineer

Week #8 Tahitian Escapade (11/25/2024 – 12/1/2024)

– The SPOC 2418 Science team!

We wrapped up our last station a few days before reaching Tahiti leaving us with enough time to acid wash every bottle, spigot and syringe used during the cruise. As well as enough time to tidy up lab spaces; sweeping, mopping and wipping down counters in the labs and moving stuff into specific labs for storage while on transit back. 

We arrived in Tahiti on Nov 26th, at about 7am after 34 days at sea. Once near port, the Tahitian Port Captain came onboard using the ladders on the back deck.  The port captain then headed up to the bridge to drive the boat into the dock safely, which was a really cool and swift operation to watch.

– Tahitian Harbor Police moving towards the ship to begin driving the RV/Kilo Moana to port.

As we slowly drifted into port the anticipation kept building. Land! So close yet so far. From the ship we could now see green volcanic-jagged hills, palm trees, birds and dolphins as well as the hustle and bustle of cars and people going about their day. As the port came into focus, I felt a bit like an alien peering into a civilization of French billboard signs and aquamarine water. I think I breifly forgot cars and trees existed. Whoa, we made it! In the middle of this ginormous Pacific ocean there are people living their life on a beautiful tropical island, quite remote from any mainland and we’ve reached them, how lucky are we!

– View of Papeete as we arrived to port on the RV/Kilo Moana

The energy was high and everyone was in a bit of a scramble getting their bags downstairs, cleaning out state rooms and putting all blankets and dirty linens away.

Once we cleared immigration, we were allowed to get off the ship. Since most people were leaving that day, we got straight to action, checking out the Tahitian open air market, shops and restaurants. The scientific team picked out a place for lunch and we enjoyed tropical refreshments before tearfully saying our goodbyes. 

The following day, a couple of us took a rental car on the ferry to Moorea to circumnavigate the island and to visit some snorkeling spots. We visited 3 different beaches and saw tons of cool fish and even a sea turtle! 

– View of Tahiti from Mo’orea, note the beautiful aquamarine color from the shallower parts

The following morning, immigration came on pretty early and cleared us to leave, thus concluding our Tahitian escapadé. We then set sail back to Honolulu, HI at 10am on November 28th, with only 20 people, 5 science members (Hunter, Dr. Ali Chase, OTG and I) + 15 crew members. Today also happened to be thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but feel really thankful for this opportunity to learn at sea with an amazing group of scientist and crew members. I have so much grattitude for everybodies willingness to share knowledge and the ropes of doing science at sea (pun intended). That evening the galley crew cooked us a lovely dinner of turkey, stuffing, mac and cheese and more which was really nice. 

– Two new passport stamps, peek the lil’ ship symbol on the stamps.

Nonetheless, it was time to get back to work. By noon, we were helping Dr. Ali Chase get a pySAS instrument set up at the bow, since it had been decomissioned going into port. The pySAS instrument is an open-source autonomous sun-tracking system that records incoming and reflecting solar radiation from the atmosphere and ocean. The data collected is used to cross reference and validate remote sensing and satellite data and can also be used to elucidate oceanographic properties of the water surface. Since the one on the bow gave us a bit of trouble, we decided to start working on the spare that her lab also has. It was fun getting a quick dive into the different parts of the instrument, moving wires around and checking whether things are working using a voltmeter. 

 – IFCB outside of its Titanium Case

This week, I also got to learn more in depth about the imaging flow cytobot instrument (IFCB).   An imaging flow cytobot is used for multiple things but it can detect, size and image cells floating in the water. It’s a great tool to get an idea of community distribution of phytoplankton in real time. Most labs have a program they run the samples through that also help identify the species of phytoplankton. 

However, there’s genuinely no better way to learn more about an instrument than when you’re learning to troubleshoot it to diagnose a problem. Due to the humid nature of the ship, we suspected that the humidity may have interfered with some of the sensors on the instrument. Therefore, we spent a couple of hours investigating until it was finally decided to just call the manufacturer and have them walk us through the different parts of the instruments and its troubleshooting. 

Ali’s set up also features Spectral Absorption and Attenuation Sensor (AC-S),  Submersible Particle Size Analyzer (LISST) and the Hyper-Spectral Backscatter Instrument (HYPER BB) all linked up to the ship’s underway system to take a look at the different properties of the water. It is super cool to say the least and I look forward to diving into more about it next week.

Cheers,

Briana

– Ferry Terminal in Mo’orea, French Polynesia

– The beautiful RV/Kilo Moana in Papeete, French Polynesia

Howdy all,

What an awesome journey we’ve had over these past two months of leg three! We’ve hit some major milestones over the last two weeks – completing all our long station sampling, wrapping up our uCTD casts, finishing the underway system collections, and getting the ship clean and packed up. Our next stop is Papeete, Tahiti, where we’ll resupply and exchange our crew and team of scientists!

Long Station 12 went off without a hitch with more successful deployents and recoveries of our CTDs and arrays. But Station 13 (appropriately named) threw us some curveballs. Our intended location for Station 13 was at 30° S location, but severe weather forced us to pivot to 27.5° S. Even there, we faced some of the roughest seas of our entire cruise. With high winds and large swells, deployments were more challenging and stressful for our equipment. Particularly pushing our CTD/rosette’s .322 electro-mechanical wire close to its safety limits.

Despite the challenges, Station 13 proved to be a triumphant finale to our main research operations. We successfully:

• Deployed all ARGO and NKE floats
• Secured all arrays
• Collected, processed, and stored valuable hydrographic and biogeochemical data sets
• Completed our 161st (and final!) celebratory uCTD cast

One of the most rewarding aspects of the SPOC cruise has been getting hands-on with our the various types of equipment. There was something special about not just operating but truly understanding and maintaining instruments like the LISST, UVP, uCTD, HyperPro, wirewalker, and various GPS beacons to name just a few. Developing this understanding has improved my confidence when working with this equipment and my technical abilities as a whole. 

We’re now transitioning into the final phase of my third leg- KM2419, an ocean floor mapping cruise from Tahiti back to Hawaii. The labs are cleaned and packed, ready for the transit home and subsequent HOT cruise. Stay tuned for updates for my experiences in Tahiti and the start of the mapping cruise!

All the best,

Hunter

 

– Sunset from Station 12

– The birthday cake that the galley crew was kind enough to put together for me

– One of the last uCTD recoveries near 30 degrees South complete with high winds and large waves

– Briana and I post uCTD #161 recovery

– The Wirewalker stripped down for cleaning before we packed it up

– A team of awesome people celebrating the conclusion of the SPOC cruise!

 

 

End of Cruise: CTD Wrapped (11/17 – 11/24)

A significant portion of the work fellow MATE Intern Hunter and I did consisted of taking Conductivity, Temperature and Depth Profiles (CTD) work in two main forms; underway CTDs and CTD Rosette Cast. Over the course of this 34 day cruise, Hunter and I completed over 161 underway CTD and over 101 CTD Rosette cast, generating a nearly complete data set of a transect from 21N^o to 27 S^o. 

Our 161 underway CTD cast also appears to break a couple of records by a long shot. The second, third and fourth data sets contain an already impressive 83, 48 and 45 uCTD’s, but we doubled it!

Our mentor, Tully Rohrer praised us in casting over 161 underway CTD and experiencing very minimal problems besides some mechanical issues that came with wear and tear of the instrument. Tully once painful recalled how there was a cruise where the team kept getting tangled or as Tully calls them “Wuzzles” and how long and hard it was to untangle the line for hours. Thankfully we didn’t run into any issues with that, phew!

– Tully Rohrer rinsing the underway CTD to start packing it up at the end of the cruise

I really enjoyed casting the uCTD’s because it gave us an excuse to go out and stare at the ocean every 2 hours for about 25 minutes. I was being silly one night and calculated that over the 161 cast that we completed that we both stared at the ocean for a cumulative of over 60 hours or about 30 hours each! Pretty crazy if you ask me, but super fun!

– Fellow Mate-Intern Hunter Adams and I celebrating our last uCTD

The SPOC team celebrated our last uCTD cast #161 by standing by as Hunter and I tearfully casted our last one. Data wizard Dr. Daniel Murratore promised us to analyze our cast once it was retrieved and they delivered these beautiful graphs! I am so excited to see the paper and the research that will eventually reference this impressive data set, hopefully soon!

– SPOC Team helping us celebrate our last underway CTD thus concluding a 161 run!

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Another major and significant component of our work was the CTD Rosette Cast that took place every 3 hours while at the long stations. 

There were 5 long stations, each containing about 19 – 21 CTD casts, culminating in a total of 101 CTD casts! Most cast traveled to 250 meters ~ (820 ft) since the team was mostly interested in surface processes but we did have at least two 1000 meters cast for each long stratton (for diel studies) and a handful of cast that went down to ~3500 meters for calibration purposes.

Running the CTD console was an exciting experience that taught me a bit about double checking your work, keeping cool under pressure, reading water column profiles on the fly and communicating via radio. Running the CTD was a multi step process that typically involved empty niskins, and then caulking them i.e attaching lanyards to the hooks on the CTD Rosette. Once those are attached, you turn to the bottom of the niskin where you attach the lanyard hooks to the bottom of the bottle, opening them in the process. Once the niskins are set up, you take multiple laps around the CTD, making sure that the bottle caps at the top of the nisking which control the pressure at which water leaves the spigot are closed tightly enough. Then you take another lap making sure that all the spigots at the bottom of the nisking are sticking out, so as not to lose samples when you’re moving the CTD back onto the ship. Failure to do all the steps above could result in damage to the rosette or the niskins which should be avoided at all cost. 

– Briana Prado caulking CTD bottles 

The last lap you take is to take off the caps off the sensors. This CTD rosette was equipped with a UVP, PAR, LIST and syringes on the oxygen sensors, so I’d have to make sure that those were off and ready to collect data. Once the CTD Rosette is set up, I turn back to the lab, collect my cast sheet and relay the information on the cast sheet to the log sheet where I’d take note of starting and ending latitude and longitude, depth of the water column, time the CTD Rosette went in and out of the water, and the depths at which we are firing the bottles. While that is happening, the Ocean Technology Group (OTG) is communicating with the Hawboldt Winch operators about picking up the slack in the wire to get the CTD ready for deployment. Once the slack has tightened, I get ready to turn on the Seabird Deck Box and to start recording on the Seasave software, a software that relays all the live information from the CTD Sensors and rosette back to the ship and the computer you’re working from.  Once all that is set up and running, you communicate with the back deck and tell them the package is ready for deployment. The OTG group then checks in with the bridge to get their approval, once warranted, the OTG group checks in with the winch operators to then deploy the package. 

Intern: “Back Deck – Lab, the package is ready for deployment.”

OTG:  “Roger that lab, Bridge-Back Deck “Can we deploy this package?”

Bridge: “Back Deck- Bridge, You are clear to deploy the package.”

OTG: “Roger that, Winch-Back Deck, Are we clear to deploy the package?

Winch Operators: “Back Deck-Winch, Roger, We are now deploying the package”

Once in the water, we let the CTD soak at the surface, to allow the sensors to equilibrate with the water temperature and start pumping water through the sensors. After about a minute, I radioed the Back Deck to take the CTD to a pressure-depth of 15 deci-bars at 30 meters per minute. It is essential that the package travel at this specific speed as that is how the CTD sensors are turned on.. Once the CTD pumps are on, I communicate again with a back deck OTG person that we are now clear to take the package back to the surface and then to Target depth ~ 250 meters. Once that is done, we are now ready to take our water column profile.

The CTD profile generates right in front of your eyes. It’s always fun to take note of the chlorophyll maximum or the part of the water column, where most of the phytoplankton are hanging out and see how that changes, hour to hour, based on the time of the day, where we are in the ocean and other oceanographic parameters like oligotrophic waters. Other things we keep an eye out for is the Cpmax or the area of the water column with the highest concentration of particles. 

Once we reach our desired depth of lets say ~250 m, we are clear to start firing bottles. The winch operator will declare they have reached the desired pressure/depth.

Winch: “Lab-winch we’ve have hit target depth 250 db or 2-5-0 decibars”

Intern: “Winch- lab, next target depth is 125 db or 1-2-5 decibars”
Winch: “Roger that “Next target depth is 125 or 1-2-5 decibars”

We then wait for the winch to call out 125 decibars, which we double confirm by looking at the screen and reading where the CTD tells us it is in the water column. Once we’ve reached the desired depth, I wait 30 seconds to fire the first bottle. This time is allotted to allow for any disturbances in the water column to settle. Once I fire the first bottle any subsequent bottles are fired at 10 second intervals, for the same reason. 

Once I’ve fired the bottles I call out to the winch our next target depth and repeat.

Once we’re near the surface, I call out to the back deck and tell them that we are now clear to recover the package and OTG begins checking in with the winch and bridge folk to confirm they are also ready to recover. 

Once the package is recovered, I finish jotting down the meteorological data, log the event in the event page and turn off the deck box. It is paramount to turn off the deck box because you don’t want to electrocute anybody when they start releasing the slack on the wire. 

For our last cast, cast #101, we went down to a depth of 3500 meters (~11,480 ft). This cast was used to calibrate the CTD’s oxygen sensors and also collected water from the Antarctic Deep Water water mass. As the name implies, this is water that last saw the surface of the ocean, when it downwelled off the coast of Antarctica.  As a result the water is super cold, oxygen rich and salty! Chief Scientist Angelicque White was super cool and boiled down the water to collect and bottle salts for us as a memoir as well as let us cast away a couple pieces of styrofoam to crush them underpressure. We didn’t have too much styrofoam so we had to experiment with different types… some were more succesful than others.

– Before and after pictures of our styrofoam squares that went down to a depth of 3500 meters!

 

Now that we are done with all the stations, we’ve started to pack up labs. We will be arriving to Tahiti soon, stay tuned! 

Cheers,

Briana

Practicing Diligence at Sea: Week #6 (Nov 11th – Nov 17th)

Safety at sea cannot be understated. This week, I had a few close calls while conducting back-deck operations that have made me acutely aware of the importance of preventing issues before they have the opportunity to escalate.

While deploying the wirewalker at the fourth station, we had an issue with the quick release. A clamp that is supposed to release when you yank it. This release transfers the load from the main line to the release when it’s time to release the buoy onto the water. It’s essential to release the clamp at the right time because if not the buoy and its packages might get dropped into the water from a height and damage them. Or if you wait too long, it can become harder to release the clamp because there is no longer that tension that would allow it to release. 

Well… when we were deploying the buoy, the rope on the clamp got twisted under the leading line in a way that regardless of how hard I yanked, I could not get the clamp to release. I now found myself progressively getting closer to the edge of the stern and playing an unbalanced game of tug of war with the buoy as the A-frame moved the package away from the ship. Despite the rope burn, I held on because I was scared that if I’d let go, I’d lose the buoy/clamp. 

Tully and Ben stepped in with about a foot of rope left, but then quickly halted operations as it became apparent that the clamp would not release.  By stopping operations we had enough time to think about our next step, which just meant, letting go of the rope, bringing the package back onto the ship, and trying again. No biggie. The alternative situation where I could have gone overboard trying to get the clamp to release could have been much worse. If you ever find yourself in a situation between your safety and that of the instrument, safety comes first. Of course, if we could mitigate any damage to the instrumentation that would be ideal, but not if someone gets hurt. 

A couple hours later while deploying PP arrays, I was handing over the primary production bottles when the whistle on my life jacket got tangled with the samples I was holding. I only noticed this issue when I was about to pull away and couldn’t get too far because the whistle’s rope was now stuck to the line. Had we reached the point where we were about to deploy the sample, it would have taken me with it. So we took a pause to untangle my whistle and proceeded with the operation. The lesson was that it’s okay to call for an “all stop” to address an issue before proceeding and to be very mindful of things that can become snagged. Not doing so could have made this issue much worse.  

Another thing to keep in mind while conducting back deck operations is rope bights and how you handle rope. It’s easy to be focused on collecting your sample from the line when all of sudden you find yourself in a bight that could tighten around your ankle or hands at any time. 

It’s also important to not wrap the rope around your hands for the same reason. Instead, if your wrapping loops, wrap the loops on top of your hand instead of around and hold the center, this lets the rope slide through your hand instead of tightening around it. Last but not least be mindful of rope slacks from the A- frame, it can be easy to get entangled in them if you’re not paying attention to what’s happening to the rope overhead. It’s all in the details and situational awareness. 

And of course, always wear your hard hat, life vest, and steel-toe shoes when conducting back deck operations, you never know what could fall or roll onto you, but it really is just a factor of time until something does. 

Other than some close calls, I’ve been doing good. We have now completed Long Station 3&4 and are now en route to our last long station, station 5. Stay tuned for more updates!

 

Cheers,

Briana

Howdy all and welcome back,

Apologies for the later post, but the good news is there’s a lot to catch up on! We’re two weeks into the SPOC cruise and currently en route to 20° S Latitude. Since the start, we’ve been conducting various operations, including underway CTD (uCTD) deployments, ARGO float deployments, “short station” CTD casts, and “long station” array/CTD deployments. Our ultimate goal is to collect diverse data in the South Pacific, a critically understudied region, as we steam to 30° S. This data will primarily focus on understanding the rates and mechanisms of primary production and respiration in this area.

During transit between our five long stations, we’ve been using the uCTD to survey the surface 400 meters of ocean. This operation involves deploying a probe from the ship’s stern, equipped with sensors measuring dissolved oxygen, fluorescence, conductivity, temperature, and depth. The beauty of the uCTD is that we can continue cruising at 8 knots while collecting data on both the downcast and upcast. We’ve also been utilizing the Kilo Moana’s underway seawater flowthrough system to sample and analyze surface ocean water. Sprinkled in with these activities are Argo float deployments, contributing to an international ocean monitoring initiative that uses autonomous floats to create hydrographic profiles of the upper 2000 meters of the world’s oceans.

When not transiting, we’re on station performing CTD casts and free-floating array deployments. Before crossing the equator, we focused on performing short station CTD casts as weather was too variable and currents too strong to deploy the arrays necessary for a long station. These short stations lasted about an hour, and after we finished collecting our samples/data, we were underway again, so these stations were fast and furious. 

We officially crossed the equator on Halloween, which was a happy surprise! Of course, everyone dressed up in costumes (yours truly was a hero in a half shell), and we had a full equator crossing ceremony for the “polliwogs,” aka sailors who are crossing the equator for the first time. My given wog name was Richard Simmons’ Baby goes to sea. This ceremony involved proving our skill to the Court of Neptune in the form of a talent show (I did a skit with two of my fellow wogs) and if we displeased the court with our skills we were forced to fight the spirit of a sea monster (a pinata). Overall, it was a blast of a Halloween full of karaoke, candy, and dancing.

Shortly after crossing the equator the real work of the cruise began as we started to hit our first long stations. When we arrive at these stations, we deploy multiple arrays and run 24-hour operations for the next two and a half days. We deploy a sediment trap array, a primary production/gas fixation array, and a wirewalker array with each long station. The sediment trap array uses a series of tubes with formalin/brine in the bottom to capture and hold marine snow particles, aka sediments, that sink from the surface ocean. The primary production/gas fixation array uses C-14 enrinched seawater samples (collected on station) to determine the rate of primary production. The wirewalker array uses an ingenious design involving locking cams, positive buoyancy, and wave action to collect multiple sensor profiles from the surface ocean. Our latest wirewalker casts have produced ~120 profiles from each station (which is a lot). Array deployments and recoveries are some of the most exciting operations we’re doing on this cruise, as they involve a lot of coordinated deck work, and recoveries are conducted by grappling the arrays with grappling hooks! In addition to assisting with array deployments and recoveries, one of my responsibilities is managing CTD operations. This involves maintaining the senor suite aboard the rosette, downloading/processing data, and working with OTG techs/ship crew to collect water samples from different depths. Some of the new sensors I’ve been able to work with include a Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP) and a Laser In-Situ Scattering and Transmissometry (LISST) instrument. The UVP photographs small particles within a set volume of water and the LISST uses lazer diffraction to measure the size and quantitiy of suspeneded particles!

So far, we’ve hit long stations at 5°, 10°, and 15°, and besides minor issues with equipment and sample collection, the cruise has been going smoothly. This has been one of the most involved cruises I’ve ever participated in with nonstop ~80 hour work weeks but its been incredibly rewarding and I’ve had the oppourtinity to learn a lot. I’m now appreciating the importance of time management on long cruises like this, as it can be challenging to get enough sleep, eat well, exercise, and still have a strong attention to detail for 12-hour shifts. We have two more stations to hit before we can begin heading to Tahitit and the OTG techs, ships crew, and science team have all been working hard to collect this one of a kind data! By the time we finish up our last long station I’ll have my next blog post up so stay tuned!

Until then,

Hunter

 

– The underwater CTD and its “reel”

– The wirewalker. Inside the yellow covers there is a suite of sensors that measures the physical and optical properties of the water column. 

– The sediment trap holder being added to the array line

– Crossing the equator on Halloween!

– One of many oceanic white tip sharks we’ve seen since stopping at long stations. Photo credit to one of the Kilo Moana’s ABs Stephanie for capturing this image with a GoPro on a string!

– General idea of where the R/V Kilo Moana is currently in the Pacific ocean

We arrived at our first long station on Nov 2nd around 3 pm and arrived at our second long station on Nov 6th. The long stations are the meat and potatoes of the Ocean Carbon biological cruise as that is where scientists will be performing incubations, collecting water from depth, and conducting in situ experiments using arrays. Each long station is a 60-hour sampling storm with Conductivity Temperature and Depth (CTD) profiles taking place every 3 hours, sediment traps, primary productivity arrays, float deployments, and more! 

Immediately upon arriving at each long stratton, we deploy one of Dr. Henderikx’s floats. This float will be released into the water for the rest of its life where it will be conducting CTD profiles of the water column a couple times a day and then relaying that information to a satellite at least twice a month. This information will then be used to calibrate data collected from satellites hovering on Earth to what is happening in the water column. 

– Dr. Daniel Muratore and Tully Rohrer Deploying a Float upon arriving to a long station

The second and third orders of business are to deploy sediment traps and the wirewalker to collect the most data while we are at the station. Unlike the float, these will be retrieved at the end of the long station. To make our delicate samples and wirewalker visible and retrievable, we attach the samples to buoys that are bright yellow and have flashing lights, GPS, and a radio transmitter on them. The buoy is also connected to a string of floats that help counteract the weight of the samples, optodes, and weight at the end of the line. 

The sediment traps contain two sets of traps, one for trace metal analysis that uses brine as its trapping material and the other for overall organic matter exports outside of the photic zone that uses formaldehyde to preserve the samples. These traps are placed at a depth of about 150 meters, right under the photic zone and its goal is to trap as many of the particles that sink out of the surface. Most often it tends to be dying phytoplankton or bits and pieces of things that get stuck together and it represents carbon exiting the photic zone and beginning its slow descent into the bottom of the ocean…

– Deploying Sediment traps into the water. Top are trace metal clean sediment traps filled with brine. The bottom set of sediment traps are filled with formalyn to preserve particulates that have fallen in.

The third order of business is the wirewalker. The wirewalker is like a float in that it takes CTD profiles; however, it is attached to a buoy and it can take over 70 water column profiles a day. It utilizes wave energy and can be described as a pong brick moving up and down the wire up to depths of 400 meters in less than 30 minutes. This is an important instrument as it provides the oceanographic context to which we are sampling over the 60 hours. 

– Wire walker being deployed into the water

Once those are all deployed we can finally deploy the CTD rosette to start collecting water and generating a water column profile and the scientist can start doing their water incubations for upcoming experiments. There is an assortment of things that the science team samples for. Sometimes the team takes water to sample oxygen concentrations and particulate organic carbon. This cast is used to calibrate the oxygen sensor on the CTD. Then there is another cast where the scientist takes water to measure chlorophyll and uses the results of that to calibrate instrumentation.

My favorite cast is the Primary Productivity and Gas Array (PP Array). This cast is for collecting samples that will be used to test the rate of Nitrogen Fixation using N¹⁵, dissolved inorganic carbon consumption using C¹⁴ and oxygen production using O¹⁸.

– Dr. Daniel Muratore and Tully Rohrer spiking their incubations with N¹⁵ in preparation for the insitu PP/Gas Array deployment

During the CTD cast we “fire” bottles at 6 specific depths; 125m, 100m, 75m, 50m 25m, and 5m. These samples will then be placed back into the water at their respective depths, where they will sit in the water column for 24 hours replicating conditions that they were collected in. This cast always takes place at least 3 hours before sunrise, approximately ~1am in our current location. The CTD  samples are typically back on deck 30 minutes later and then put back in the water hopefully no later than 3 am – which is about when the sun is starting to rise in our current part of the world. It’s a bit of a scramble to get everything spiked with N15, C14 and O18 respectively before the samples are supposed to be in the water but it sure is exciting. While deploying this specific array, all lights have to be turned off and only red lights are allowed to prevent the phytoplankton from photosynthesizing too early, which adds to vibe ~

– Primary Productivity and Gas Array being deployed at 3am using red lights

 This ALSO provides the perfect opportunity to get a peak of the milky way and stars. There are definitly more stars in one corner of the sky than there were in the whole sky where I grew up in suburban San Diego. It take my breath away every-time!

This week I also celebrated my birthday! The galley staff were really kind and baked me a cake! It was delicious! 

Cheers,

Briana
 

Equatorial Musings While in Transit to 5°S!

Hey there! Things are well underway! When we are not conducting underway CTDs (uCTDs) or performing our daily grabs using the regular CTD Rosette 3 a.m. grab, we are cruising at a solid 9 to 10.5 knots!

Our cruise plan has changed a bit since the start of the journey due to challenges presented by weather and field conditions. Unfortunately, we were unable to conduct a long station in the northern hemisphere, but new opportunities to sample at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 degrees south have emerged. Therefore, the updated plan is to steamhead to 5 degrees south to begin the first long station and get underway with the bulk of our work.

While in transit, we crossed the equator on Halloween, which was highly anticipated! It was soooo anticipated that I even made a CTD Rosette costume while we were still in port, largely because I was inspired by the CTD, and I had heard that the equator crossing would be a pretty big deal,  especially because it was on Halloween!

– The subpeona inviting us to present ourselves before King Neptunes Court

Since the 1600s, crossing the equator (0°00.00) has been seen as a rite of passage, a good opportunity to boost morale and prove your seaworthiness. Despite its many variations, this seafaring tradition has persisted into modern times. The celebration typically involves a series of dares that Pollywogs, those who have never crossed the equator must complete to prove their seaworthiness. The Court of King Neptune and Davy Jones, along with his Committee of Shellbacks (those who have crossed the equator before), then judge your performance and decide whether to welcome you to the Kingdom of Neptune. In the past, they might have asked you to do some gnarly things, like crawl through chutes of rubbish, drink a “truth serum,” and eat uncooked eggs. Luckily, the Court of King Neptune aboard the Kilo Moana are much nicer and asked us humble Pollywogs to either perform a talent or sing karaoke while reading out the “crimes” we’d committed during our time on the ship. The “crimes” are not really crimes but more like hilarious superlatives. I was accused of enjoying the solitude of the night shift, hiding Hi-Chew candy, and being obsessed with the CTD, which they are not wrong… To repent for my “crimes,” I chose to sing karaoke to “Rich Girl” by Hall and Oates. Some of my fellow crewmates performed skits, told stories and jokes, and even did a whole dance routine! It was so cool to see everyone let loose and have a little fun on the back deck as the sun went down!

 

-Fellow Mate Intern, Hunter Adam and I in our Halloween Costumes 

We ended up crossing the equator later that day at around 05:06:56 UTC. My friend and I crouched by one of the consoles for a few minutes, counting down every second until 0°00.0000. The console only delivered 0°00.0001, which was a bit disappointing but still neat nonetheless.

– 

With one day away from our first long station, the Halloween/Equator Crossing was a nice “rest day” or, like its original intention, a good morale booster—a calm before the sampling science storm!

Cheers,

Briana

– Kilo Moana crew dressed for Halloween and Equator Crossing 

WEEK #3 (10/21 – 10/28)
Underway to Tahiti and Befriending the Underway CTD

– The proposed Kilo Moana’s SPOC 2418 expedition cruise track. 

Unfortunetly, per my last blog post, within the first few hours of the South Pacific Cruise, the Kilo Moana had to return to dock to address some repairs in the generator room and wait for a component to come to the island.

Sailing day couldn’t come soon enough! The Kilo Moana left Pier 35 on Oct 23 at 1730 Hawaii time into a gorgeous sunset. The goal of this mission is to characterize oceanic primary production and metabolic rates to further understand the carbon cycle along a transit of about 15° N to 30° S. This is done by collecting oxygen and optical proxies for carbon on a daily basis. This involves conducting in situ (on-site) incubation experiments using gas arrays, primary productivity arrays, and sediment traps that look at the rate at which organisms are growing in the water column (arrays) at depth or what is floating out of the photic zone (sediment traps). Additionally, we use profiling methods such as a CTD-Rosette cast every 3 hours (to varying depths), Hyperpro (which measures the optical properties of the ocean), an Underwater Vision Profiler (UVP) (which measures the size and abundance of particles and zooplankton in the water column), zooplankton net tows, and a wire walker (a CTD-like instrument that is attached to a buoy and can take up to 70 water column profiles a day)! Not to mention a wide suite of underway/continuous data like the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, which uses sound waves to measure the speed and direction of currents throughout the water column, the Imaging Flow Cytobot, which takes images of the phytoplankton that get sucked into the ship’s underway seawater system, meteorology, and the underway CTD!

The expedition will consist of a combination of long and short stations that last 2.5 days and 3 hours, respectively. When we are not at station, we will be doing daily water grabs for nutrient analysis as well as deploying an underway CTD (uCTD) every 2 hours.

– Briana Prado holding the underway CTD 

I’ve learned to love the underway CTD. It’s so cute! The sensor is a titanium pellet-looking thing that contains conductivity, temperature, and depth sensors; it also contains a fluorometer, turbidity, and dissolved oxygen sensors. It sits on the starboard side of the boat and can be deployed while the ship is in motion as long as the ship is going under 8 knots. Unlike a regular CTD-rosette, the uCTD does not collect water and does not need the ship to stop, therefore making it a great way to efficiently get an idea of what the water column looks like below. Plus, it provides the perfect excuse to go watch the waves for at least 20 minutes every 2 hours.

 To deploy it, you detach the spindle from the overboard handling system (OHS), set the instrument to free, and then you just drop the uCTD in the water. We’re largely interested in what’s happening at the surface, so we set a timer for 100 seconds to only collect the top 400 meters of the water column.  Once we reach 100 seconds, we apply the brakes to the feeder line, change the setting to rewind, and wait until the CTD is close to the surface. Once we can spot it on the surface, we get a cushion foam ready to slide through the line so we can reel the line in without banging the uCTD on the stern of the ship.

–  The Underway CTD overboard handling system.

Due to the high frequency with which we are deploying the underway CTD, issues can arise quickly. During the 12th cast of the cruise, while returning the line back into the spool, the power on the OHS stopped working, and the line kept spooling out until I finally realized to pull the brakes. We were startled that it had already stopped working so early in the cruise but also not surprised given the high frequency with which we use the instrument.

Tully, Ben and I were about to reel in over 400 meters of wire by HAND when we remembered that we could insert a bolt into the winch drum and use a powered tool to reel it in! Phew, that just saved us a couple of hours!

Once we reeled all of the line, we finally got to investigating what went wrong. Originally, we thought that maybe the motor on the uCTD had gone bad, but with a voltmeter in hand, we realized that the issue lay in the Pelican Power Junction box since it was not reading out any voltage.

– Taking a peak inside the underway CTD pelican box. 

After a quick dinner, Tully and I took a look at the inside of the box and realized that the positive lead in the power box had come undone, most likely due to how corroded it was. Phew, this is a workable issue! Now we just need to cut back some of the wire, attach a butt connector, and heat it into place. Once we put the box together, we double-checked with the voltmeter, and it was reading a value, so we had fixed it and could now re-install it back into the OHS and proceed with our routine underway CTD. We did it, lo hicimos! I now cross my fingers and hope that we can continue doing uCTDs throughout the cruise and that any issues that arise have workable solutions!

We’ve done a number of these so far; take a look at our data! These profiles help inform the team on areas of interest to sample as we are underway! Gaps in the data are often a result in fixing the instrument or bad weather.

Amongst other things, we got to sail over a part of the ocean that is over 19,000 ft deep (5,982 m), which really blew my mind! Wish us happy sailing! <3