Category: US Coast Guard Page 4 of 10

My first week on board Healy went by quickly. After an early morning flight to Seattle from New York, I spent the first day taking a tour of the ship and getting familairized with the layout of the ship. Luckily, I have had experience working on ships before which made navigating the ship much easier. After a few confusing hours getting lost in the various passageways I developed a pretty good sense of how to get around. 

The first leg of my journey was from Seattle to Kodiak, Alaska. This leg is just a transit, and apart from the other technicians none of the other science party members were on board. My daily routine during this transit cruise has been fairly constant. I get up around 0630 to eat breakfast with the other technicians, then work with and learn from them throughout the day. 

Since the Healy is a Coast Guard vessel, things run differently than on other civilian UNOLS research vessels. Whereas on civilian ships the marine techs will do most of the deck work involved with science operations, on the Healy it’s all performed by crew. From what I’ve learned from the marine technicians who have spent time on the Healy, this means that the focus of their work is centered more around the instruments and ensuring they are properly displaying, storing, and backing up data to the lab computers. 

One of the main components of science instrumentation I learned about in my first few days was the Science Seawater System (SSW). The ship’s engineering control center operates pumps which take in seawater to pass through the SSW system. The system is comprised of two stations, one located on the port side by the engineering spaces, and the other in the bio laboratory in the main science lab area. From the intake pipe the water gets diverted into a manifold which runs pipes to various instruments. One instrument is the fluorometer, which detects fluorescence in the water and can help determine the biological activity in the water. Other instruments measure temperature, salinity through conductivity, the flow rate of the water through the system, and CO2 levels in the water. All this information is then displayed on the lab computers, and it is the marine technicians’ job to ensure that the data is being properly logged and displayed and that the instruments are calibrated. 

One of the most interesting tasks I’ve worked on so far has been learning how to provide the multibeam and echosounder instruments with proper sound speed data. The multibeam and echosounder use sound to map out the seafloor, with the multibeam operating in a wide swath on either side of the ship and the echosounder mapping directly underneath the ship. Because they use sound, the instruments need to know the speed of sound in the water they’re in, since sound speed differs based on the medium in which it’s traveling. The speed of sound through the water depends on the temperature and conductivity, which is what the marine technicians work to find and provide to the instruments. When there is no current temperature and salinity profile, you use an archived version. Otherwise, you would deploy a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) instrument or an XBT (expendable temperature instrument) and measure the salinity and temperature as a function of depth. After you’ve collected the data, a sound speed program calculates the speed of sound in the water you’re in and the seafloor mapping instruments can function properly. 

I also spent a lot of time working with Mary, a Scripps Institute technician who taught me a lot about the ship’s network and data acquisition software. Through her, I learned a lot about the IT side of a marine technician’s work. One project we worked on, along with another technician Austin, was to install and wire a new serial splitter in one of the server racks in the computer lab. This splitter took data in from a hull temperature sensor and diverted it out to two computers in the lab. It took some trial and error, because it turned out that one of the computers required bi-directional control in order to communicate with the sensor itself and request temperature readings. After getting all the fiber optics and serial connections properly managed, we labeled the cables and created diagrams for future use. 

Since we are still in transit to the science mission, we have only been maintaining the instruments and troubleshooting. We just left Kodiak to head for Nome, where we will pick up the science party and transition into the standard 12 hour shifts alongside the actual marine technicians. It will be a lot of work, as the scientists will be running more or less continuous experiments, but I’m excited to see the real work that technicians perform when supporting science. 

Weekly Up-date July 29^th

On this day the Healy is in Kodiak. Several of the technicians that were on the transit have packed up and gone home leaving behind two technicians and two MATE interns to oversee the transit to Nome Alaska where the Healy will welcome the science party and two additional technicians.

First day on board- July 21^st

We got a brief tour of the ship and some of the STARC instruments on board and then got settled into our rooms. After that, we hung out in Seattle for a bit.

Second day on board- July 22^nd

Mary gave everyone a start-up cruise intro where we learned about the MET (MET is a Scripps application) and how to start it up at the beginning of the cruise (setting cruise name, linking to .acq file, etc). The start-up cruise crash course also entailed an overview of the networking used on the ship and the communication of data between instruments and the network.

We learned about the interworking parts of communication of data as well as the importance of monitoring the flow of this information. The crash course provided a solid foundation for the continued education to come in the next couple of days.

Still getting lost on the magnificent Healy. Healy finally starts heading out of the pier.

Third-fifth day on board- July 23^rd -July 26^th  

As the week progressed at sea the days seemed to blur together, but in the best way. We were constantly busy learning everything we could. So many new things to learn that extended beyond the daily operations of a Marine Tech. The Coast guard is doing their training which occasionally involved our participation (filing in to the science conference room for checks). There were a couple of times where the training got a little wild and an actual casualty occurred; before I would have been kind of worried about this but the coast guard does a really good job at keeping things under control.  On the other hand…In the computer lab we have monitors that tune into the flight deck so we got to take a little break and watch the coast guard do flight crash training on the flight deck.

*Side note—I got sick during this time with a cold and the classic sea sickness. The best way I can describe it is by comparing it to the way you might feel after getting off a roller coaster that you’ve road 43 times straight while simultaneously trying to read Moby Dick.

Now back to the important stuff: The information download consisted of many more parts than the ones I will discuss below.

Two of the things that really grabbed my attention were the CTD and the Science Seawater Flow Through. I enjoyed learning about the set-up of the different instruments in the science seawater flow through, why the instruments are positioned the way they are (“real estate” as Mary likes to say) and what each instrument measured and how this contributed to different scientific research. The Healy has two science sea water flow throughs (SSW). The SSW on the port side is the only one of the two that has a pCO2 (one of the reasons why it’s the primary SSW flow through). The water that flows through the PortSSW will flow through the secondary SSW flow through located in the Biolab.  Both of the SSW flow throughs have to be monitored and tinkered as the flow through from the main pipes can change. this is important becase of the mechnics in the TSG (conductivity and temperature). The MET helps us check the values when we are in the computer lab.

The CTD is probably my favorite instrument. There are several names to refer to the CTD (i.e. Fish, Rosette, CTD). I will probably be talking more about the CTD when we start casting! But for now: we learned how to open and close the pumps attached to the rosette as well as the different instruments connected to the fish and rosette. I like to creep on the CTD from my computer using the IP address of the camera placed in the Starboard Staging Bay. Its doesnt do much but sit there while we are in transit but there is a sense of satisfaction when I can sit in my bunk before bed and tap into the nanny cam.

July 27^th– 28^th

We ported in Kodiak and went through the end cruise protocol for the instruments. Made sure the pumps were turned off for the SSW (dont want to suck up all the gunk and filter it through the system). The EM 122 and the Knudsen were also turned off. 

We got to explore Kodiak a bit. The second day we went to the south side of the island and hung out a bit. I saw a baby sea otter and got pretty close to it (Houston doesn’t have a lot of these hanging around downtown). There is a photo floating around somewhere and I will try to get that up later.

Hello my name is MacKenzie and I am one of the MATE interns aboard the Healy 1901 cruise. My major is in Environmental Geoscience at Texas A&M University. My background, as it relates to this internship, is in microbial and biological oceanography with a touch of GIS. I worked for the International Ocean Discover Program for a couple of years on the shoreside end of core sampling and XRF imaging. I’m excited to learn about the Tech side of science and work hands on with the various instruments. I have never been on a ship like this before and don’t really know much about the coast guard so all of this is completely new and exciting!

Hello everyone, my name is Amitav Mitra and I will be joining the USCG Healy in Seattle next week as a MATE intern. For the next five weeks I’ll be onboard working with and learning from the technicians as we sail north into the Arctic Circle. 

I have spent time at sea as a deck cadet at a state maritime academy, where I was working to earn my 3rd Mate’s license while studying electrical engineering. I am privileged to have the opportunity to sail on the Healy this summer, and I am excited to learn about the work that marine technicians perform. This internship provides me with the opportunity to learn new skills and practice old ones, all while supporting scientific research in the Arctic.  

I look forward to providing updates in the coming weeks as the cruise progresses, and I thank everyone who has helped me get this far!

-Amitav

Last week we were wrapping up our science operations, this week we are wrapping up the science season. After we successfully recovered the mooring, we went into full steam back to Dutch Harbor. Within hours of wrapping up with science, the USCGC Healy was called into action and used as a refueling station for a rescue mission for one of the Coast Guard helicopters, which went late into the night. Semper Paratus, Always Ready! The hard working men and women of the Healy have definitely earned their well deserved rest after this 6+ month deployment, wrapping up 3 successful science missions in the Alaskan High Arctic.

After the science party departed in Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, it went from a busy beehive to a ghost town. The marine science technician’s office is near our work quarters, so we still see them, and we have the occasional watch stander walking thru on their rounds, but nothing like it was before. The deck team is busy with flight training operations, instead of on-deck running CTD, XCTD, and Van Veen deployments. We are not calling down to the engineers requesting pumps to be turned on and off; we are not out on deck observing science evolutions. We went from the science labs being full of scientists running and analyzing their water samples, to an empty compartment. We went from having minimum two STARC techs working 24/7, to only two of us onboard working 0800 to 1800, packing up and preparing for the overhaul. I have the entire science sleeping quarters to myself, since the other STARC Tech and C4IT are on the 3^rddeck. I have never gotten to say I have an entire deck aboard a ship to myself! Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and what a great feast the culinary specialists put out for us. The moral is highly affected by the quality of dishes the chefs put out, and we definitely lucked out with the delicious meals prepared onboard.  I am not even saying that because the CSCS (Culinary Specialist Senior Chief) was my A-school instructor. 

It is hard to make cleaning up, breaking down, organizing, and packing sound fun and exciting, but something that has to be done, and you actually learn a lot taking apart the equipment, especially in how it works. When breaking down the CTD’s I discovered that one of the brands of hose clamps shared my name, but of course they spelt it wrong!

Tomorrow we are due to arrive in Juneau and that’s when I will catch my flight and head back home. I want to thank the MATE program for this amazing opportunity to come onboard the USCGC Healy, to learn with STARC, WHOI, and the U.S. Coast Guard. I am grateful to have been given the chance to help build upon my academic background through hands on training, and add to my experience in being the support of ocean exploration. I am always striving to challenge myself and continue my education to make myself a valuable contribution to the next generation of ocean explorers. In the near future I wish continue my education and eventually obtain PhD in Exploration Sciences and Technology. I had a great time, and it was a pleasure meeting with and working with everyone. 
Fair winds and following seas! Time to get some rest before my next expedition!

It certainly has been a game of ping-pong going back and forth across the Beaufort Sea. Last week when we were starting our transit back West, and near Utqia?vik (formerly Barrow) where we stumbled upon the formation of winter water, and when you stumble across a scientific phenomena, you to try and gather as much data as possible, in this case we needed to best document how it spreads across the Beaufort slope. So we headed back East, filling in the gaps between our CTD line transects, then we headed back West due to time constraints, and then because the Coast Guard crew was so amazingly efficient at the CTD cast evolutions, they bought us more time to head back East! I also want to mention, this week we also experienced our shortest days with just about 2 hours of daylight, and our coldest temperatures yet, dropping down to -21°C (-5°F) with -28°C (-18°F) wind chill. Bravo Zulu Captain and Crew of the Healy!!

The Franklin Mountains of the Brooks Range on the North Slope borders the Beaufort Sea. So on a clear day, during our two hours of sunlight, and our 6-ish hours of twilight, the majestic mountains were our backdrops. Even if it wasn’t clear, it was snowing beautiful, big, fluffy snowflakes. If you are a snowboarder like I am, this just kills you. I teach snowboarding at Rhode Island’s number one ski area, Yawgoo Valley, I also organize and lead the snowboarding staff as an Instructor Trainer and Snowboard Hill Captain, so I am very passionate about the sport. Yawgoo is pretty flat, with 95m (310ft) of elevation, so when waking up to fresh powder on the decks every day, and with the ocean between you and the soaring mountains, it’s torture! Also getting news that back home that they just got their first snow of the season, I can hear my snowboard calling my name! I am also a polar and ice diver, and happen to be one of the members of the Sedna Epic Expedition, where we are snorkeling the Northwest Passage in 2020, so between no snowboarding and no scuba diving for the past 4 weeks, I am going through withdrawals! But the reality is, the mariner in me is still just as excited being on a ship up in the High Arctic in the beginning of winter, I am truly lucky. People always assume just because the water is cold, that there is no life, and high latitudes the water is always murky because it LOOKS dark. Oh on the contrary, the ocean is teeming with life! Winter in New England is my favorite time to go diving because the water is so much clearer, and instead of the average 3m of viability you can easily have up to 10m+, and unless you are at the foot of a glacier, or the mouth of a river same generally goes for the High Arctic, with the added bonus of icebergs.

During our transits back and forth between lines, gave me some “down time” to get back to work on creating and/or updating SOPs (standard order procedures). My learning style, I am a do-er. I learn best by actually working on a skill, so if there isn’t a current opportunity to work on a task hands on, the next best option for me is to do a mock trial, allowing me to record observations, skills and steps. Especially when it comes to using different software. So far I created SOPs for importing Ice Imagery on QINSy, and updated XBT & XCTD cast procedures, and now creating processing procedures for POS MV, and updating Seapath.

Photo credit: Sarah Kaye, C4IT
With only one more science stop to recover a mooring, we are full steam back to Dutch Harbor. One day and wake up before the science party disembarks, and then we will continue our journey to Juneau, Alaska. We will be disassembling all the equipment for the end of the science season and the ships dry-dock. Good-bye the world above the Arctic Circle, hope to see you soon!
November 17th is when Utqia?vik will have their last sunset, as it begins the two months of Arctic night.

 It is funny on how many countdowns there are going on aboard the vessel. 8 Days until we arrive back in Dutch Harbor, 14 days until we arrive in Juneau, and 20 days until the ship arrives back in Seattle [15 days until I arrive back home in New England]. I can’t forget to mention it’s # days and a wake up.
We did get a nice change of pace this week switching from CTD casts to XCTDs, at least for a day and a half. Instead of an evolution involving several deckhands, deploying a large cylinder with several pipes (niskin bottles) designed to capture water at different depths, along with an ADCP (acoustic doppler current profiler- which measures how fast water is moving across an entire water column) and a few other pieces of oceanographic equipment, we are able to test for CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth), turbidity (clarity), and get nutrient, chemical, and salinity measurements from the water samples. So the XCTD saves a lot of time when trying to get a snapshot of an area, since it involves only three people, dropping a single probe down into the water column. It records conductivity, temperature, and pressure. So when deploying the XCTDs we stumbled across some really exciting data. We were capturing the formation of winter water and how it spreads across the Beaufort slope! So we went back to CTD casts for a “higher resolution” of this phenomenon. 

Photo Credit: MST2 Cory Padron
We did our deep CTD cast this week. This is always everyone’s favorite event, getting to decorate and shrink Styrofoam cups! The cups started at 9 cm tall and shrunk to about 3.75 cm. They were sent down to just over a mile (1.1 miles) below the surface to 1784m (5853 feet)! I got carried away making three different cups.

I also got to work on splicing cables. It’s been awhile since I did soldering, so it was a nice to get down and dirty and do some precision work with my hands. I also re-terminated some CAT5 cables; this was a first for me. The wires are organized inside the cable white and color with solid color (ex. WO/O, WB/B, WG/G, and WBr/Br). Somewhere along the lines, someone inventing the terminal end thought that it would be a good idea to switch two of the white/color cables in the terminal end (WO/O, WG/B, WB/G, WBr/Br). Tell me how that makes sense?! I ended up having to splice the cable ends twice, because of that mix up. Now I will remember the order every time I terminate CAT5 cables, and to check and double check the guide, instead of looking at the black and white picture for reference.

On our trek back west, coming in close to land, we also came back into cell phone service off the coast of Alaska’s North Slope. It is funny when your phone hits 3g and notifications come streaming in, two plus weeks worth. I guess a lot of people didn’t listen to my voicemail saying I was out to sea for six weeks, or all the away messages I put up on my email and social media. [Verizon, I use to have service in Dutch Harbor 12 years ago, and now I do not, but I do have service off shore the coast of the North Slope?!? Thank you!] 
After three weeks, we finally had an amazing Aurora sighting! The irony is the forecast said it was a low probability (2 out of 10). The past couple of days we have entered our “W” transect. We call it that because it’s the shape of a W, so we have had a pretty solid CTD cast routine, with time between casts ranging between 15 to 30 minutes apart. It also was extremely cold this week with wind chill temperatures hitting below zero, so my morning routine heading to watch has been walk down to the mess deck, get some hot water for my tea, and head back to the lab through the interior of the ship. After I get bundled up in my foulies, I head outside in the darkness to stare at the sky in hopes to see the Aurora, or the ice illuminated around the ship until the start of my watch at 6 am. Yesterday was warm, in the mid twenties, similar was predicted for today, and something just made me want to go “walk to work outside”. So happy that I did, because as soon as my feet hit the deck, I looked up to see the dancing green stream across the sky! Some call it luck, some call it fate, either way I was so excited!
We are also up to 8 polar bear sightings! We still haven’t seen any walrus’ or whales, hopefully soon now that we are near the ice edge. 

Living aboard a ship is nothing new to me, being a Coast Guard Veteran, having steamed around the Antarctic Peninsula and Scotia Arc with the Geological Society of America, sailed around New Zealand, with SEA Semester’s Global Ocean Program, I even have served as expedition staff aboard a Russian Nuclear Ice Breaker to the Geographic North Pole.  As a licensed captain, having worked on charters, boat deliveries, and even fishing, diving, and service support vessels, I have put on many miles at sea (almost four years documented sea time last time I checked). I have spent time out on the Okeanos Explorer as a mapping watch stander with the Explorer-in-Training program out in the Western Pacific before, but the experience of living and working aboard a research vessel always feels new to me. Having a “9-5 schedule” let alone while at sea, is completely the opposite of what I am use to. From working several seasonal jobs and employment contracts, my land schedule is always changing day to day. While at sea, I am use to rotating watch schedules, on top of a daily work schedule. Serving as a captain of vessel you are always on call, but here I worked every day from 0600 to1800 (6am to 6pm) ships time. Meals are always served at the same time. The daily duties change, but the repetition does not. The closest thing to standard routine I am use to is when my animals (puppy, dog, cat, and parrot) wake me up each morning. It’s a nice change of pace (aside from missing my fur balls). When your schedule is predictable, you can get a lot more accomplished when you are smart with your time, so I am quickly knocking out tasks (such as updating SOPs and work manuals) and working on new projects to keep busy.
If you haven’t been following, I am serving my internship with STARC (Ship-based Technical Support in the Arctic) as a Tech Watch stander, and WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) is our science team aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, a polar icebreaker. The primary focus of our work is moorings and CTD casts. CTD stands for conductivity, temperature, and depth (pressure) of seawater. To paint a picture, we are around 72° North, in the Arctic Ocean. Our current area is off Prudhoe Bay, North Slope in Alaska, in November. So ice is forming all around us, day is turning to night, and temperatures are dropping. Right now we have about 5 hours of daylight. Sun rises at lunch and sets at dinner. We are limited to recovering and deploying moorings during daylight hours (obvious safety reasons), so that does put some restrictions on our CTD cast transects (we have to sometimes break away to go recover a mooring).

The portable heater in our CTD compartment is broken, and so is the back up. The space is still heated, but pulling equipment out from the water, even just a minute, below freezing temperatures with wet equipment, is not good. We have been getting around the lack of heat by flushing the pumps with room temperature salt water, then slowly adding warmer saltwater, to bring them up from below freezing every time the CTD cast comes back aboard, so it is ready for redeployment. We also use a heat gun (much like a hair dryer) on some of the equipment parts to unfreeze them, being extremely careful, not to damage any of the sensors. Our saltwater flow system on the ship was even getting clogged with ice chunks. We’ve been busy.

Photo Credit: Brandon D’Andrea
Still nothing is better than stepping outside, in the clean, crisp, Arctic Air and watching jaw-dropping icescapes. We have been lucky enough to catch a glimpse of an Arctic fox out on the ice, ring seals sunning, and even a polar bear mother with her two [one year old] cubs, not to mention seabirds. We also got a glimpse of the Aurora, peeking between the clouds one night. We are entering a high-pressure system, and with a waning moon, it will give us more optimal conditions for viewing, fingers crossed! The sunset on Halloween blessed us with a sight of perihelia sun arcs! Also known as sundogs and ice halos. Think of a rainbow, but the arcs are reversed. When you see sundogs, it’s a sailor’s weather prediction that snow is coming, and lo and behold, it started to snow an hour later. 
We are continuing to push east, as far as the ice allows us. Stay warm!

The flights to Dutch Harbor are always a hit or miss, but with 4 legs of flights, the flight to Dutch was the only flight NOT delayed. The previously flight delays, just happened to cause me to miss that flight, luckily there was a flight later in the day. It feels good to be back in Alaska. I cannot believe how much has changed over the past 12 years.

It is funny, after previously serving in the Coast Guard, you forget how small of a world it really is. Upon arriving I immediately ran into the Commanding Officer of the Healy, whom happened to be my previous CO when I served on the USCGC Hickory as a non-rate. I also ran into my old roommate from TranCen Petaluma and another whom was my A-School instructor. It’s a large ship, with about 120 souls on board, so I can only imagine whom else I might run into.
After a good nights sleep, I hopped right in, learning the ship and where everything was, and what my duties and responsibilities would be. I am working with STARC (Ship-based Technical Support in the Arctic) as a Tech watch stander, and WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) is our science team aboard the Coast Guard Polar Ice Breaker Healy. We will be doing mooring work on the continental shelf of the Alaska Beaufort Sea, along with CTD work spanning the Chukchi and Canadian Beaufort Sea.
Immediately getting to work I got to fabricate a bracket to hold an instrument, the scientist wanted to add to the CTD. Loving puzzles, I got quickly figured out how we would attach the instrument close enough to their other sensor, but far enough to not cause interference.  
Photo Credit: Matt Hirsch
The other issue was creating a structure strong enough where it would not cause vibrations. A saw, dremel, and some scrap metal did the job! We are deploying two test casts later today, fingers crossed the fabrication works out.

Once getting underway we booted up all the systems that would be running over the course of our voyage such as the multibeam, knudsen echo sounder, EM122, ADCP, Hypack, QINSy, seawater flow through, pCO₂, along with calibrating the instruments. Setting up, double, and triple checking the data flow, serial servers, and syncing the systems to ensure all the data is collected and it is being filed in an organized manor.
Upon departing we had a good test to make sure all of our gear was secured for sea, heading straight into 6-8m seas. It looks like there is a high-pressure system on the horizon, so it’s forecasted to have smooth sailing as we go through the Bering Straight this weekend.

10/13/18 – 10/22/18

Week Five: Inport Dutch Harbor

This week we spent the majority of our time steaming back through the Bering Strait and Bering Sea. We saw the Diomede islands in daylight this time, which was amazing. The Big Diomede is Russia and the Little Diomede is the United States. We could also see mainland Alaska as we passed through the strait. Weather had been predicted to be a little sporty as we went through the Bering, but ended not being all that bad. We still had a couple loose ends to take care of for NOAA in two mooring recoveries south of St. Lawrence Island. The first mooring had conditions outside parameters to deploy a small boat, so the captain and chiefs decided they would release the mooring and pick it with a grapple and the aft a-frame. This proved to be really challenging as it was the first time in a very long time the Healy had done something like this. While this is standard on some UNOLS ships, the Healy is far larger and doesn’t have the manuverability that those ships have. It was an exciting recovery and you could really feel the whole crew getting into it. The conditions were challenging and the recovering was challenging and thus made the success all that much better. We ended passing the second mooring due to conditions not being favorable and that would conclude our full science operations. We were now on our way to pull into port in Dutch Harbor. 

I spent my time on the bridge while we made our way into Dutch Harbor and to the pier. It was a cool site to see everyone up there anxious to finally pull in after 37 days underway. We pulled in around 1400 on October 18th. 

The rest of the time spent in Dutch Harbor before I departed was spent doing some routine mantainence on our systems and improving some science seawater capabilities. 

My time has come to an end on the Healy and with the crew of STARC. I enjoyed every minute of my internship aboard and had some unreal experiences and opportunities that do not come very often. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and I hope you enjoyed hearing about our adventures in the realm of the Arctic Circle. 

-Nick