Hello everyone!
I have learned so much during the first two weeks of my internship. I made a huge accomplishment yesterday! The NTP time server on the ship, was only syncing the time to the computers every two days, I made it so that the time syncs every 5 minutes! My mentor, Nick, is awesome and he already taught me so much. I know by the end of my internship I will have so much more knowledge than when I started. I will be back next week to write my third blog!
Morgan Hudgins
June 17, 2018
2330 Local Time
Hello, and Happy Father’s Day (especially to mine!)
It has been an eventful and productive week at sea on the Sally Ride, including lots of sampling stations, some wave buoy deployments, mammal sightings, a petrel rescue and release, safety drills, and the retrieval of a small craft that capsized during a race from California to Hawaii – more on that below.
This is Day 8 of the CalCOFI “Summer” cruise (http://calcofi.org/), and we have sampled 40 of the 75 stations so far. I continue to stand the 0000-1200 watch as the Ride steams along our neat transect lines up the coast and am glad to be a part of such a good-spirited, skeleton crew haunting the labs and deck in the very early morning hours.
We made it through some pretty rough seas this past week. When leaving one station, we were broadsided by 3 big waves, which had the unfortunate effect of ripping out a table support and having a big deck crate jump its ratchet strap and slide across the deck. Thankfully, no one was injured, but it did require us to slow the ship to a crawl and re-secure both items with some creative ratchet straps and zip ties. Sea conditions can also make net deployment a tricky business, but I feel confident in my abilities to communicate with the winch operators and keep my eyes out for the cable angle, appropriate speed and depths, and line tension simultaneously.
(Image Credits: Jim Wilkinson, CalCOFI)
One quite memorable station was at a depth of 20 meters just offshore from Laguna Beach, California at 1,000 Step Beach. We were so close, that I could clearly see the writing on buildings and cars waiting at a traffic light. This is the closest station, by far, of the transect lines and everyone enjoyed the view and the momentary cell phone service it provided. I hope the people on shore also enjoyed the unique spectacle.
(Image Credits: Jim Wilkinson, CalCOFI)
It has also been a busy week for the three Marine Mammal Observers on board. They are out on deck from dawn to dusk deploying sonobuoys and the towed array for the Whale Acoustic Lab at Scripps (http://cetus.ucsd.edu/) as well as cataloguing visual species. They are a really fun group to talk to and so far, have had dolphin and whale sightings, mola mola sunfish, loads of albatross and petrels and this one, rather out of place, juvenile masked booby below.
(Image Credits: Jim Wilkinson (top), Katherine Whitaker (bottom left))
Today probably marked the strangest experience of all. Earlier in the week, the Captain was in communication with the US Coast Guard and the sailing vessel Precious Moment to arrange a possible transfer of Anne, an ocean row boat from team Attack Poverty that was competing in the 2018 Great Pacific Race. Around June 10th, Anne capsized and the two crew were rescued and taken back to shore on the HMM Hyundai Bangkok, a passing container vessel, for medical attention.
Present Moment met us on station in the late afternoon and sailed up off our starboard side. They threw over the towing line to our ship, and the Ride crew guided Anne over to the transom where they had rigged up a cargo net and bridle to act as a cradle. The entire boat was lifted on to deck and is now safely stowed and, presumably, will be returned once we dock again in San Diego.
This time next week we will be back in port and then I am off again almost immediately on a transit up to Newport, Oregon. I’ll chat with you then and wishing all a pleasent week!
– Emily
Its been another busy week on the Sharp during the first half of leg 3! We left Woods Hole last week and headed back to Georges Bank, but to the southern end this time. Whereas leg one and two were extremely dredge heavy, with over 80 dredges during leg two, this leg has been primarily HABCAM oriented. We conducted maybe a dozen dredges once we reached our survey area, and then the HABCAM went into the water for over five days. This definitely slowed things down for the techs, but allowed me to focus my learning elsewhere for a few days. I have gotten more familiar with the Sharp’s systems and have been in charge of doing daily data backups, system checks, and processing winch data into plots. The thing I’ve most enjoyed in this down time has been learning more about the CTD! My watch partner Drew has walked me through the carrousel, helping me visually identify all the sensors and instruments and we’ve discussed common issues and troubleshooting. He also helped me delve into the software where I learned how to do my own CONFILE, the file that contains all the calibration info for the sensors, and setup my own PSA, which displays a wealth of information/tools for use during CTD deployments.
We pulled the HABCAM out of the water this morning and switched back over to dredging for 12 hours before we return to Woods Hole for a brief fuel stop. We secured the dredge within the last hour and have turned towards land! After arriving tomorrow morning we will be briefly refueling before departing for a final four days on George’s Bank later that same day.
I’m already looking forward to getting back offshore for our final days!
June 11, 2018
0500 Local Time
Hi there!
Greetings again from the Sally Ride. We got underway Saturday morning for the 15-day California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) cruise. The organization was formed back in 1949 to investigate the collapse of the sardine fishery off the California coast, and they have an amazing repository of sampling reports and long-term ecological changes for this region. I recommend checking out their website. I actually got to meet a few of the team members during a guided tour of the Sally Ride and dinner with the UCSD Foundation Board this past Thursday and some have done over 100 of these cruises.
It is a 24/7 science operation, and so I am standing the 0000-1200 watch to assist with station deployments and sampling for the Secchi, CTD and various nets (Pairovet, Manta, Bongo). The operations at each station take about 2 hours to complete, and there are 73 of them to get through in the next two weeks. It looks like we may be in for some wind and rough seas as well over the next couple days just to make it more challenging!
Interestingly enough, all of the towed net deployments are done over the starboard side instead of the A-Frame aft. Given the long-term nature of the study, the team have calculations for the ideal speeds and angles for each net. For example, if I ask for “Bongo net speed”, then this means 1.5-2.0 knots or thereabouts so long as the towing cable angle is 45 degrees +/- 3 degrees when the net is deployed 300 meters at a rate of 50 meters/minute and hauled in at 20 meters/minute.
Next week I will be back with more information and pictures about the Whale Acoustic Lab folks who are also on board. See you then!
– Emily
June 3, 2018
1545 Local Time
Hiya!
This week marks my first cruise on the R/V Sally Ride, which is the sister ship to the Armstrong. On one hand, the identical layout of both vessels has made for quick familiarization and yet the contrasts between how spaces are being used does require some reorientation. It is sort of like shopping at two different branches of a grocery store chain. The basic fixtures and signage are familiar, but the produce section and deli counter are flipped, and you can’t seem to find the cereal aisle.
I have really enjoyed this first cruise, which is part of the NSF GeoPath project. It has been really fun to engage with a variety of undergraduate and graduate students who are out here to learn about seafloor sampling and deployment and recovery of sampling equipment. I think every potential student in oceanographic research should be required to come out on a vessel and engage in the field sampling operations. It gives you a good perspective of the kind of demanding work and conditions that the data is collected out of. The scientists on board are incredibly knowledgeable and passionate teachers and they have been keeping the students very busy with multicore sampling, sediment grabs, CTD casts, and microscopic analysis of the various organisms making their homes on the rocky seafloor. In short, we have all been up to our knees in mud and loving it.
On the Revelle cruise, the Jason engineering team ran their own deck operations, so this is the first time I have been able to assist and even run my own deck operation for instrumentation deployment and recovery. This includes communication with the Bridge and winch operator as well as setting up deck cleats and managing tag lines, A-Frame operation, decent and ascent depth and speeds, and making sure all of this is being done safely and efficiently.
We will be making our way back to San Diego tomorrow morning and I will be helping to prepare for the next cruise on the Ride for the California Cooperative Fisheries Investigation (CalCOFI) team. This is a a very large and long-standing study, and so the science party are bringing a lot of people and equipment with them, so it should be a busy one!
– Emily
After a two day stop over in Woods Hole, we’re back on the proverbial road!
Leg 1 concluded on Wednesday the 23rd with a stop over in Woods Hole to provision, re-fuel, and bring new scientists and volunteers onboard. After a busy day making preparations (with an evening off so the techs could flex their bowling skills) we were on deck at 0500 Friday morning for departure. We headed offshore through Nantucket sound and began dredging to the South of Cape Cod, gradually working North towards Provincetown. When my watch took over deck ops at 0530, we were greeted on deck by the greatest whale show I’ve ever seen in my entire life. There was no wrong direction to look in as humpbacks breached all around us with several pods of dolphins thrown in for good measure. Upon recovering our first dredge the large ammount of krill in it was a good indication as to why we got such a show! As we sailed into the night the fog rolled in so thick that you could not see the top of the Sharp’s VHF antenna and the temperature continued to drop.
We spent three days dredging hard around the clock. The area we were in was far more rocky than our southerly tracks. Having to roll large rocks, fix busted rock chains, and even swaping out a damaged dredge at one point slowed our progress. While further south we may have been averaging 4-5 dredges per watch, now we were only managing 3-4. After three days as sea conditions deterioarated we had to shut down night time deck ops as it was too dangerous to safely work with the prevailing sea state in the dark. We picked it up the following morning and the next day switched over to the HABCAM. A very welcome break after three days of hard work. We’re currently finishing up our HABCAM tracks on the Northern edge of Georges Bank and expect to return to dredging early tomorrow morning until we return to Woods Hole on Sunday night. Looking forward to another busy few days!
Signing off for now,
Charlie
42 06.50 N, 67 25.11 W
May 28, 2018
1530 local time
Happy Memorial Day!
It is a beautiful weekend, and I can’t think of a better place to be than sunny San Diego. The Revelle was back at the dock on Wednesday afternoon following a really short but eventful cruise. In the afternoon of our last full day at sea, the Jason engineers finally got the ROV in the water and took it all the way down to the seafloor some 4500 meters below. It was really cool to see them testing out the two arms on deck and running through all the various checks and “football float” attachments to the cable before the long descent.
After dinner, I went in the Jason control van and watched Jason land gently on the seafloor, kicking up plumes of sediment all around it. Multiple, high-definition camera displays allowed us to see the surrounding seafloor as the pilots white-balanced the 3D camera and used the arms to remove heavy, metal plates acting as ballast. During the dive, the engineers could also test the accuracy of the USBL to detect Jason’s position. It was really cool to be able to see the operation and to watch live feed from the deep ocean.
Since the Jason team were mostly operating independently, this left Matt and me free to prepare for upcoming cruises. I was able to update the inventory for the CTD, including all of the spare sensors and cables, as well as clean and defrost the science freezers in the various lab spaces. Had it been warmer out on deck, I would have suggested a snowball fight with all the frost I managed to scrape off.
Matt and I also terminated the 0.322 CTD cables for the Desh 5 and Cast 6 winches. Matt printed out the instructions for me to review, and it was really beneficial for me to work through a different procedure from that at WHOI, but still arrive at the same result, which is a successfully insulated and communicative connection between the deck box and CTD. I also got to use an automatic wire stripper for the first time and found myself wondering why anyone bothers with any other style. Instead of the Scotchcote mold used on the Armstrong, we made our soldered connections water tight by carefully wrapping a layer of vulcanizing tape and electrical tape, and then brushing on some Scotchcote compound. It made the process a lot quicker, so you can easily re-terminate if there are any problems during science operations.
After we arrived back in port, the first two days were incredibly busy. All of the Jason accessories needed to get packed away in various storage holds and two containers needed to be moved to the bow of the ship and secured. We also needed to bring on the CTD carousel and rosette and some huge equipment for coring operations on the upcoming cruise. I also got a chance to work with Kelsey on attaching two Niskin bottles to the frame of a multicore sampler in a way that would ensure the bottles are tripped when the multicore tubes are also triggered. This took some engineering on our part, especially as the bottles themselves weren’t even in working condition yet and had to have various replacements made. I think it will work, but we will see!
In addition to all of the equipment preparation, moving, and securing, they also had to move the Sproul from it’s docked position in order to make way for the Sally Ride. On Friday, they sailed her over and ended up side-tying her to the Revelle and running a power cable and gangway from the Sproul to the Revelle.
Overall, it was a very busy but rewarding week, and I am glad I got to assist in some of the preparation operations for the upcoming cruises. Next up for me is a quick trip out on the Sally Ride, leaving this upcoming Friday, supporting the NSF GEOPATHS initiative for hands-on training and research experience for students in geoscience. I am looking forward to assisting in the collection of sediment samples with the use of the multicore, and am also interested to catalogue the many similarities and differences between the Armstrong and the Ride as I have never sailed on sister ships before.
– Emily
It has been an absolute whirlwind of a week on the R/V Hugh R Sharp. I don’t think I’ve ever learned and experienced so much in such a short period of time!
After arriving at the ship on Monday the 14th I spent a couple days learning my way around the ship as we loaded gear, provisions, and prepared for departure. We departed Lewes, DE last Wednesday evening as I slept in preparation to go on watch at 2330. During that first night offshore we launched and recovered our HABCAM, a towed camera array that is used to take high definition pictures of the bottom, allowing the scientists to test it and adjust the trim so it flew nice and level above the bottom as we towed it along. We spent three days using the HABCAM during which we had to recover and redeploy the vehicle numerous times to allow the scientists to address some persistent camera issues. The pictures that it sends back from the bottom are really incredible, I was blown away by the clarity and the fact that the scientists can use them to count and measure scallops without having to bring them onboard.
Speaking of bringing scallops onboard….on the 19th we switched over to dredging! My first night of dredging was incredibly busy and a nice change of pace, giving me some great experience working on deck. That first night we deployed and recovered six dredges and three CTD’s. We have been doing a combination of 10 and 15 minute dredge tows from which the scientists have been collecting scallops and sometimes scallops, crabs, whelks, and more! Recovering the dredge and unloading what can be over 1000 lbs of catch is challenging physical work, but a lot of fun!
What I’ve enjoyed the most so far is getting to run the CTD casts. A CTD is a cylindrical array loaded with niskin bottles, which can be remotely closed from the surface to collect water samples, and a suite of sensors that record conductivity, temperature, and depth (hence the name CTD). Every few dredge sites, the captain will stop the ship allowing us to lower CTD down to the bottom, where we collect water samples that are tested for salinity or micro-plastics, giving us a wealth of data for the water column in that location. The head technician on my watch Drew, a former MATE intern, performed the first few casts so I could learn the procedures but since then I have done the majority of the casts. It has been awesome getting so much experience with such a mainstay of oceanography and I’m looking forward to getting more familiar with the system over the course of the next four weeks!
Currently we are transiting to Woods Hole which will conclude the first leg of our scallop cruise. It’ll be nice to have a day to stretch my legs, but I’m already looking forward to getting back offshore and continuing our work!
We are currently on satellite Wi-Fi which is insufficient for posting pictures, but please check in on Wednesday for an edit with some pictures from my first week on the Sharp!
Signing of for now,
Charlie
038 48.26 N, 073 36.37 W
May 20, 2018
1830 local time
Hi there!
I am not sure about you, but I have had a very busy week. When I last wrote, the R/V Neil Armstrong was just a few hours away from tying up in Reykjavik. In the final hours, Amy and I finished up the termination on the CTD, secured the underway systems and echosounders, and started the data transfer process while the pilot climbed aboard and guided the ship in.
Joe met us once we went through the immigration process, and he and I tried our best to waterproof a security camera monitor for the gangway watch stander as there was no port security on this specific dock. Our delay getting in meant that he was not the only one waiting to board. We had a full science crew who started moving on almost immediately. Thankfully, I had already packed my duffel and moved it out of the way. After the rough seas we had all transit, it was a nice feeling to be on solid ground again. The crew celebrated the arrival that night and less than 24 hours later, I was on a flight to San Diego to board the R/V Roger Revelle and begin my time at Scripps.
The Shipboard Technical Support (STS) team at Scripps is a well-oiled machine headed by some very cool and seasoned people. Within the team are a Geophysical group, Oceanographic Data Facility group, Computer Technicians, and Resident Technicians. On the morning after I arrived, the staging area next to the dock was a hotbed of activity. This worked out for me, because I was able to jump right in and help the Geophysical group load vans with new equipment and gear and met a lot of the team members in the process.
Being closer to home also means that I am closer to some of my family. My dad is a UCSD alumnus and I was able to take him and my stepmother on a tour of the Revelle and give them a better understanding of what I hope to be doing for a career once the internship ends. Roger Revelle was a household name when I was growing up due to his innovative and influential work, so it was a real treat for my dad to set foot on the ship named in his honor.
This ship has an impressive history and she is incredibly active throughout the year. For the next few days, we are off the coast of San Diego to complete a series of engineering tests for the ROV Jason, in preparation for a packed summer of OOI cruises. Being a day late, I missed the mobilization of Jason and all his accessories. However, it has been pretty cool to watch the operations and assist when I can. So far, this has included setting up the ultra-short base line (USBL) system, which will help calculate Jason’s subsea position and required mounting and lowering a pipeline down a well that led straight from the deck to the ocean below. Thankfully, no bolts, tools, or cell phones were lost in this effort.
Jason has an amazing engineering team traveling aboard right now, so they do not need much assistance from the technicians. When we are not needed for operations, I have had the chance to familiarize myself with the ship and learn more about the responsibilities and skillsets of a resident technician from my new mentor Matt. I have had the chance to assist in crane operations and putting an asset over the side as well as an XBT launch – love those! On the Armstrong, a flow-through SSVS system provided sound velocity profile data to the EM122 multibeam. Here on the Revelle, the XBT probe profiles are uploaded for the EM122 to reference. The science team can request one launch per day and the portable laptop/deck box system the technicians created makes this a very simple operation.
Hopefully, the weather will improve and allow the Jason team to get their testing satisfactorily completed during the next couple days. Even though this is my only cruise on the Revelle, I think it is an exciting one, and I am looking forward to seeing Jason piloted through the water. My next post will be back in port during cruise preparations for R/Vs Roger Revelle, Sally Ride, and Robert Gordon Sproul – oh my! See you then.
– Emily
0800 Local Time
Goðan dag!
Today is our last day at sea on the Iceland transit, hence my Icelandic greeting. We were originally meant to be in Reykjavik yesterday afternoon, but two days of really rough seas set us back.
Despite the weather and sea conditions, we did still manage to deploy 3 wave buoys as well as a glider over the side. Tina was our lone scientist on board and was fun to work with to get these things deployed. The round, orange, surface float is designed so that the drifting buoy will move on the surface with the currents, helped along by an attached, underwater drogue. A variety of sensors are also enclosed in the float, and an onboard antenna transmits the sensor data and buoy position. I have no doubt that those little surface buoys picked up some interesting climate and weather data.
The glider was the last to get deployed this week and was a challenging operation as the weather had once again turned against us. The Bosun thought it would be safest to attach a tag line to one of the starboard side winches and jib the glider out as far away from the ship as possible. Even then, it still drifted dangerously close to the hull and the Chief Mate had to engage the bow thruster to move us away from it. The danger was that the sensors on the nose of the glider are incredibly sensitive and could not come in contact with the vessel at all. Even rubbing against a shirt sleeve could destroy them.
This past week also provided a lot of opportunities for troubleshooting instrumentation and working on new projects. I think Amy and I totaled a solid work day worth of time trying to troubleshoot connectivity issues with the EM710 multibeam (offshore, shallow water unit). We inspected the transceiver unit and ethernet connections, swapped TX boards, bypassed the remote switch (which also seemed to have issues), and even pulled out the remote switch to inspect the connections inside. We got some good transmissions for a time, but it is not consistent, which remains a real head scratcher! Once we were in deep enough waters, we tried booting up the EM122 multibeam, and then found out that the database for it was missing. So that was another day of problem solving and configuration on that particular unit that, thankfully, ended in success. Go, Amy!
One project that I was excited to undertake was editing and reprinting a cylindrical coupler for the electrical slip ring on the CTD winch. The first print, unfortunately, did not quite fit the bolt pattern required and so I took some additional measurements and created a new, printable file in Autodesk Inventor. Thankfully, I worked with that program at Cal Maritime, but had yet to facilitate an actual print job. The ship has a LulzBot 3D printer, and I downloaded the printer software and slicing program for it. We did a test run of 3mm each of the top and bottom of the piece to check alignment and then, just 12 hours later, the part was successfully printed and is a good fit!
Now, just 4 hours out from Reykjavik, I am a bit amazed at just how quickly this month has passed by. I am so grateful to Amy, Joe, and Cris for their guidance and the multitude of learning opportunities and hands-on projects these past few weeks on the R/V Armstrong. They work really hard and need to be savvy with so many different systems and skillsets. Their services are vital, and I hope they know that they are appreciated!
Due to our delayed schedule, I will be staying in Reykjavik tonight and flying to San Diego tomorrow to board the R/V Roger Revelle at Scripps. Stay tuned for more as I head back to the West Coast!
– Emily
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