Category: R/V Neil Armstrong Page 3 of 5

Well folks, my MATE internship is sadly coming to a close. Aside from my routine monitoring tasks, my last week aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong consisted of studying the ADCP system in-depth as well as learning important deck rigging skills with the Captain. It also consisted of sad goodbyes and a lot of chatter about which foods we each couldn’t wait to eat first when we got back to land. Although, I must say, the Armstrong cooks have been miracle workers. Our food was delicious up until the last day (day 36!) and I have no idea how they did it.

While I’m certainly excited to be back on land, I’ve done my best this past week to appreciate life at sea. It can be easy to forget, especially on longer cruises, what a unique and beautiful experience it is to be out in the open ocean. Luckily, we had some wonderful, mild last few days at sea with perfect sunsets to enjoy being outside. It will certainly be strange not having endless expanses of water around me once back on land. It’ll also be strange not having a near-midnight sunset!

Although this voyage is coming to a close, being a MATE intern has certainly reaffirmed my love for ocean-based work and has enabled me to recognize what a great fit the marine technician career path would be for me, especially given what an exciting and variable job it can be. I know it won’t be long before I’m back out at sea again, working on another cruise and learning new skills in another part of the world!

When you go to sea, you’re signing up to enter the wilderness. Civilization is hundreds of miles away, you have limited resources, and conditions can be unexpected and ruthless. Often times the closest people to you (other than your shipmates, of course) are not even on this planet, but rather they’re orbiting earth in the international space station 250 miles above the ocean surface. Yet, we don’t have to give up freshly baked bread, working out at a fully equip gym, vegging out on a couch watching movies, showering with hot water every day, surfing the web, or even calling our family and friends back home. In fact, if we wanted, we could spend a whole day in the confinement of the ship without ever experiencing the conditions outside. 

The technology on board has given us the privilege to stay connected to our land lives, and we can largely maintain our normal everyday habits. Considering how much different going to sea is now than it once was, I wanted to investigate the structures which have allowed for the luxuries of our time. So, in between learning to suture open wounds, fire emergency procedures, soldering electrical wires, taking apart motor bearings, and many more miscellaneous learning opportunities, I’ve been exploring the structure I’ve found most puzzling (and most applicable to my future career): shipboard networking. 

In addition to facilitating smooth science sampling and instrument maintenance, the shipboard science support group is also responsible for internet operations. The R/V Neil Armstrong accesses the off ship web through a HiSeasNet satellite antenna, in addition to its own shipboard wifi network which cannot surf the web but allows for communication between all computers on board. Each cruise participant is allotted a limited amount of HiSeasNet data (200MB in my case), and has access to the science and library computers with unlimited data for work-related surfing. 

My introduction to this technology began by climbing into the HiSeasNet antenna globe on the pilothouse top (the seventh level of the ship) and has evolved into learning syntax for the command line interface (CLI) on my computer. This interface is the key to navigating the shipboard network and computer web. It allows shipboard science support to troubleshoot internet issues, manipulate instrument computers without displays, automatically upload data to shipboard computers, and much more. Proficiency in this software will certainly come in handy not just aboard ships in my future career, but even in my own computer navigation and networking. If you are interested in exploring this software, check out the beginner Bandit games on OverTheWire.org and explore your own computer’s CLI.

Photo: Ella using a compressed air angle grinder to cut open a motor bearing

Photographer: Lila Bellucci, MATE Intern

Not much has transpired since my last post. Time has continued to fly by and business has been as usual. The reality of departing from all of these new friends I think is starting to set in. We’ve played more board and card games than I ever did with my family growing up which says a lot about ship life. We have had a lot of fun and shared many jokes. We’ve consumed millions of calories from sugar while chasing a sugar high. We’ve bickered about current events. We’ve pulled all-nighters. We’ve sprawled out on the fantail on the maybe 4 days that we actually had sunny weather. We philosophized about life and the potential existence of life on other planets. This was truly a great group! I preached about always learning in my week 1 blog and that is not limited to just marine tech knowledge for this internship. In fact, I think meeting these people, learning about them and their goals, and making memories are the most important part in making the MATE internship an experience.

Although I had already been at sea for three weeks, this week, I still managed to find myself in spaces on the ship that I had not yet been to. For one, I finally found myself in the engine room working on a project with the electrician to disassemble and replace the ball bearings in a hydraulic pressure pump motor running to the propellers. While down there, I got to learn from the engineers and oilers about the fascinating machinery that keeps this baby running and the many ways in which each of them interacts with and maintains it. 

I also had the chance this week to practice stick welding with one of the oilers again. This time using 60 rod and stainless steel rod, both of which are somewhat different from the 70 rod I learned with last week and slightly more challenging to weld with. Still, each is useful for different fabrication applications, and fun to work with in its own way.r

Later on in the week, while going over the basics of marine fire emergency operations with the Captain, I once again found myself being exposed to spaces and equipment on the ship that I had not previously seen or noticed. It is incredible how differently each member of our team looks at any given ship space through the lens of their responsibilities and specialties. Each of us operates within such a niche role, and although we often interact with one another, it can be easy to start looking at the ship and its operations from a narrow perspective. However, it’s always good to be reminded how much there is to be learned from the other people you share this floating home with. If there is one thing this experience has exposed me to, it is the seemingly endless pieces of equipment, feats of engineering, and unique skillsets that make the work we do possible…and how much there will always be to learn about it all!

Working a sea-going job can include spontaneous whale watching, perpetual beach hair, and being present for scientific discoveries, but not without sacrifices. In past and upcoming cruises, I have been/will be at sea during holidays, anniversaries, graduations, celebrations, loved one’s birthdays, and the death of a family member. Today, I am at sea for my 22^ndbirthday.  

The day started no different than any other with watch, breakfast, and the gym, but it was my fellow shipmates – my family for the month – that made it special. At lunch I devoured a slice of ginger orange peel vegan birthday cake baked by the talented chief steward, and went on my way to learn about replacing motor bearings from the electrician and 3^rd engineer. Before dinner I received a card signed by the crew and science party, wishing me happy birthday in each of my shimate’s native languages. Later, after nearly two weeks of cold grey days, the clouds parted and gave way for a spectacular viewing of sunset and a lunar eclipse of the moon. Not only was July 16^thof this year a lunar eclipse, but it was also the 50-year anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, and what better place to celebrate than on board the R/V Neil Armstrong! 

I’ll miss spending these kinds of moments with my loved ones back on shore, but the collective understanding and support from my shipmates – a shared ukulele song out on deck, a roaring ‘happy birthday!’ from the crew in the lounge, a favorite dish cooked at mealtime – make all the difference. Among the technical skills that I anticipated this internship would teach me, I hoped I would get to learn from a resilient, passionate, conscientious, enthusiastic team of individuals, which has undoubtedly been the case. 

Photo: Ella observing the sunset along the aft port rail

Photographer: Ella’s GoPro (suctioned cupped to the rail)

The last week has been an eventful one where time has seemed to fly by quickly. We began the week with a ship-wide fire drill where there was a fire in the main lab, our primary muster station. Luckily, common sense prevailed and all of the scientists found the secondary muster area at the CTD hangar. As the week progressed, we began tackling an issue that has been plaguing our XBT (Expendable Bathythermograph – sound speed velocity) data. Multiple XBT probe deployments were showing noisy false data before the probe reached the water so we started troubleshooting. It was noted that the data was normal when the wire for the XBT launcher was not touching the deck so we checked the wire insulation for nicks and we made some repairs. It worked! Scientists were happy and techs felt proud. Truly a terrific moment on the R/V Neil Armstrong followed by a highly entertaining scientific meeting. Arman, a visiting scientist, gave a fantastic no-BS presentation on volcanology pointing out the key ingredients for explosive eruptions which are volatiles. It is not widely known that volatiles in magma, mainly water, cause the explosive eruptions that we envision when we think of volcanoes (or see when we watch Dauntes Peak). Later in the week, we visited the engineering department and got a full tour of their spaces. We also learned how to replace bearings on a CPP (controllable pitch propeller) motor. Overall, a very educational and fun week!

It’s week three and we’ve nearly completed our western survey lines, parallel to the Reykjanes Ridge, about 300 – 500 km east of Greenland. Daily work has continued to consist primarily of monitoring multibeam, sub-bottom, magnetic, and gravity data acquisition, as well as post-processing multibeam data and routinely launching XBT’s to maintain an accurate sound velocity profile. During watch, I have also been studying the installation, maintenance, and acoustic theory behind the Kongsberg EM122 echo sounder system and creating a short training document using what I’ve learned. The marine technician role encompasses diverse responsibilities, meaning that one might benefit more from a good understanding of many instruments than a specialized understanding of a few of them. However, it is certainly valuable and inevitable for a marine tech to expand upon their understanding of such instruments as they go. As I have learned more about acoustic theory and the components that make up the EM122 multibeam, I have found myself in a much better position to effectively operate this system as a tech and I’m sure the same will hold true as I move on to studying other systems in-depth. As the lead marine tech aboard the R/V Neil Armstrong has repeatedly pointed out to us, a big part of being a tech is knowing how to locate reliable resources and teach yourself more about the systems you find yourself responsible for.

While studying your systems is a necessary and important skill as a tech, it is also valuable to expand upon the diverse niche skills that come in handy as a tech or general member of the crew. Although there hasn’t been a lot of hands-on work to be done this cruise, I got to improve multiple such skills this week. During one of our XBT casts, we experienced an issue in which the probe was sensing that it had been “launched” prior to actual launching. We decided to switch to our back-up gun, however the cable on this gun was too short to run the length of the fantail and had the wrong termination. To fix this, fellow MATE intern Ella and I spent part of the day soldering in a new section of cable and new 5-pin termination, as well as then waterproofing each joint. In one short project we were able to expand our troubleshooting and soldering skills, as well as our understanding of the XBT’s internal mechanics and cabling.

Later in the week, I learned more about magnetometer software troubleshooting when a minor issue arose, as well as practiced suturing wounds and putting in an IV with the Chief Mate using training skin and a dummy arm. Best of all, having done a lot of MIG welding in the past, I had the chance to practice stick welding with one of the Oilers. Stick welding was a different beast from MIG entirely, especially on a moving ship, but it felt great to pick up on a new welding technique! As always, I’m looking forward to seeing what next week will have in store!

A large part of data collection on this cruise involves sound. We send sound into the ocean over a wide range of frequencies and listen for its echo, allowing us to collect data on the shape of the ocean floor using the multibeam, the nature of the substrate (whether its rocky or silty) using the sub-bottom profiler, what exists in the water column using the EK80, and where the currents are flowing using the ADCP. As I mentioned in my blog post last week, the accuracy of this data can be affected by the pitching and rolling of the ship. The accuracy is also dependent on knowing the speed of sound through the ocean where the data was collected. 

Sound speed in the ocean is dependent on the temperature and salinity of the water. In general, salinity is relatively constant through the water column, but temperature can change dramatically. The expendable bathythermographs (XBT) that we deploy approximately once a day measure the temperature through the water column, while the surface flow-through system measures surface salinity. Using this data, we can calculate the sound speed. 

The XBT is essentially a sensor attached to a long wire that connects back to a computer where the data is being saved. The electrical circuit that transmits this data is completed when the XBT touches the salty, electricity-conducting ocean water. However, if the circuit is completed elsewhere (by, say, a faulty cable), the computer won’t know the difference between the “data” coming from this faulty completion, and a real XBT deployment. This was the problem we ran into this week, yielding an opportunity for the other MATE interns and I to apply what we had previously learned about electrical circuits to this scenario.

After ruling out some of the easier solutions, we determined that an issue with the cable was likely the cause of our problems. We took an old XBT deployment device with an outdated connector, extended the length of the cable, and added a new connector. This task gave us the opportunity to hone our soldering skills and learn the process of waterproofing our soldered cable joints. After many hours of soldering practice, soldering the cable itself, and applying layers and layers of electrical and self adhesive tape and nocuous electrical insulation, we had our finished product. It has passed our initial test, and in the next few hours we will use it to deploy an XBT at the next planned station. Stay tuned!

Photo: Ella soldering electrical wires on the XBT cable

Photographer: Lila Bellucci, MATE Intern

The reality of a 35-day geophysical remote sensing cruise is that it can be quite boring. Especially when your duties are repetitive. However, it’s up to you to make the best of the time on your hands. Think to all the instances in which you wished you had had more time. To finish a project. To read a book. To learn a language. To study for something. To practice a skill. When you start to look at empty time on a ship as a long-awaited opportunity for growth rather than a void to fill with games and minor tasks, it gets so much easier to look at a calendar and realize that you still have 3 of 5 weeks left.

Everyone on the ship has been wonderful about sharing what they have, from their skills, to their art supplies, to their books in foreign languages. I have, of course, been continuing to stand watch and monitor the multibeam, sub-bottom, magnetometer, and gravimeter data, and have been learning new skills from the SSSG’s and other crew members. In fact, my time between watches, when the other MATE interns and I are introduced to new skills, is often the time of day that I look forward to most. We’ve learned to solder, climbed in the dome and learned about our satellites, learned about the EK80 and other major instruments on board, been introduced to networking, and more. Although many of these skills and instruments are not relevant aboard the current cruise, meaning there is little hands-on experience to be gained, members of the crew have been extremely generous in taking the time to teach them to us anyway.

In other news, many of the guys on the science team have taken up knitting (hats, sweaters, tiny scarves a.k.a toe cloths), taught to them by MATE intern Ella and German student Linus. In my own free time I’ve been learning Spanish, refreshing my German (by reading one of Linus’ books), water color painting on the bridge with Ella, working out (with ear muffs given to me by the electrician to drown out the multibeam), studying for the GRE (and sharing my study books with others), and doing origami (given to science by one of the mates). Each of these examples is just one instance where someone onboard offered what they had and made someone else’s day better. Perhaps a cheesy message, but truly one of the most important things I have learned to keep in mind aboard long cruises, and any cruise for that matter.

In stark contrast to Sean Connery’s “one ping only” in Hunt for Red October, we’ve pinged about 150,000 times and have calculated that we will ping around 302,400 times in total. Now that I’ve mentioned it I can’t seem to tune it out once again. Should be a great night’s rest ????. We are nearing the halfway point of the cruise and it’s starting to get to the point in the cruise where people are getting bored. Luckily, I’ve managed to procrastinate all of my work for the second half of the cruise. My plan is to map each system from transducer/radar/gps to computer to display so that I can better visualize the big picture of the tech-managed equipment onboard. After I have that, I want to examine and draw in how the systems interface with one another so that our displays show large varieties of data from different sources. I think this will be useful to build intuition as a tech e.g. if we stop receiving air temperature data I’ll know exactly where to go to start troubleshooting.