Last week was the last week of my internship and it was an absolute blast! We completed the last of our Alvin dives, saw some more dolphins, and I got to go in the small boat again. The small boat trips were probably the highlight of my internship since it was so remarkable to feel so small on such a large ocean.
We did miss one of our dives last week due to weather that was supposed to come in after 9 a.m. but only came in briefly to ruin the cookout that was planned that day. Funnily enough, that was also the day a whole bunch of things broke and the Electrical Technicians were working super hard on fixing Alvin. The rest of the dives went without issue though.
On the way into port, we passed by some gigantic container ships and the naval base again.
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Once in port, the Alvin team and I had a lot of final work to do since this was the last Alvin cruise of the year. We had to take the motors off to send them back to WHOI, as well as clean up the Hydro lab, mech shop, and hangar. Everything had to be packed into boxes and then lifted off the ship with the onboard crane. It was a lot of work, but having a lot of hands made it easier and we were able to finish earlier than expected.
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Working with the Alvin team over the last few weeks has been a truly exceptional experience! I got to see and learn so much, as well as meet so many talented and unique people. This is definitely an internship I will never forget, and one I hope to come back to!
Hi! I’m Mimi, the UNOLS MATE intern for the September 2026 transit on board the R/V Atlantis. I’ll be in collaboration with STEMSEAS, both as a near-peer mentor for the student cohort, and assisting ChOP fellows and mentors. The goal of this cruise is to train upcoming chief scientists while also giving undergrad students first-hand experience at sea.
I’m a North Carolina native, and studied marine technology at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington. I grew up in the mountains before moving to the coast for school. Growing up in western NC gave me a love for nature and an interest in conservation and sustainability, which I have continued on outside of academia. While in school, I spent many days on the Cape Fear river as a work study student on our research cat, the R/V Martech, learning how to collect and process data with different equipment. I also spent some time offshore on our floating classroom, the R/V Cape Hatteras I’m deeply interested in marine technology as a whole, and I’m excited for this opportunity to be on board this vessel!
I absolutely love the ocean, especially being offshore. In Wilmington, I worked as a sailing instructor and charter mate, which grew my interest in the sea and marine life. I have spent the past year sailing up and down the Atlantic, from Martinique to Halifax, Nova Scotia on various sailing vessels! In my spare time, I’m an avid bookreader, wannabe historian, bird enthusiast, casual hiker and skiier. I love exploring the world and I’m looking forward to this experience!
This past week has mostly followed the same routine of the week before. I’ve continued helping with pre and post-dive, as well as assisting during basket changes. Two days ago, a dive was cancelled due to weather, but conditions have improved and are looking good for the rest of the cruise.
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Yesterday, after Alvin submerged, we had to build weight stacks again. Even with seven people helping, it still took us a long time. Doing the math, together we moved a total of about 4,500 lbs. of weight from the hold to the deck to build the stacks.
One of the more exciting experiences was watching Molly dissect a squid. Two squid had gotten stuck in Alvin during one of Molly’s dives and she wanted to save their beaks. It was fascinating to watch her cut open random organs and everyone trying to identify what was what.
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Over the past few days, Bruce has been explaining the different systems of the sub to me, including the Variable Ballast System. Coincidentally, we ended up resetting the system later that same day because of a weight issue during a dive. Being able to watch the system being filled while receiving explanations from both Bruce and Nick, the mechanical lead, gave me a much better understanding of how it works and its role in Alvin’s operations.
The Atlantis left Norfolk last Saturday morning, and we have now been at sea for roughly one week. So far, it has been an incredible experience, and I have already learned a tremendous amount!
Before leaving port, the Alvin team and I had the opportunity to tour the USS New Jersey, a Virginia class nuclear submarine. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photos, but it was one of the most impressive pieces of engineering I have ever seen.
While still in Norfolk, I was able to observe the mechanical team assembling two Alvin motors that had recently arrived from the shore-based engineering crew. They also showed me the oil compensation system and explained how it prevents electrical housings from collapsing under the immense pressure. Nick, the mechanical lead, gave me a tour of both Alvin and the Atlantis, and everyone on board was incredibly welcoming and eager to help me understand the vehicle and its systems.
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As we departed port, we got to see a pod of dolphins following the ship. We also passed Naval Station Norfolk and saw several impressive Navy vessels, including the USS Nimitz and USS Harry S. Truman.
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Since departing, I have spent most of my time assisting with Alvin launch and recovery operations. I’ve helped prepare the tool basket, clean the submarine, and load and unload equipment from the sub. Scott and Janna also taught me how to prepare, install, and remove the MISO cameras, so I have been helping with that every day as well.
A few days ago, I had the opportunity to ride in the small boat with Esteban during a launch. Being in the small boat really put into perspective just how far from shore we are. The experience felt surreal.
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Molly has also been teaching me various sailor’s knots, and Catfish showed me how to handle the stern line during small boat deployments. It made me feel like a pirate.
Post recovery, I have started helping the science team assemble and set up push cores. It has been a good time to talk to various scientists and learn what they are doing and why. There is an artist onboard who has been making interpretative paintings of the science going on and I’ve been able talk to her about her work and how she is turning hardcore science into something palatable for a general audience.
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Other than that, I’ve been hanging out in Top Lab with Nick, Bruce, and Kaitlyn since it’s quiet up there and has a nice view. It gives me the opportunity to ask them questions and learn more about everything that is going on.
The food is extremely tasty on board, and the crew have been watching old school Star Trek during meals, which has also been entertaining. The sunrises and sunsets are beautiful, and a few people have mentioned that the stars at night are really pretty, so I will go out tonight to take a look, and the results will be in next week’s blog, so come back for that.
My name is Aarav Shah and I am the UNOLS intern aboard the R/V Atlantis for the Joye Cruise! I am scheduled to be sailing out of Norfolk this Wednesday (8/26) to study methane seepage in the Atlantic with HOV Alvin for about 3 weeks.
I’m a rising sophomore at the University of Washington studying Electrical Engineering and have an interest in marine sciences and technology. At UW, I am part of the Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle Team that competes in the MATE ROV competition which also grew my interest in underwater vehicles and research.
This will be my first time aboard a research vessel but I’m really looking forward to the experience and meeting everyone on board!
This week I finished up my last days at sea, transiting from Astoria, Oregon, to San Diego, California. We had some Woods Hole donors join us in place of the scientists so they could see the vessel and Alvin. We also had another cookout on deck to enjoy the weather since we were making pretty good time to port.
Transit work wasn’t quite as fun as the dive days; we’ve been packing nearly everything from the ship, including the hold, for offload. The amount of equipment the team keeps on board is astounding—and everything has oil on it. So, I did some of the not-so-glamorous but completely necessary work of cleaning various valves and hardware so they could be neatly packed and shipped back to Massachusetts for the maintenance period. Since the work has been a little slow with all the packing, I got a tour of the engine room with the donors. It was fascinating to see all the machinery the ship uses to operate and the power required to run science operations. Apparently, the ship had been recently refurbished, which involved swapping the engines. To do this, they cut a hole in the hull of the vessel and rewelded it. It now uses two primary diesel engines to run electric motors. During the maintenance, the ship replaced six generators with four newer ones and implemented a single bus bar for redundancy and engine efficiency. During this time, they also added a bow thruster.
One of the highlights during the transit was seeing a pod of hundreds of dolphins swimming next to the ship and at the bow—seriously, I have never seen so many dolphins at once! As we were all on the bow enjoying the view of the sunset and wildlife, a SpaceX rocket was launched, which we had a perfect view of. It was truly an amazing evening and one of my top memories from the cruise.
We arrived in port at 9:30 a.m. at Scripps. It was, again, super cool to see the docking process. Just as before, a pilot came aboard to help the captain navigate the channel, but what made this unique was how the ship was maneuvered. Due to a bend in the channel, the captain sailed the ship so that the bow was nearly perpendicular to the dock—only about 30 feet away—and then used the bow thruster to turn on a dime, almost 360 degrees. It was impressive. Since there’s a Navy base near port, we also saw a huge aircraft carrier go by on the way in, along with several jets taking off.
This is my first time on the West Coast, so after work I’ve been making an effort to explore. I went out for sushi with some members of the team and walked a beautiful path along the water to get there. I’ll definitely be doing some more exploring as I wrap up the internship—with only one week left.
San Diego is here, and compared to the relative slowness and lull of the transit leading up to our arrival (we were out of packing boxes halfway through and couldn’t really get much offloading work done after that) I’m glad that things have started to pick up. We’ve been flitting around packing oceanographic instruments and Alvin hardware into shipping containers to be hauled off by the ship cranes.
We saw dolphins again at the same time the rocket went off which was an absolutely incomprehensible experience to live through
On our way to port we spotted what I assume is a SpaceX rocket launching Starlink sattellites from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara. I’m pretty sure I heard the sonic boom go off as it was going into orbit. It was a neat coincidence that we were at the right place at the right time when this happened.
The captain and the chief mate let me pilot the ship for a little while which was a lot more difficult and nervewracking than I thought it would be. You can control the Z-drives that rotate the propellers 360 degrees from the ship’s bridge, and you have to manage your speed of rotation by angling them just right so that you can get to where you’re going. There’s a lot of things to keep track of, and even when you point the vessel in the right direction it’s easy for a large wave or swell to start pushing you slightly off course. Changing the rate of rotation isn’t super responsive either, so you have to be very careful not to turn too quickly and overshoot. I had fun though! It was an excellent experience.
They call me Snake Wake due to the way I sail in erratic zigzag motions
In the San Diego port, there seems to be a navy dolphin training facility next to us, which is crazy because I genuinely thought they stopped training dolphins for military purposes after the Cold War. I assumed it was military dolphins anyway, considering the entire region south of us is a naval base and I literally saw dolphins hop around in these little sectioned-off areas in the facility. Insane.
The dolphin training facility. This can’t be real, right?
After we fully docked, it was actually time to get to work for once. There was a lot of Alvin paraphernalia we had to haul on shore such as the two lead-acid batteries in the vehicle (as well as the one spare in our battery hold), various cargo containers full of cameras, scientific equipment, lights, metal frames and hardware, and more.
Lifting a cargo container with the crane
Actual crane(s)
I did also get to explore San Diego a bit. The view from our dock is already pretty good, and the crew and I have gone into the neighboring towns and downtown districts a few times after work just to see what’s out there. It does take around 15 minutes by car to go downtown and we don’t have a lot of rental cars available, so going there is mostly reserved to special occasions or weekends. I can confirm Mexican food down here is as good as they say it is.
Downtown view at night
I just think this is a cinematic shot
who does this fella think he is
There was a great arcade here, highly recommend
I don’t really have much more to say about our work since it is mostly just packing and shipping of various items until the finish line, but I’ll keep you all updated if anything of note occurs. Look forward to my final post (or penultimate post? It’s unclear).
Hello everyone, This week has still been exciting even with the conclusion of all our dives. The ship still had some mapping routes to finish before we returned to port in Astoria, Oregon. During that time, we prepared for offload. Offload occurs once every five years, when Alvin, essential equipment, and parts are removed from the R/V Atlantis and shipped back to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, for maintenance and any planned upgrades.
As a mechanical intern, I spent two days draining all the oil from Alvin, including the compensation reservoirs. I think we drained about 70 gallons—way more than I anticipated—and it took a long time because, even though we created a vacuum to suck the oil out, we didn’t want to increase the pressure too much on the junction boxes and risk damaging them. I was also able to watch the post-dive process with one of the members of the electrical team inside the sphere, which was neat since I normally do not work with them. I did some other cleaning tasks, but the real fun of the week began when we docked in Astoria.
We went through the Columbia River Bar, which is extremely dangerous and difficult to navigate, so a pilot specifically trained to bring ships in and out of the bar was brought onboard by boat to help us safely dock. Conversely, on the way out of the Columbia a few days later, the pilot attempted to use a helicopter to get off the ship. Unfortunately, while the pilot was harnessed in and standing on the bow of the ship, the wind shifted, making it unsafe for him to continue, so he unclipped himself from the line to avoid injury. However, the pilot in the helicopter did not see him do this, so out of precaution the emergency line was cut from the helicopter. Apparently, the pilots at this location have not had to cut a line in many years, so it was a unique experience. Everyone erred on the side of caution and made all the right choices—so everyone was safe. The pilot then had to wait an hour for a vessel to come pick him up from our ship, which was still a really cool sight.
While in Astoria, the scientists hosted a science party at the Workers Tavern to thank the crew and Alvin team for collecting the data. It was a sweet gesture and a lot of fun to spend time with everyone before all the scientists left. The following day, the Alvin team all had the day off—which was wonderful. It was our first day off in weeks, so sleeping in was luxurious. Some members of the team and I went to Sunset Beach. Being from Florida, it was amazing to see mountains at the beach. It was also freezing, but I had a goal to swim in the Pacific Ocean, so I did—for about two minutes—because the water temperature was around 68°F and the rip current was strong. It was a nice change from Florida beaches; here there was so much space to walk and set up. We even stopped at a second beach where The Goonies was filmed and got to see the notorious boulder the ship sailed out from behind in the final scenes.
We proceeded to go into town for lunch before continuing our sightseeing. I went to the Astoria Column, where I climbed 186 steps for a breathtaking view. I was very lucky with our timing because, as I learned from speaking to a local named Boats, the weather had been rainy and foggy for some time and was expected to return, which would have obscured our view from the tower. At the same park, there are hiking trails, so I walked a couple of miles on one of them to reach the Cathedral Tree—a giant spruce. The weather and greenery made it a perfect hike.
Now, we are transiting from Astoria, Oregon, to San Diego, California, our final leg of the cruise. This has entailed much cleaning and packing, but I am looking forward to getting into port on the 30th.
Astoria has come and gone to usher in a new era! We left on the 25th and we may actually be on track to arrive earlier than expected, so we’re slowing down our transit a little just so that we get into port on the 30th as established just to avoid the logistic issues.
Astoria is a pretty nice port town all in all (plus the security at the port was slightly buffed compared to Newport’s – they actually asked for identification cards this time). It’s got a cute trolley that rolls around occasionally, a delightful sparkling lemonade at the Columbia River Coffee Roaster near port, and truly beautiful beaches. I’m told that the weather wasn’t usually as nice as it was when we were out exploring the town, so I’m glad I got to explore it in its full glory.
you would think that they would add some sort of protective measure to this thing
My haul from the coffee place. Excited to try when I get home
When I say that the beaches (specifically Sunset Beach) are beautiful, I mean they’re REALLY good. This is genuinely the most optimal place I’ve seen to run on sand – barely any people, spans for miles (probably), no sharp objects to step on, stunning view, you name it. Wish I could have gone on a couple more jogs here!
I haven’t gotten enough of the ocean yet, apparently
this place is HUGE
There was also a whale carcass here too. It was a little odd that there were no decomposers or flies or seagulls or anything chipping away at it, but I just assumed that it was pretty old and that the scavengers got to the good parts already. We were kind of worried about the corpse exploding from buildups of gas during decomposition (there have been several reports of this event occurring) so I observed it from a distance. Despite being decently old, it still smelled horrendous, as expected.
oh… that’s gore of my comfort character…
They have wild rabbits at Cannon Beach. I don’t mean the brown ones that graze on lawns and stuff, these ones look like people literally released the local pet shop population upon the ecosystem. Somehow they seem to be thriving – do they not have any predators in this region?? I can tell that they’re wild by the way they react to humans but they also seem very used to the presence of people. Intriguing.
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Most of my actual work on the ship during our transit has been packing things up and getting ready for moving out. We started running low on crates to put supplies in, so things have been getting a little stagnant recently. I’m trying to counteract this by keeping myself busy designing printed circuit boards and having them fabricated and sent to San Diego so I can pick them up when I get there. There’s a lot of talented electrical engineers on the Alvin team that I can request advice from, so I’m grateful for this opportunity to bother them about extremely trivial KiCAD questions. I also gained a newfound hatred for tariffs.
please excuse my suboptimal pcb layout
you’re kidding me…
They gave a tour of the engine room today and showed us some of the tools and equipment they use to maintain smooth operations of the ship like power distribution and propulsion. It was very interesting and yet very loud. Also smelled like chemicals.
way bigger down here than I thought it would be
I didn’t expect to see so much wildlife on this stretch of the trip, but so far there have been a lot of sea lions, plus several whales! The whales have been frustratingly difficult to capture on camera, so you’ll just have to excuse the cryptid-like photo of this one. If you can figure out what species this is from this image alone, tell me in the blog comments or something. I’ll be very impressed.
top 10 haunting photos before disaster or something
im pretty sure these are sea lions?
I think I have one or two more blog posts left in me before the internship ends. Now that the end is so close in sight, the four weeks I spent out here didn’t feel so long. I’m a little sad that it’s ending so soon now but I’ve been having a lot of fun out here. See you guys in San Diego!
This week marked the completion of all the dives Alvin will partake in for this cruise, for a total of 10 dives. It truly was an amazing sight that I am sad to see come to an end; I felt like I was finally getting into a rhythm of completing pre- and post-dive activities somewhat independently. However, I do have many fun memories to share.
One of the highlights this week was getting another perspective of the recovery process by riding in the lifeboat that brought the swimmers to Alvin upon resurfacing. During this process, I witnessed how the swimmers contacted the pilot and observers in the sphere using a standard plug-in phone, secured the safety lines on the science basket, retrieved the tow from the stern of the ship, and swiftly attached the tow line to the sub. It was a beautiful day out on the water, and I am so grateful to the crew and Alvin team for allowing me to see this part of recovery up close. At that moment, I realized I could definitely do this as a job one day.
At the start of the week the swell picked up, which made me a little sick, but I have since acclimated and now enjoy the rocking. It can be quite fun when it gets bumpy, but I also learned how important it is to secure items even when the swell is expected to be tame. At one point, a random wave came through at just the right angle for the ship to roll significantly; I braced myself in the hangar as I watched crates of ratchet straps and hose clamps come flying out of the shelves. We made sure everything was strapped down tight after that. Otherwise, we had wonderful weather and some great sunrises and sunsets, with only a couple of rainy days.
We solved the mystery leak we were experiencing last week with the main ballast blow box—a faulty check valve! Although it passed testing, we swapped it for a ready spare and, after the following dive, there were no more leaks. The work was predominantly the same as the previous week, except for the last dive. For the final dive, we had what’s oddly called, in my opinion, a “skin party.” This is where we removed all the “skins,” or protective plating, from Alvin to be washed. It was like a car wash for a submersible and quite fun; whenever we scrub the hangar or deck we put on music, which makes it a good time.
Additionally, I learned a bit more about the sub’s navigation. The ship has piezoelectric transducers that locate the sub and then relay its position back to Alvin. Once the sub is at the bottom, it can set its current location as a reference point and use the Doppler Velocity Logger on its tail to track movements from there. I also learned about an important safety protocol: the sub must contact top lab every 30 minutes using FM frequency. If this does not happen for one hour plus the time it would take the sub to return to the surface from the designated dive location, the top lab must notify the Navy and other authorities. They have very strict regulations for diving to maintain safety.
As for the science this week, we completed a couple of lander deployments. The lander was used to collect video data of the hydrothermal vents and Alvin itself. I also spoke with some of the scientists on board and learned about their equipment. I helped set up some IGTs on the science basket, which are water samplers designed to maintain the pressure, temperature, and gas content of the sample as it was collected. Since the team is studying nitrogen cycling, they are adding tracers to these samples to understand how microorganisms process chemicals under these conditions. This may be a bit of an oversimplification—I tried my best to follow their explanations, but it’s not really my background. Apparently, IGTs are rare, with only about 20 in existence, making it a very cool sight!
Anyway, the dives are done, but I still have a few weeks left in the internship. More to come, Katie
