Category: R/V Atlantis Page 7 of 10

Hi! My name is Bella, and I am excited to begin my internship aboard the R/V Atlantis.  I am flying out to Washington to meet the crew and the other interns where we will begin our cruise down the California coast through the Panama Canal to our final destination Woods Hole Massachusetts. While on the ship I will work with the marine technicians.

A little about me: I attend California Maritime Academy in Vallejo California double majoring in Marine Engineering Technology and Oceanography.  I enjoyed two summers at sea experiences thus far.  The first, my freshman year with my school where we traveled to Samoa, Solomon Islands, Saipan, and Hawaii and then with MSC on the USNS Fall River, and our ports included the Philippines, Australia, Timor-Leste, and Indonesia.  During both of these cruises, my focus was engineering.  My interest in engineering began in middle school when I discovered my love of robotics.  I competed in FIRST robotics and Botball in both middle and high school.  I enrolled in my high school’s CTE Engineering Pathway and was the only girl to graduate my year as a completer. 

I look forward to sharing stories on this journey and hope it will encourage other girls to think about careers in science and technology.  I also am looking forward to getting out of the desert heat!  I live in the Coachella Valley and this summer has been like an infernal – days over 120 degrees and humid.  The upside the beautiful sunsets we enjoy.

Good Evening Everyone! 

This is my first official post since being accepted as a MATES At-Sea Intern! My name is Grace Fulton and I will be boarding the R/V Atlantis in 12 short days to embark on a 4-5 week cruise from Washington to Massachusetts. I am a recent graduate of Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina. From Cape Fear I recieved an Associate in Applied Sciences in Marine Technology and an Associate’s degree in General Education. I have had some experience going offshore on a research vessel, the R/V Cape Hatteras, for 5 straight days and nights. However 5 days seems like a small amount of time compared to 5 weeks. That said I am so excited to begin this internship. Growing up on the East Coast I have never been further north than Washington, D.C. and not been further west than the Appalachian Mountians of NC. I am looking forward to traveling to Seattle, excited to see the Panama Canal and looking forward to landing in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Im also excited to be sailing in the Pacific Ocean and watch the sun set on the water’s horizon for the first time! I am looking forward to meeting the two other interns and learning from them, as well as the ships crew. I know this is going to be an incredible adventure! 

Wish me luck for my first time flying in a plane!!! 

Until next time

Everyday is a back and forth game of being on the ship and trying to take something apart or clean and the tools you need have already been offloaded. So you get what you need and return to the ship except two minutes later you realize you need something else, so go get it and then return to the ship. Rinse and repeat. Finally everything is off the ship and the spaces have been cleaned, and you turn around and realize all the stuff you’ve taken off the ship has to be sorted and put away on land. So everything gets rearranged and reorganized and so. much. cleaning. The work spaces are eventually set up and ready to go for overhaul. At this point, the Alvin team is on a stand down for a few weeks. A little mini vacation before the work starts (if you can call it a vacation while sheltering in place).

We had another delay in leaving North Carolina. Something went wrong with one of the engines so there were a couple more days of sitting around not doing much. Once it was finally fixed and we set sail, there was another delay. There was some thick fog so the ship had to slow down and blow it’s horn every. single. minute. for hours. The highlight of having nothing to do is that I finally convinced some of the other Electrical Technicians to play Uno. A decision they probably regret but I had fun.

We finally arrived in Woods Hole (just five days behind schedule but who’s counting)! Myself and some of the other techs are living in a house together. It felt weird to sleep there the first night; it was so quiet and nothing was moving. We also offloaded Alvin from the ship. It made me a nervous to watch a crane casually lift a 45,000 lb sub so high but everything went smoothly. The next few days will be spent continuing to offload the ship and setting up the shops to take the sub apart.

After more bad weather delaying the dives, we started heading back south. We went from being near Maryland to slowly making our way to North Carolina. During the delay, I was able to assemble a tiny circuit board under a microscope using solder paste! Placing the first component was super nervewracking; watching my hand shake and go all over the place with the tiniest movements trying not to bump any of the other components. After the first piece was in, it was a lot less stressful. Once all the components were all placed, we used a toaster oven to fully solder all the pieces together (we were strictly told not to make pizza in the toaster oven).

On our last day of clearance, we were able to do two dives. The first one the sub was in the water two hours, then pulled out, a quick transit south, then back in the water for four hours. It’s actually really nice having two dives because I’m able to keep busy which I prefer over doing nothing. I was able to do the subs internal post dive for the first time. With the time I’ve spent in there looking at all the switches and reading the operations manual, I knew how to do a lot of it already. One of the techs was in there to explain the things I didn’t know and to make sure it was all done correctly.

We made port in North Carolina and all the scientists disembarked. The ship is so quiet now that there are only 30 people on it.

We’re traveling up the east coast now. During one of the previous dives, one of the sub’s pumps had a water leak. I got to put a new one on the sub and clean up the previous one. We stopped in Florida to swap out some of the science party, then headed north. We ran into a few days of bad weather, which on top of making a lot of people sick, delayed the dives. Four days with not much to do but watch movies. It sounds like fun but after the third or fourth terrible movie that someone else put on, it’s almost tempting to throw myself off the boat just for something to do. When we finally got the weather to calm down enough, we got one short dive in. As we continue to head north, we’re going to hit even more bad weather. We’ll see what happens to the other dives on this cruise.

via GIPHY

We are back out in the Gulf of Mexico. This cruise there’s another intern in the Alvin group that I have a lot in common with (video games, it’s video games). It’s been a lot of fun having someone around my age to hang out with while we work. Right after we got into the Gulf, we had a day with some less than optimal weather and the dive was canceled. It was quite an experience to look out a window and have the view shift from being all water, to all sky, back to all water. Another day the sub had to come out early as the wind had been building up.

The days feel like they last forever. I get up early, help launch the sub, read in my time off, help recover the sub, help fix anything that was broken during the dive, go to bed, and do it all again the next day. It’s a lot but I’m really enjoying myself out here especially working with the electronics techs. I took a test to be a maintenance technician and I passed! Now I’m allowed to sign off on my work. It’s weird to think that we only have 5 dives left and in 2 weeks we’ll be in Woods Hole. 

The unfortuante part of mounting cameras near moving parts is they tend to get scratched. Which has happened. Twice. The 4k video camera was out first. Then the still camera went. We fortunately had a backup housing for the still camera, but nothing to replace the 4k. After the first cruise was finished, I was switched from working with the mechanical techs to working with the electrical techs. It’s exciting to see the other side of what goes on with the sub and some of the stuff I’m working with I already have experience with! Once we reached port we did a switch over: new expedition leader, new scientists, and new crew. I said goodbye to my lovely roommate but now I have the room to myself. We were also able to get new camera housings! We again have a still camera, a 4k camera, and we have a backup that may be mounted for more 4k footage. Tomorrow we head back out to sea!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a week since I last wrote a blog. Every day is so full of things to do that the time flies by. We were delayed in leaving port two days due to some thick fog. When we finally got the all clear, we zoomed out to the dive site. I was fortunate enough to not get motion sick but others were not so lucky. In the time that we were delayed, we finished working on the elevator. In addition to the fence, we added a cover that can be pulled over in order to keep everything inside.

During one of the work lulls, the bos’n taught me some knots: the clove hitch and the bowline. Now when I’m sitting with nothing to do I’m thinking ‘the rabbit comes out of the hole, around the tree, and back into the hole’. We have had several sub launches. I am in charge of the cameras and have gotten the routine down. During one of the sub recoveries, I was able to throw the tow line out. While it didn’t get very far, the line made it into the water and I stayed on the boat so I consider it a success.

Waking up early in the mornings isn’t so bad now that I’ve adjusted to the time difference (Mississippi is 2 hours ahead of California). After the sub is launched and we clean up, I have a couple hours of free time. I’ve been using that time to read for the most part, a little bit of Steinbeck to remind me of home. The food on the ship is also really good. Fortunately there’s a little gym on board so I can work off all the extra food I’ve been enjoying.

I arrived in Gulfport, Mississippi Thursday night after a rather pleasant day of flying (considering some of the others had delays due to tornados, I’ll call it pleasant). Since the ship was inbetween cruises, those of us that had just arrived had to sleep in a hotel for a few days while the people from the previous cruise packed up. In the morning I met up with some of the others that I would be working with and then off to the ship! I got a quick tour of the different workspaces then got to work.

My first day was pretty easy doing inventory and putting stuff away. I learned how to set up the cameras that go on the sub and how to make sure they’re properly sealed in their waterproof tubes. It’s pretty similar to what I’ve done in the past so it’s good to know that my previous experiences are in fact useful.

Day two I got to be a little more hands on as I helped make a fence around a platform that will be used to bring up the recovered objects from the dives. I learned more about the extra steps that need to be taken when equipment is put in water, especially salt water.

Day three we moved onto the ship! My roommate is nice and there’s more space than I expected. On deck, I did some manual labor stacking steel plates that would be used to weigh down the sub and the platform. The steel plates are dirty and rusty so naturally I got it all over me. In order to help with the pre- and post-dives, I need to be trained on every item on a checklist. I started with a big one: window cleaning. I know it doesn’t sound that impressive but the sub’s pilot does need to be able to see. We have one more day here in Gulfport then it’s out to sea!