Category: R/V Sikuliaq

Hey there!
This is Kristie Okimoto, the final MATE Summer Intern! I’m on the R/V Sikuliaq, also headed up to the Arctic. We are somewhere in the Bering Sea at the moment! Tomorrow, we’re docking in Nome, and will be loading equipment, food and fuel for the upcoming cruise.

The transit from Seward to Nome has gone pretty smoothly. This week has mostly been an orientation week of sorts. The science party has gotten safety talks, an engine room tour and done fire and abandon ship drills. Ethan, one of my two mentors on the ship, showed me around some of the ship systems I’ll be helping to maintain. We looked at the ship multibeam sonar, the TOPAS system, the pCO2 system and the seawater inflow system. These systems operate at all times on the ship, gathering data whenever the system is underway.

As the upcoming cruise will be researching nitrogen fixation and primary productivity of waters in the Arctic, the seawater inflow system will be super important. Scientists will continuously measure the nutrients and gasses of this seawater. The researchers will also utilize a CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) rosette and an ADCP (acoustic doppler current profiler) to help gauge nutrients throughout the water column and to help gauge the related currents. As marine technicians, we will be supporting all of these instruments.

I am excited for the actual research cruise to get underway! All in all, I have really enjoyed being at sea so far. There really is something amazing about being surrounded by a vast expanse of blue, blue water on all sides. Alaska was also really beautiful! Well, onward to Nome, and then onto the Juranek cruise!

Hi there!
I’m Kristie Okimoto, a recently graduated senior from University of California Berkeley. At Berkeley, I studied Conservation and Resource Studies with concentrations in Anti-Oppression, Decolonial Thought and Oceanography.

I applied to MATE Summer because I’m possibly interested in pursuing oceanography in graduate school. I’m also interested in doing culturally appropriate marine conservation, that is community based and better implements traditional knowledge, rather than using the western colonial conservation model. I’m also very interested in climate justice work, as low income communities and communities of color will be among those most affected by climate change.

When applying, I thought we’d probably be doing a cruise off of California, or possibly the South Pacific if I was lucky. When I was offered a cruise position to the Arctic, it was an unexpected surprise! The Arctic was not somewhere I’d think to visit, or do research in by myself, so I am very glad for the opportunity to go do work there.

At the moment, I am wrapping up my time at home, and trying to pack for the Bay Area, the Arctic and South America all in one. I’ll be visiting friends in the Bay Area and wrapping up ends there before my internship, and traveling with a friend around South America for a bit after the internship. Needless to say, the clothing in my bag is super varied, haha!

Well, off to go pack more. Tchau for now!

Due to intermittent and limited bandwidth Internet connection, I have saved my entire two week cruise report for this single post. This post will be broken up into various dated sections where I will describe what I did during that time period. Although this was quite a short cruise, I was still able to experience quite a lot and this has been one of the best times of my life.

June 27-28
These first two days the ship is still in port at Victoria. I have spent these two days getting a feel for the ship and meeting the crew and scientists. This is by far the largest ship I have ever sailed on, this boat has everything you could ever need for weeks at sea. On this cruise we will be using the Jason ROV so I got a chance to check out the hardware and meet with the support staff. The goal of this cruise is to insert a seismic sensor into a pre-drilled borehole. This sensor will allow scientists to detect the small movements between tectonic plates which could be used to predict earthquakes. All of the scientists and crew have arrived by the 28th and we are ready to set sail early the morning of the 29th.

The Jason ROV

June 29-July 1
We have arrived on our first station. In order for the borehole sensor to get power and transmit data it must be connected to an underwater junction box via a pre-laid cable. Unfortunately during testing on a previous cruise it was discovered that the cable between the borehole and junction box is not functioning correctly. In an attempt to fix this we are lowering a cable spool near the junction box and will later use Jason to unspool and connect the cable. We deployed this spool at night and heavy winds made the process quite difficult. Finally, after the third attempt the spool was lowered to the bottom. This concludes our operations at this station for now, we will return after installing the sensor in the borehole to begin unspolling cable.

After laying the spool we have moved to the borehole location. In order for Jason to be able to move the borehole sensor into position it must be made to be close to neutrally buoyant. In order to accomplish this we have attached a metal ring with a bunch of green floats attached by string. Once the sensor is moved into position these strings will be cut and the sensor will fall into place. We have also attached several yellow glass spheres on a quick release for additional buoyancy.

On the eve of June 30th and into the morning of July 1 the borehole sensor was successfully installed into the hole. This operation took several hours but the sensor was finally installed according to plan. Jason had to move up and down the line several times to cutoff floats until the sensor finally descended into the hole. Following this Jason hooked up the the sensor for a 4 hour data monitoring session.

The Cable Spool

The Borehole Sensor With Floats

Inserting The Borehole Sensor

July 2
Today I deployed my first XBT and CTD. Prior to this cruise I had done several CTD’s but I have never used an XBT. An XBT allows for the science techs to measure the speed of sound to be used in sonar calibration. The speed of sound varies slightly based on depth so it is important to keep an accurate number. Both deployments went perfectly. 

Today I also started a project to put two orange lights in the ship hanger. Currently the ship has no running lights when the winches are active which is a safety concern. Thankfully the ship builders left plenty of wire run between the various rooms of the ship that we were able to use so installation wasn’t that big of a deal. This ship uses special thermal expanding blocks on every bulkhead to ensure fires don’t spread between rooms. This makes it slightly harder to run cable between rooms but I worked through it.

One Of The Hanager Lights I Installed

July 3
Today we moved back to the spool and were deploying Jason to begin unspooling. Unfortunately during deployment the weather picked up and Jason got his tether kinked. This kicked off a 12 hour repair that would lead us to eventually abort the unspolling. While Jason was being repaired there really wasn’t much to do around the ship, I finished up a few wiring diagrams for the light project and waited.

July 6
After finally repairing and testing Jason we were forced to wait until the 6th for suitable weather. By this time in order to make it back to port in time we deployed Jason and recovered the spool. Once the spool was recovered we headed back to port to finish the cruise. Even though we were unable to connect the sensor the data we collected during the 4 hour test indicated that everything is working ocrrectly and there is hope that the unit will be fully connected within the year.

Coming Into The Seattle Lock

Overall this was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it. The hours were long and the work wasn’t easy but I am extremely happy that I did this cruise. This has been one of the best trips of my life and I look forward to continuing my career into ocean sciences.

Hello all,

My name is Alex Hamm and I am an electrical engineering undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I will hopefully be serving on the R/V Sikuliaq from June 27-July 8. Unfortunately, the ship has been having some power distribution problems and the cruise is on hold. A final meeting will be held either Monday or Tuesday night to determine if the cruise is a go. I am flying into Victoria, Canada and if all goes as planned will be returning to Seattle, WA. Hopefully by my next post I will have a better idea as to what exactly the plan is for the coming days.

Alex

This is the last week of my internship experience aboard the R/V Sikuliaq. In fact, today we have left the Jason ROV’s worksites area and have now begun the last leg of our journey that started in San Diego and went up the west coast to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

There have been seven Jason dives on this trip. Due to the transformer breaking and also due to weather issues, the Jason group was not able to dive as many times as they wanted to. However, we were able to get other data, such as multiple CTD’s, Multibeam surveys, and underway data.

I have been assisting with the CTD deployments, XBT’s deployments, and an extra assistant for the Jason deployments. I have also learned how to monitor the data received from the sensors, sonars, and other instruments and how to tell bad/abnormal data from good/normal data. I have learned many other things as well, such as; basic maritime knots, how to create a water-tight cable splice, and how to manage and save data. I was even able to fly the Jason around for a little while (picture attached below).

This experience has taught me more than just technical skills. It has taught me about living life on the water and the pros and cons of it. It has also taught me how to live and work well with many other people all stuck together in one 216 foot long space. It has been a great learning experience that I couldn’t have gained in many other places.

I am quite saddened to be going home and having to end this awesome experience. Despite the issues with the Jason ROV, this cruise went very well. No one was injured, there were no major issues on board, and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Despite the fact that I will be boarding a plane and going home in two days’ time, I know that this is an experience that I will carry with me and that will influence my life for many years to come. It is the end of this cruise and of this internship, but it is only the beginning of my career on the water. I am truly honored to have been given this wonderful opportunity to be a part of this R/V Sikuliaq cruise. It has been quite the adventure!

 -Hannah Klooster

The Jason ROV is all fixed and ready to go! We left Newport, Oregon, yesterday morning at 11:00 am and reached station for the Jason ROV’s worksite 01 around 4:30 pm yesterday afternoon. The Jason’s first dive took place at 4:00 am this morning. Before it was deployed, the Jason group had to calibrate the USBL on the centerboard deployed underneath the ship using triangulation.

The Jason ROV is bigger than any ROV I have personally worked with before, so it was quite exciting to be a part of. The live feed of the Jason’s cameras are broadcasted on multiple different televisions throughout the ship, so everyone can watch what’s happening. It is all quite incredible to finally see everything working.

 – Hannah Klooster

Today we had planned to reach the first of six worksites for the Jason ROV. However, a change in plans was called for when the transformer for the Jason ROV failed. A replacement has been shipped and we will pick it up in Newport, Oregon. Instead of just going into dock at Newport, it was decided instead that we would do some Multi-Beam Sonar survey grids and some CTD (Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth) profiles for the six worksites. This will be the first time for me deploying the CTD, so I am quite excited.

Since my last post, I have done quite a bit aboard the R/V Sikuliaq. I have performed, with my mentor Steve, three XBT’s (Expendable Bathythermograph’s – to determine the speed of sound in a column of water). I have also been using the EM302 Multi-Beam Sonar program, the Olex 3D mapping program, and the TOPAS Sub-Sea Depth Profiler program.

I have, as of yesterday, passed the one week marker of living aboard the Sikuliaq. So far, it has been quite the adventure. This internship has marked the longest that I have ever been away from home as well as being a milestone in my schooling career, due to the knowledge that I have already gained in just one week’s time. In my down time, I have spent quite a bit of time on deck and on the bridge, watching for whales and/or dolphins. They have proved, however, to be quite elusive. I do hope that in the coming days before my internship is over, that I will at least see one whale.

I am not sure how long it will take before the Jason ROV is back up and running, and is ready to be deployed onto the worksites, but until that time, it looks like we will have plenty to do and monitor.

I have also attached a photo of myself in front of the Jason ROV taken by my mentor, Steven Hartz.

Alright, I promised an update and since this is the last day in San Diego before the R/V Sikuliaq departs, I figured it was a good time for one. I landed in San Diego on the 25^th of May around 11:00. I was picked up from the airport by my mentor, Steven Hartz, who gave me a brief tour of San Diego before we went to the ship. I was a little nervous, but everyone that I have met on the R/V Sikuliaq has been kind and very helpful. Steve gave me a tour of the ship and after only getting lost once, I think I have finally learned my way around; the R/V Sikuliaq is honestly larger than I thought it was going to be.

I have now spent two full days on the ship assisting where I can as everyone is preparing to leave port. It has been a bit hectic and crowded on deck and so far there hasn’t been too much for me to do. I’ve helped out with unloading boxes of food for the voyage, loading a box with a float for the Jason onto the crane, and lowering the Center Board with the transducer into the Safe position. I have also been learning about the different computer programs and systems that the R/V Sikuliaq has, such as the Olex 3D mapping system and all of the CCTV security cameras. Steve has also had me reading about different subjects and technologies on the ship, such as Serial Ports and the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler.

I have spent time walking around deck and was also able to get off the ship for a while and bike around San Diego and Coronado Island, which were both amazing. The San Diego area is beautiful and with the temperature at around 60-65 degrees, it’s perfect. However, I am more than ready to finally “set sail” and truly begin my internship.    

Until next time, 

– Hannah Klooster

Hello Everyone!

My name is Hannah Klooster. I am currently a student at Northwestern Michigan College in the Marine Technology Bachelors program. I just completed my second year of school, so I still have a few more years before my instruction will be complete.

I am only a few days away from flying out to San Diego where I will be boarding the University of Alaska’s R/V Sikuliaq. The past few days have been a bit hectic, but also very exciting; making sure that I had all of the necessary documents complete for my internship and as I begin to pack.

In my college courses, I have had technological experience with a few different sonar and ROV systems. I am very excited for this opportunity to broaden my education and experiences. I am also quite honored to have been chosen for this internship and am greatly looking forward to it.

I will be posting another entry sometime later this week, after I have arrived in San Diego and have settled on the R/V Sikuliaq.

-Hannah Klooster