Category: R/V Thomas G. Thompson Page 5 of 7

Talk about hitting the ground running!

Monday (5/23) the JASON team boarded the R/V Thompson at 8am, dropped our duffels/suitcases in the main lab area and went to work!

First order of business was unwrapping the vehicle and rinsing it down, while checking to ensure everything was undamaged.

The primary goal of my first day was to disassemble, clean, and reassemble six Majors (water sampling systems). Once finished, we attached the handles but later detached them for the testing and training phase.

 (Pic of Major) without handle or nozzle  

We then trained a member of the research team how to:

• Operate, test, and empty the Majors
• Attach the Major handles and nozzles

Vehicle checks were then completed. Half of the team was up in the control van while the other half was outside with the vehicle.

The second day (5/24) was spent creating a layout of Jason’s basket (extendable/retractable front porch) to include collection boxes, empty crates, and sampling equipment mounts.

All had to be securely fastened down but we also needed to create a system was so the milk crates containing equipment and samples could be removed by the research team members and easily reattached as needed.

Vehicle checks were then initiated and completed.

At the end of the day, a line test was completed to test the JASON tether and backup cable system.

Day three (5/25) started off with attaching the slurp collector (sediment/soil sampling nozzle) to its collector hose. This attachment was completed using hose clamps and heat sinks.

Team members then began filling JASONS’s oil chambers, checking all hoses and primary/auxiliary boxes for air bubbles. The goal was to bleed out any air in JASON’s systems (which there are many!).

Towards the end of the day, the thrusters, manipulators, and hydraulic oils were also topped off.

Day four (5/26) was departure day!

The first three hours was dedicated to strapping down and securing all JASON systems, equipment, and supplies to prepare for vessel launch. Anything that could potentially move needed to be secured.

All of JASON’s cables, wires, and connections were zip-tied to ensure total security.

The thrusters were again bled for air bubbles and will be bled multiple times over the next couple days. The ship’s movements will help shift any air bubbles to the top of the lines so by deployment day, the air will be completely expelled.

The afternoon was spent rigging a base for the Fluke Temperature Probe to sit at the front port side of JASON’s porch in front of the collection crates. This will be used by JAONS’s manipulator arms to measure temps inside hydrothermal vents. The maximum temp this probe is rated to is 500 degrees Celsius.

Vehicle checks were initiated and completed. (This time I was able to be inside the control van)

Throughout today, fire and safety drills were executed, and all crew members met in designated parts of the vessel with their life vests and float suits to discuss steps in case there was a fire or if the ship was sinking.

The end of day was spent securing a location for a “Mapper” tool that a research team member requested be attached to the vehicle. It was positioned on the top front, starboard side of JASON, above the starboard manipulator. Once finished, team members bled out the starboard manipulator arm. (This arm was attached the day before. It is a rental arm, used for this mission while the previous one is being repaired)

Day five (5/27) is zip-tie fiesta day! You can not have enough zip ties. That is the number one rule.

Especially with JASON, if any cord or cable is not sufficiently secure, it can loosen and possibly end up in a thruster, which means disaster! So most of this morning is double checking everything.

The port side manipulator was then bled and checks were completed to ensure all air has been evacuated.

At lunch time, the team goes on break and after lunch, shift times begin.

The shifts for this mission are 4 hours on and 8 hours off. But if something breaks, everyone is working.

For example, my shift is 4-8 every morning and night. A major rule: Start your shift 15 minutes early. This gives time for the previous shift to update you on what has happened and what needs to be done.

I begin my 1^st shift in approximately 2 hours.

So far this experience has been absolutely thrilling.

Hands-on, always busy, and always working. Everyone works together efficiently and as soon as someone if finished with a task, they jump right into another or ask how they can help. If you have questions, a team member is there to graciously help explain, train and teach you how to get something done. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow brings!

* I will try to upload more pics next post, the data is limited on this trip so this is all the time I have today!

Well hello and good evening from Traverse City, Michigan!

I actually just completed my PCR Covid test and now am organizing all of my clothing and supplies into my large, dusty blue duffel bag. The last two weeks I have been diligent in maintaining safeguards to remain as healthy as I can before departure. 

I am filled with gratitude and excitement to be partaking in this amazing opportunity. Maria (MATE Internship Coordinator) and Kevin Kavanagh (from WHOI) have been wonderful in sending me lists of suggested items to pack, reminders, and tid-bits of valuable information to better my preparedness. This is my first internship in the Marine Technology field and I could not be more thrilled to watch, learn, and work alongside the WHOI team members. I was also invited to join the ROV JASON team’s weekly zoom meeting and that has been helpful to begin engaging with these individuals who will be mentoring me throughout the next 6 weeks. 

Tomorrow I fly out to Portland, Oregon, then Sunday will travel to Newport, and finally get to board the R/V Thomas G. Thompson on Monday (pending negative covid tests). That will be my new “home” for the following 6 weeks.

 **** Here is my dog, Emma!

I cannot imagine what different things await me and am looking forward to each and every one of them. 

The heat and humidity rise as we approach the equator. The water is unbelievably warm, pushing 30 C (thirty is hot, twenty is nice, ten is cold, zero is ice) some days. Its color is a deep, clear blue: indicating oligotrophic waters, which lack the nutrients for much life to thrive. Still, flying fish scatter in all directions as the ship plows forward and kicks their flight response into full gear. Amber fronds of sargassum float by, patches growing larger and becoming more frequent with each passing day. 

For the past decade or so, sargassum has bloomed in unprecedented amounts. It coagulates in massive mats (large enough to spot with satellites) that float along the warm, equatorial current and land on some unlucky beach in their path. Mounds build up and begin to rot, releasing sulfuric gas as they decompose, thus uprooting beachgoers and disrupting entire intertidal ecosystems. It is an expensive and difficult mess to clean up. For a bit, it was thought that the seagreen had potential as cattle feed or fertilizer, but when trace amounts of arsenic were found in sargassum tissues, those ideas were ditched. 

As a favor to a previous chief scientist, the techs have agreed to conduct some opportunistic sampling as we transit south. As we pass through the sargassum belt, we pause to collect water and snag a few handfuls of tissue samples (using a custom-made sargassum grappling hook). I get the chance to put my undergraduate research experience to good use, since with every station there is a good 5-6 hours of filtration to process the samples. Fortunately, I actually enjoy the tedium and repetition of filtration, for with practice comes efficiency, which is so so so satisfying. It feels good to have the chance to participate in a research project in this way, especially one with such an interesting story.

Back on shore, we hit the ground running. Our major NSF and Navy inspections are in a week, and there are a lot of loose ends to tie up before we are ready. 

Earlier in the month, we unspooled and respooled nearly 40,000 metres of wire. Some had become too damaged and rusty and needed to be replaced. The rest that was in decent shape still needed maintenance, which meant that all wires came off the boat, foot by foot, and were lubed on their way back on board. From each spool, we cut a ten meter sample, which usually gets shipped out to the wire pool headquarters for a break test. Coincidentally, we happen to be on the same dock. So we deliver our wire samples by hand. 

Barbara greets us, I recognize her name from our wire records. The wire pool lab houses two machines that are able to inflict up to 100,000 lbs of tension on a section of wire. Which is pretty amazing, but in the history of break tests, no wire has been able to withstand more than 50,000 lbs. She shows us the termination casts, which takes her hours to attach to either end of the wire. They were designed in-house, specifically for withstanding extreme tension. For a long time, the terminations were the first to break during the wire test, but with the new design, higher tensions can be reached and the true strength of the wire can be measured. 

A few days later, Barbara invites us over to view a break test of our .680 cable, which is supposedly one of the more spectacular breaks. Our cable is all hooked up when we arrive, pulled tight across the break machine. A cage closes over the wire and the stretching begins. We can watch the tension increase on the monitor, and Barbara warns us once we reach 30,000 lbs to prepare for a break. I can hear the wire snap, even though im wearing earplugs, and a huge cloud of dust and rust rises from the cage. The wire has broken close to the termination, causing it to snap towards the other end of the cage, bending and warping the wire into a beautiful twist. We made it to 36,000 lbs. We pass the test. 

After my brief stint on the R/V Rachel Carson, I catch a flight to the East coast and arrive in Woodshole to meet UW’s larger ship, the R/V Thomas G Thompson. The boat is docked all the way at the end of town, but I can see the mast towering high above the buildings as I walk down the street. This small, coastal town is a major hub for Oceanography, and essentially is built around and consists of the Woodshole Oceanographic Institution. I can overhear people discussing their research while walking down the street. There are flyers for a plankton exhibit taped on store fronts. Everyone sports shades of blue. 

The Thompson is enormous. It can house about thirty crew and thirty scientists. There are four different science labs, a library, a lounge, a gym. It is much larger and more stable than any other ship I have ever sailed on. When we leave the dock, there are no sudden movements or strange noises. So, it’s only when I look up and out the porthole and see the masts of other ships going by that I realize we are underway. Out we go, to the continental shelf!

About one hundred miles off the coast of New England, the oceanic plate dives under the continental plate, resulting in a sudden drop from relatively shallow coastal shelf to deep ocean. The Gulf Stream runs northward along this boundary, and every so often, the inner edge of the stream catches and peels off in massive eddies. In the main lab across the passageway, a satellite image is displayed on the projector screen. Shades of the rainbow illustrate where the warm water from the Gulf brushes against the cold, nutrient-rich shelf water. To the south of Woodshole is a massive swirl of red that is unmatched in size by any other feature on the screen. A warm core eddy. By its side is a bright blue ribbon that snakes out into the open ocean. The scientists point and call it the streamer.

Although this whole region has been widely sampled and studied, scientists have yet to thoroughly examine and quantify the streamer itself. The science party on board is an interdisciplinary group, made up of labs all over the country. They have come together to seek out this streamer and learn everything they can about it. To do this, they have brought an arsenal of instruments on board with them. As one of the technicians, one of the largest aspects of the job is to assist in the safe deployment and recovery of these instruments. My first deployment on board is with the Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) which looks like a small black fixed-wing plane. In its nose is a strobe light and in the starboard wing is a camera, so as the instrument is towed behind the ship, it takes images of an area the size of a cubic centimeter. It essentially acts as an underwater microscope, which can communicate a live feed of images to us up in the lab as it “flies” through the water. On board is also one of the Remote Environment Monitoring UnitS (REMUS) from the Woodshole Institution of Oceanography. This robot comes with its own team of technicians that are responsible for programming, communicating, and troubleshooting REMUS. Although it looks like a glider, REMUS has a propeller on its tail, which gives it greater control over its movement and a greater range of travel throughout its mission. The deployment is a bit more complicated, since the robot will be free floating, we lift the 700 lb REMUS up into the air with our crane, then slowly lead it overboard and out into the water. As it hit the surface of the water, we pull a line that releases a pin mechanism on the bridle of the instrument, and the robot is free. 

During our cruise, REMUS unexpectedly aborted one of its missions. Communication with the instrument while it is underwater is limited to echo sounding, which only works when the instrument is within range. To “talk” to REMUS while it is close by, but underwater, the team has a hand-held transducer that can be lowered just over the rail and into the water. There are a variety of commands that can be communicated through a series of clicks. Judson holds the transducer up to my ear and sets the dial to “Abort”. I hear it crisp and clear; click, click, click-click-click. He sets the dial to the next setting “Run”. Click, click, click-click-click. I can’t tell the difference at all. Judson is all smiles. Clearly excited, he explains that the commands may all sound the same to the human ear, but REMUS can differentiate between them and respond accordingly. However, when the robot aborted its mission, the transducer wasn’t even in the water. By some sort of miracle, that exact series of clicks was generated by something somewhere out in the ocean, and REMUS heard. 

When the data from all of the instruments and sensors are combined, we are able to see the ocean in a rare and beautiful light. Instead of just a satellite surface layer image, the screen now flashes through 3D graphics of the streamer with red and blue and green swirls indicating temperature fronts, high and low salinity, blooms of phytoplankton, areas with oxygen, areas without. To the average person, this swath of sea would appear desolate and lifeless. Perhaps a few would notice amber fronds of sargassum floating by; maybe others would spot a storm petrel riding the high pressure wind under the crest of a wave. But for the most part, the North Atlantic, to the naked eye, is an endless blue desert. So if you are lucky enough to tag along with group of thirty oceanographers at sea, do not hesitate, for they will reveal to you a world that is teeming with diversity and incredible forms of life.

During our stop in San Diego, many things on the ship changed. We disembarked the science techs and all their gear, which I must say makes the ship look so much bigger, garnered provisions and got the ship’s winch back. The secondary marine techs were switched out and once under sail, we fired-up all that data acquiring equipment that we run and maintain as SOP (standard operating procedure). So now what? Today has been a day like any other while in transit. We made work lists and knocked out the items on the list. For example, we removed sensors from the CTD that are due for calibration, replacing them with ones from the ship stores, ordering replacements for the store from shore to be brought with the oncoming tech and updating all the logs that pertain to that activity. We trained on CTD terminations, so in the event there is a problem during operations, we will be prepared to make that happen efficiently. We spend our day ensuring that all the details that make operations efficient and smooth are addressed before the heat is turned up. We prepare. We anticipate. We pay close attention to the details, so the details don’t come back to haunt us at a critical moment. In addition, as we are headed for dry dock we have to coordinate with the engineers that power requirements are meet as we have certain equipment that needs to remain online no matter what state the ship is in. And, for me personally, it’s time to start tidying up my internship and personal details, like this final blog and laundry. The party’s over, so turn the lights out. Adios, Thomas G. Thompson.

Since joining the vessel, I have learned how to cast a CTD, deploy ARGO floats and drifters, and what the processes entail to launch and recover TAO buoys; and those lessons, were mostly closely associated with the maintenance aspects specific to this expedition. However, those maintenance tasks were the easier part for me to absorb as I am not a novice sailor, nor do I lack mechanical skills. I also learned a lot about how to operate a plethora of electronic equipment that allows us to collect meteorological and oceanographic data; these are the ones I feared the most and all the while being fully aware that these are the bread and butter of a marine tech’s job description. Working as a marine tech is a lot as I anticipated and really stretched the limits of my knowledge base. See, the one aspect of the internship that gave me the most cause for pause, even while I was applying for the position, was knowing that the depth of my computer skills would be my Achilles; and, it has been. Yet, I have strengthened that weak spot and overcome some of the hesitation that is hallmark to such inadequacies. The picture I’ve chosen to accompany this article is a collage of all the different equipment that minimally, I have learned how to operate and maintain, and some, I have even learned how to troubleshoot and repair. From the multibeam that sends signals to the ocean floor for mapping, to maintaining our internet for communications to shore, which is so important professionally (and for a happy crew), to the SCS (Scientific Computer Systems) which monitors and logs no less than 168 sensors (at the moment), I can walk into the computer lab, and know when something is amiss, what that something is, why and how it is monitoring, how critical it is to operations and sometimes, EXACTLY what to do to fix it! Take that Achilles!

The dynamic fashion of the marine environment makes the idea of placing something like a grid (or a buoy) in a spot and expecting it to be there the next day, let alone a year later, a special task. The buoy, or what’s left of it in the photo, is just one of the issues we encountered that caused our route and plan to be adjusted.  We had set this buoy and did the obligatory checks to ensure it was functioning properly before moving on to out next destination, just to be recalled to it within a day; we had lost all transmissions. In route to another maintenance recovery, we were informed just about a day before scheduled arrival that the buoy had moved 12nmi before losing contact; we didn’t find that one. Add to the fluid nature of the ocean, the corrosive environment and punishing ultra-violence of the sun, it’s little wonder that buoys have been such a reliable source for data at all. For instance, we’ve had to cut the mooring line twice now as the release mechanism did not respond properly to the release code, yet we recovered the buoys and most of the moorings. We cannot say with any certainty why the mechanisms did not release as average depth for these two devices hover around 3500m. The ocean is a world filled with hazards and unknowns. In spite of all these variables and possible derailments, the science team, through triangulation, determined that the last two buoys were located within 3m and 1m respectively of their designated stations, and we have managed to stay on schedule, pretty impressive. I believe these accomplishments speak volumes about the entire team’s ability to communicate, prioritize and function as a unit to fulfill our best laid plan.

While in transit, my mentor has shown me the ropes (no pun intended). The list of responsibilities of a marine technician seem as long as the day, but to button hole the job description, I would say, marine techs are here to serve the mission, which includes the needs of the many as well as the few, professional and personal. In addition, one tries to throw in whenever and wherever possible to get the job done. In general, we are the keeper of data, the link in communication and the glue that holds all the parts as a whole (next to the steward, of course, the food has been AMAZING!). Casting CTD’s has become mostly a night time event as the TAO buoys have to be done in the light of day. The CTD’s can acquire much more than just conductivity, temperature and depth; in fact, they can be outfitted with various sensors or equipment to measure or sample just about any parameter that the science crew requires. The one in the picture is loaded with this vessel’s standard equipment, which includes 24 bottles to sample water and oxygen sensors. Oh, and the catching? When we pull a buoy out the fish follow, and we get out the mitts because they practically jump on the deck! Fresh and local fish are a staple on this ship!

I arrived to the ship on Saturday the 4^th, meet the other two techs, Brandi and Jenny (behind me in the photo) and got the orientation tour. No time to waste as we prep’d the ARGO floats for use. Disappointment of the day? trying to find my cabin again! The next day was Easter, but there’s no rest for the wicked .. or in our case, the Easter Bunny! He found us in spite of our undisclosed location and was very generous, leaving sweets and coins. Easter was our last day to go ashore, so we spent some time relaxing a bit and laughing a lot. Today we pulled out of port, and I am in the umpteenth hour of my watch. I’ve been shown so many aspects of my job already but have many more to learn. My training is interesting and going very well in large part due to my mentor (Brandi) who is organized, patient, relaxed and funny; it’s gonna be awesome!