My time on the Oceanus came to an end. It was a fascinating cruise, I was sorry to see it end. The load out and interim between cruises for these vessels is very hectic and there is a lot of work to be done. Repairs have to be made, the lab areas need to be emptied of the science party’s equipment and prepared for the next group. Then the next group arrives and several days are required to load and secure their equipment. During this time I was able to wire and plumb my automated CTD Cable Sprayer System. I installed a junction box with the Arduino and relay in it, with access to the Power over Ethernet connection. I plumbed the sprayer into the ships fresh water system and, after a little tweaking of the software…BOOM! It worked like a champ. We were able to turn the spray washer on and off via its purpose built website on the Local Area Net. The next phase of the project is to get the sprayer to turn on and off based on an interface with the ship’s winch data system. I will work on that coding while on the Healy, but the system is wired and plumbed and the only changes need to be made to the software.
My time ashore has been informative. I have done some welding, some machining, some forklift training, and have continued to work on my programing. The latter I have done with a Raspberry Pi that Dave and Eric lent me to work with. My plan is to program the Raspberry Pi to act as a dummy winch DESH-5 system then program the Arduino to listen to the appropriate serial data and click on when the data indicates that the winch is spooling in and off when it is paying out.
I have definitely done some grunt work too, which is fine with me. I have cleaned and organized the main bay area, fabricated an antenna bracket for a cell phone booster in the shop, and put up a shelving unit in one of the Marine Technician offices. I am happy to do what I can to be useful to these folks. They have shown me a lot of attention and I am pleased to do whatever work needs to be done.
On a personal note, it has been nice to be able to FaceTime with my wife and daughter regularly, since returning from the cruise. My wife and I have noted that if I was doing a normal hitch as an ROV Technician, I would be home by now, and we are doing fine. She has had her hands full with Lilly, but they keep busy. I have missed them terribly, but its bearable. So this has been educational from the stand point to preparing us both for the rigors of extended separation, and showing us that four weeks is not so bad…..However 🙂 Poor Alice has 38 more days before I will be home and I think she will be climbing the walls by then. And I will be sooooo ready to see my wife and baby girl again.