Hi all,

 

This first full week of science operations has been a busy one!

On Day 8 we finally made it out to the Irminger Sea Array and deployed our first mooring – the surface mooring. During the deployment, the first mate called me up to the bridge two times because there were long finned pilot whales all around the ship – I swear they were following us! One of the scientists, has a drone and he flew it out during the mooring ops and  got some great footage of the whales and the R/V Armstrong (and of course the mooring ops)!

A scientist adapted a spare acoustic communications device so that his modified one can be deployed in the water and talk to the moorings and collect data  autonomously. After mooring ops are done each day we have been deploying his instrument to test its range and how good it can collect the moorings’ data.

Between mooring deployment and recovery three sea gliders were deployed with the intent of collecting and transmitting mooring data over the course of a year.

The night before we started mooring recovery, the night of Day 12, we did an EK80 survey of the mooring locations to make sure that the buoys and instrument cages were at their respective depths. The EK80 is a sonar and when in use over the moorings there is a strong return at each of the buoys/instrument cages. We can then see what depth those returns occur at and verify with what they should be based on the mooring structure and water depth at that location.

So, by today, Day 14, we have deployed all of the new moorings, deployed all sea gliders, and have recovered two of the old moorings.

A couple days ago, a leak was noticed in one of our underway seawater pump’s housing, so we need to replace the whole pump. I have been helping out the third engineer with replacing this pump. We first removed the pump and are now cleaning up and priming the stand where the spare pump will go. In the next couple of days we will actually replace the pump.

Joe and I have started having daily Linux lessons to help familiarize me with the system as well with the servers that we work with on a daily basis. I have also been reviewing and editing instruction sheets for operating and data recording on some of the acoustic instruments, like the multibeam and the EK80.

In my down time I have been watching Planet Earth II with some the crew!

We still have ~3 more weeks  to go – stay tuned.

 

~Lauren