10/29
The day was calm, clear and perfect, so Emily and I worked on routine CTD maintenance outside in the fresh air. We rinsed the whole rosette in freshwater, now that most of the rolling waves were done, it was important to wash all the residual salt off. Despite working in a salty environment, it is never good to just let the salt eat away at the wiring and electronics. Next we washed all the windows for the sensors, and flushed the pumps with DI water. We attached a Fluorometer (used to measure the biomass of algae and other photosynthetic life) that had been removed on the ship’s last cruise.
I also did a lot of cataloging today, finishing my list of CTD sensors with all those currently on the rosette and their calibration dates. This list will now be checked with the standard calibration info from WHOI and the sensors’ manufacturers to see which need to be taken off and recalibrated this winter. I also created a small inventory of the chemicals kept in the tech shop, which will be useful for INSURV (Navy Inspection) slated for the beginning of December.
We finished up the day with some yoga with some of the crew and a quiet evening to catch up on sleep.
10/30
We woke to a beautiful morning, with clear skies, warm weather and the time change back into EST. As it was so lovely, Emily and I worked on the CTD outside all morning. We began by taking a tour of the CTD .322 cable from where it connects to the CTD itself (and all the terminations), moving up through the LARS arm, to the spool up on the working deck, through the slip ring, and finally down to the main lab and the computers to interpret all the data. While there we started the system up for deck tests of the CTD, as it will be used frequently on the next cruise scheduled. As the name implies, during a deck test the CTD isn’t actually lowered into the water, but all the systems are turned on and DI water is pumped into the pumps for baseline data. After determining all the data coming back was appropriate for out-of-water conditions, the techs set me to the task of constructing a small cover for the carousel while its out of the water, to protect it from debris and things that might get stuck in it while on deck. I never thought my sewing skills would come in handy for this internship, but here we are!
The final event of the day was Emily giving us a demo in Autodesk Fusion 360 on how to model something for 3D printing. This is an area that I’ve always wanted to get into, so I will start now and see how much I learn in the course of this internship!
10/31
Today we arrived in Woods Hole! But before we could do that, we began all of the end-cruise procedures. This included on the tech-end, turning off the EK710 multibeam (which had been mapping the seafloor along our whole transit), PCO2, and bringing up the valeport SSV probe (for which new screws were found to replace the ones I sheared off on my first day). Also in preparation for docking we ran a fiber cable outside for connecting to dock internet. While we waited to come into the dock (slack tide is best), we had a compass technician onboard and so passed the time doing circles to calibrate the ship’s compass. I used this downtime to organize the unistrut supplies in the main lab, which would be heavily used by the next cruise.
We arrived in port at 16:11, and had a busy rest of the afternoon going through customs and offloading equipment before finally breaking and the crew celebrated a safe return from a successful cruise!
11/1
The first day back in port began quietly but picked up as some of the crew changed out and work began offloading leftover science equipment. Now that it’s gone I can truly appreciate how much deck space we have onboard! The morning was devoted to light work updating the ship’s website and working on my blog. I also cataloged all the XBT’s onboard and input the data into the ship’s wiki.
The rest of the day, for me, was devoted to taking my parents on a tour of the ship. It was a rainy day so we focused mostly on the labs and spaces inside, and when asked, the engineers happily gave them a tour of the engine rooms! They thoughtfully brought my car, so after an excellent dinner cooked by the crew (clambake and smoked meats), some crew and I went into Falmouth for snacks (specifically ice cream and cake).
11/2
I began the day with a lesson in terminating SBI cable. I still have much more to learn in this area, and there will be many more opportunities as the OOI cruise unfolds. Once we were caffeinated enough, the techs and I took a field trip to the WHOI stockroom. After coming back from the stockroom run, Sonia walked me through terminating ethernet cable, which she said was one of the hallmark skills of an SSSG. We finished off the afternoon by listening in on the RVTEC conference, happening this year in Seattle.
While we didnt participate in any Hallween festivities, we continue to reap the benefits, as Hallween candy has inundated the ship, and provides a necessary afternoon pick-me-up most days.
11/3
Emily and I started off with an introduction to Roxblocks, a modular-based sealing method for cables and piping pass-throughs. We began the process of taking down a superfluous cable from a previous science group. It ran all the way from the fly bridge, through a roxblock into the bridge void, then through another roxblock down into the computer lab, and then through a final roxblock into the main lab.
The roxblocks are a great solution to needing waterproof and nonconductive pass-throughs for something like a ship, but they are known to be a pain to work with. I got to experience this when Emily left me to work with the roxblock between the main lab and the computer lab. Generally getting the roxblocks out is easy, but getting them back in can be very frustrating, especially when following directions and applying the lubricant (lard) that comes with the roxblocks kits. This lubricant is meant to make the modules slip in together so the wedge can clamp them down for a tight seal. It also serves to make your hands, tools and workspace a bacon-smelling slip and slide.
After the morning work with the roxblocks, I wanted a bit of a break from lard so I spent the afternoon listening in on the RVTEC conference and cataloging more chemicals that were turned up in the tech shop.
11/4
Friday began with Emily and I finishing the job of taking out the extra cable, which meant more work with roxblocks! The fun began when we attempted to take the circular roxblock assembly out, but despite loosening all the screws for the wedges, it took some creativity to actually get it out.
Sonia then took me back up to the fly bridge to work on the SES box up there. In the past that box had some severe water intrusion, so a good 3 inches of water sat inside for some time until the techs worked on the box. This is a difficult area to work on however because of all the radars and antennas up there that must all be turned off for people to safely be there. Our task today was to re-terminate the terminations that had been submerged, and hence had corroded. This just required new ring terminals, and I spent the rest of my afternoon sanding out the inside of the SES box.
I am fortunate to live in the area, so I will be going home for the weekend!