With the cruise plan pushed back an extra day, we spent extra time in the lab on Monday and Tuesday with last-minute preparations. On Monday, Hunter and I joined the chief scientist, Dan, in the Marine Center Lab. Dan primarily focuses on chemical analysis of the samples we collect on board including dissolved oxygen samples—which can be temperamental. He has an automatic oxygen titrator system that makes it quick and easy to collect great oxygen data on the boat but the machine tends to drift so we need to calibrate it often. Hunter and I assisted with the calibration procedures and competed against each other to see who was the more accurate titrator…it was a tie according to Dan.
The next day, we worked with Carolina in the labs at CMORE to make enriched seawater for the cruise. I was expecting a fancy machine to dissolve the nitrogen gas into the water but was happily surprised that this required more hands-on effort. Colder water holds more gas so we let the bag of filtered seawater chill in an ice bath for an hour before introducing the Nitrogen gas. Carolina then took out a fly swatter and started smacking the crap out of the bag over and over! Hunter and I were cracking up that the method was actually working and didn’t need any fancy machinery, just some built-up frustration to take out on the bag.
On Wednesday, the OTG team invited us to help them onboard the Kilo Moana. James, one of the 3 main OTGs we worked with, escorted us all the way down to the sea chest (unfortunately not full of gold). This adventure took us down 2 flights of stairs and then 2 additional ladders to crawl down to the bottom of the hull. Submerged inside the sea chest is the sound velocity probe. This probe is technically still working but there was serious corrosion around the instrument and James taught us how he troubleshoots these issues with a multimeter. Hunter and I agreed that we still have a lot to learn about electronics and how we can use a simple tool like a multimeter to check connections and dissect the issue. After testing our cabled connections multiple times to be sure, we decided to send the instrument back to the company for them to fix the internal issue.
Upstairs, Ben and Trevor showed us a few more network components and the hot glue method for cable splicing. I am looking forward to being back on the boat in a few days to keep learning from them.
Carolina and Dan gave us the day off on Thursday (our last day on land) to explore. I rented a car for the day and took off East to drive through the Botanical Gardens near Kaneohe which were stunning! After watching the sunset and going for a swim, I returned to the campus housing and packed up for the cruise on Friday.
Loading Day! I am always impressed by how organized and efficient this team is at loading and unloading their boxes and instruments for the cruise. It is seriously one big game of Tetris to fit everything but they have a system down after doing this cruise for 35 years. The weather forecast says to expect some stronger winds this time around so I am looking forward to an exciting cruise to Station ALOHA tomorrow!
Jenn