1900 Local time
Hiya!
We are currently on Day 6 of an impressively varied and productive science cruise. This morning we crossed to 71º North heralded by an air temperature drop to 30ºF and the promise of sea ice on the horizon. So far, the science operations are going well since picking up the science party in Nome this past Tuesday. That morning the deck crew lowered the port gangway and landing platform alongside and a small boat made the trip back and forth to shore three times to get everyone and some of their gear on board. With no time to waste, we pulled anchor that same afternoon and started steaming to our first station.
I went ahead and took an 0500 to 1830 work day in order to get the chance to work with both STARC technicians and also provide some meal relief during this 24-hour operation. It’s great because I get to work with all the USCG rotations in the winch shack and on deck and also get to see multiple science shifts come and go. Early on in our operations we were getting faulty pressure/depth readings on our CTD. After some troubleshooting in the water and on deck, we decided to pull the unit and swap it for our spare. This was a great learning experience for me because I got to test the readings on each sensor, swap them over, and secure them to the new fish and then on to the frame. Thankfully, the spare was working just great and we were able to resume CTD casts within 2 hours.
A fun and new operation component for me is recovering and deploying acoustic moorings with a variety of release mechanisms and instrumentation packages. For the Healy, these operations first involve using a mooring release transceiver to send enable, range, and release codes to the underwater mooring release mechanism via the hull-mounted transducer. Simultaneously, the fast rescue boat is launched to retrieve the float once it breaks surface. They drive over and hook it to the winch cable to the float at which point the deck crew brings the entire thing on board.
It’s been an interesting cruise so far and is about to get a lot more exciting with the introduction of sea ice, sail drones, and more processing stations and moorings. Stay tuned!
– Emily