HPU Blog Mirror

2011.01.22
19:47HST
Barna, A
R/V Kilo Moana

Conditions
Lat: 18 2.150 N
Lon: 167 53.344 W
Speed: 10.8 Kts
Heading: 79
Sal: – PSU
SST: 25 °C
Pres: 1012 mbar
Air Temp: 26 °C

Weather and Sea State Observations
The seas have calmed. Swell height perhaps 2-3 meters. Cloud cover is 50% and rain could be seen in the distance.

Journal Entry

Got up as usual for what would be my last watch of the cruise. When I first got up we were still in transit, meaning I would have no work. But I decided that I should go down anyway and so did my watchmate. After about an hour of transit, we were at our last station. Everything started fine, CTD in the water, pinger pinging, a faint bottom echo but at least it was there. Then some 1000 meters down, the bottom echo disappears. Not late after, the entire trace disappears. We are flying blind, all we have is the initial depth from a transducer on the ship and how much wire we have spooled out.

The decision was made to go to 5000 meters wire out, about 100 meters short of what should be the bottom. Since there was no indication of a bottom hit, we think all went well. Since the downward looking LADCP can usually see the bottom about from about 200 meters, we should have complete data for the entire water column (the important bit).

Breakfast was an egg, ham, and cheese muffin sandwich. Tasty. I went to bed after breakfast and ended up sleeping through lunch. The menu said that today’s lunch was “pizza day!” so I’m a bit disappointed that I missed it. Though, perhaps I have been eating too much.

All the while I was sleeping, a mooring deployment was occurring. This one took a bit longer than the others as it was 2000 meters deeper. I did watch as they dropped the anchor, apart from hitting the A-frame with the weight, uneventful.

After the ship was no longer tethered to the mooring, we went chasing after what would soon be the subsurface buoy. Sure enough we found it being dragged along the surface and the ship was quickly turned so that we could follow it. Perhaps 10 minutes later it was pulled beneath the waves (as designed).

Dinner was gyoza and a teriyaki beef kebab. The kebab had some bell peppers and mushrooms along with the meats. Everything was cooked perfectly. Dinner felt a bit more high energy, people are excited to be heading to port and the science party was feeling pleased with the way things went, particularly the successful redeployment of the moorings.

It is a two and a half day steam back to port and I’m not sure what will be done during this time, though some packing up and disassembly of some instruments will occur for sure. I’ve heard rumors (which travel faster and change more quickly on a ship than any other place) that we will be picking up a drifting instrument somewhere close to Molokai.

The moon has finally started to rise late enough that I might get some stargazing in tonight. I also don’t need to be up at 0400 tomorrow!

2011.01.20
20:05HST
Barna, A
R/V Kilo Moana

Conditions
Lat: 16 52.502 N
Lon: 168.38.709 W
Speed: 0 Kts
Heading: Holding Station
Sal: 34.450 PSU
SST: 26.17 °C
Pres: 1012 mbar
Air Temp: 24 °C

Weather and Sea State Observations
A incredibly nice day. Swell height perhaps 3-4 meters. Cloud cover is 25%

Journal Entry

I guess one could say I’ve developed a routine now. It isn’t as difficult to wake up at the strange hours now and I don’t feel like I’m sleep deprived. A few rounds of CTD casts were completed on my watch and the VMP was recovered. The VMP is so much easier to recover at night, largely due to a flashing strobe on the top of it. With no other ships around if you are looking out at the darkness and see something flashing, it’s the VMP.

Afterward, I had breakfast, today could best be described as a nutty day. Breakfast was whole wheat pecan pancakes that my mom would have been proud of. And, as usual, I went to bed after breakfast.

And after sleep I assisted with a broken winch for a bit. This was the big event today, a broken winch. Lucky for us, the CTD was on deck when the winch decided to break. After about 4 hours of engineers running around with manuals larger than most dictionaries, we were up and running again.

Lunch today was a “chili cook off.” I’m not sure if there was a competition, but I preferred the beef chili due to its right amount of spice. After lunch I did some studying. My afternoon watch stared with the CTD already in the water on its way up. The pinger we use to track the package was malfunctioning so we had to bring it on deck for a quick replacement.

Thinking about it, today was also a day of things breaking. The CTD winch broke, the CTD pinger broke, the weight release on the VMP broke, I’m told something might have broken on the moorings. We have several ideas as to what the cause might be. Aliens, the winch was making some funny noises this morning and abduction was feared. An “Andrew singularity,” during the VMP recovery all three people on board named Andrew were in the same place for the first time, causing massive gravitational disturbances throughout the ship. Government mind control, a lining of tin foil was noticed around one of the labs.

Due to other activities that pulled my watchmate away from CTD duties, I was left in charge of the CTD for about an hour. This involves coordinating a few people and making sure the CTD doesn’t hit the bottom. I’ve never made these decisions by myself so it was interesting to be responsible for a bit. In hindsight, I was rather comfortable with running the operation, I guess this is good news for the future.

Tomorrow the first of the moorings is going back in the water at some early morning crazy hour and the swell is predicted to get larger. The good news about the swell is, it is long period so there is a nice rocking motion.

2011.01.18
19:26HST
Barna, A
R/V Kilo Moana

Conditions
Lat: 16 54.800 N
Lon: 168 36.222 W
Speed: 0 Kts
Heading: Holding Station
Sal: 34.426 PSU
SST: 26.40 °C
Pres: 1010 mbar
Air Temp: 24 °C

Weather and Sea State Observations
A clear day. Swell height perhaps 2-3 meters. Cloud cover is 25% or less.

Journal Entry

It has not been getting easier to wake up in the morning. As with before my watch started at 0400. After some waiting while still in transit, we arrived on station around 0500. Shortly after, we deployed the CTD package. Going back to the lab, it was discovered that the steep topography was going to make finding the bottom a bit more difficult (but nothing we couldn’t handle). The shallowness of the cast also meant that I was still on watch when we recovered, a first for me. Usually the casts take so long, that the people who put the CTD in the water haven’t been taking it out.

After my watch was over, I stuck around a bit to download the ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) data. Then I went back to bed to get some sleep. After about a 2 hour nap I grabbed some lunch, today was build your own sandwich day consisting of freshly cooked meats for the filling. I had roast beef and bacon in my sandwich.

I forgot to mention my breakfast, rice is available at every meal so today I simply had rice, egg and bacon. It feels like I could have bacon at every meal if I wanted.

After lunch I went to the bridge to watch how they position the ship when they arrive on station. This ship has a rather amazing dynamic position system that, once we are stopped, can hold the ship in one geographic location to within 2 meters.

After they got on station I went to take another nap (was sleepy today for some reason). Then got up again for my afternoon watch. Which I arrived at just in time for a CTD recovery. Almost as soon as the recovery was complete the ship started the recovery of the last mooring.

Having little involvement in the mooring operation, I had dinner. Today dinner was tri-tip and stuffed mushrooms. Again, I am a sucker for mushroom and had several. There was also a dinner roll (bread) that tasted like a bagel. The cooks (steward is their official title) are very lively group of people, especially the dishwasher dude (don’t know names). Everyone is almost always cracking jokes during meal times.

Noticing that the science party and the ships crew don’t really every sit together, I made a point to sit with some of the crew during dinner tonight. Tonight I sat with the first and second mates.

The VMP (vertical microstructure profiler) was disassembled today at some point while I was sleeping. After reassembly the instrument had to be moved from the assembly platform to the deployment platform. Usually this is done with a chain lift, but that decided to break. So, as one of the ABs put it, we had to lift it “caveman style.”

We will be on the current station for the next 24 hours doing constant CTD casts (yo-yo casts I think they are called).

2011.01.16
19:45HST
Barna, A
R/V Kilo Moana

Conditions
Lat: 18 21.322 N
Lon: 166 59.400 W
Speed: 12.4 Kts
Heading: 255.4T
Sal: 34.414 PSU
SST: 26.16 °C
Pres: 1013 mbar
Air Temp: 24 °C

Weather and Sea State Observations
Today was very exciting. In the morning a dark band of rain was seen just north of our heading. While it seemed like we were going to miss it, we went into the storm. Swells were 4-6 meters high, possibly higher. Winds were 35kts sustained. The rain and waves subsided by the end of the day. Cloud cover is 100%.

Journal Entry

Today I finally managed to wake up in time for breakfast. Mine consisted of a bowl of fruit, two pieces of bacon, and a breakfast burrito. As always, the food was excellent. I am having a tough time learning everyone’s name and have found it much easier to remember people by what they do rather than their name.

I spent most of the morning on the bridge with the third mate and two of the ABs as we all watched the oncoming storm. There was a good conversation and I don’t remember the details. The storm moved in and the ship was secured. Almost all the portholes were sealed and the crew did a once over to make sure all the hatches were secure.

My lunch was chicken, peas, and biscuits quite delicious. During lunch, some of the waves were splashing all the way up onto the mess portholes. Depending on the size of the splash, comments such as “must have run over a kayaker” or “that one must have been a whale” were overheard.

After lunch was a meeting to discuss the recovery of the moorings we are steaming toward. From what I can tell, I will not be directly involved with the recovery or redeployment of these moorings. Unless I am asked on the spot when they are actively being recovered. My duties will be what is known as CTD watchstanding. This will be the recovery and deployment of the CTD and the monitoring and logging of the data. I will be doing this with one other member of the science party (or more if others decide to join in). The watch duties start tomorrow so I will be up at 0400HST.

After the planning meeting a test cast was done with the CTD to go over the procedures. This was made a challenge due to the high sea state. While certainly not the worst this ship has been in, it made working with the CTD more dangerous. I would say the seas were fitting of the description of “Victory at Sea.” Despite the high sea state, the deployment and recovery went quite well. Safety procedures were observed above all other matters.

Dinner today was prime rib, while those who had it praised the cook, I didn’t partake in any (large steaks aren’t my thing). I had my greens with 3 different kinds of cheese and a crab spread on bread that was very delicious.

After dinner I, along with 3 other members of the science party, got a tour of the ships engineering sections. It was incredible. If I thought the habitable sections of the ship were a confusing maze, well I had another thing coming. The engineering parts of the ship consisted of an impressive maze of ladders on ladders and small holes one needed to fit through.

Due to the unique design of this ship, there are two sets of almost everything inside or directly above what I guess could be called pontoons. Inside each of the pontoons are 14 compartments with no way of moving between compartments below the waterline. So, to move from place to place, one needed to first travel vertically. A considerable amount of climbing was involved in the ship tour.

Finally, today is laundry day and my first watch is tomorrow at 0400.