How many people can we fit in the rubber boat?
05 Oct 2007
day 10
cruise day 5 - more ROV testing, more plankton, more diving
This morning's schedule is:
0700 test deployment of RopeCams
0800 Bongo tow net
0900 SCUBA dive: Divers: Horgan, Stone, Madin, Caloyianis, Lee
1100 ROV launch
1600 ROV recovery
1630 RopeCam deployments
1900 VPR cast
2100 SCUBA dive: Divers: tba
The RopeCam test deployment did get done this morning and since no one seems to be frantically working on it, it must have gone okay. I guess I could look in the lab to see if Ralph or Mike are working on itŠ
Well, things look calm in the lab. Russ, Bill, and Cabel are processing some of the plankton from the tow they did this morning, though. They have several gymnosomes and right now a baby squid is under the scope. Bill tried adding a gymnosome to the small kreisel, but it went half way around, went behind one of the curved pieces that deflects things from going into the corner, and promptly got stuck in a small pocket between the plexiglass and a tiny piece of silicone rubber sealant.
So, it's already 10:10AM and the SCUBA divers are preping themselves and the rubber boat now. I should go take some photos.
They loaded the boat with tons of camera equipment, 5 divers, and 2 Navy Seals. And off they went. They'll probably be back in about an hour. Then it'll probably be lunch time and then we'll deploy the ROV.
I have been working on formatting an excel sheet to take notes during the ROV dives. I'll probably squish in the back of the control room again and try to take notes. We'll see how that goes.
We finally got things rolling with the ROV at 1PM. The ROV was lifted and put into the water. As we tested some controls and the focus of the camera, we started seeing what looked like part of a bubble in the bottom of the screen. "What's that?? Is that water?? All stop! All stop!" After they spent all that time yesterday with Nick and Lee's help fixing the back focus on the HD video camera, now the housing was leaking and had water in it. At least we still had picture, so we knew the camera was still working and they hadn't unhooked the ROV from the crane, so it could be quickly recovered and put back on the deck. Sigh. Another challenge.
After another session of opening the camera housing and replacing the glass dome (where the camera looks through into the water), the ROV was back in the water around 5:30PM. Things were going well until we got down to about 250m. Then the dome started fogging up. Sigh. After a lot of debate, Toshi decided we should come up some and see if it cleared up. I think we came up to about 100m and the glass was okay. Then we went back down and it wasn't as bad as the first time and we finally spend some time with ROV down underwater. The good news is that the picture is amazingly crystal clear now that they fixed the camera.
We took turns having dinner and rotating in and out of the little room. We tried to find the bottom, but it was deeper than the ROV is rated to go. We went to the max depth rating for the vehicle (2800m) plus some to end us up at 2820m. The tether and the cable got twisted up, so a lot of time was spent trying to untangle it. The ROV was brought back on deck around midnight. I finally went to bed when the ROV was about 40m down and ascending.
Unsurprisingly, the night dive was cancelled.
05 Oct 2007
day 10
cruise day 5 - more ROV testing, more plankton, more diving
This morning's schedule is:
0700 test deployment of RopeCams
0800 Bongo tow net
0900 SCUBA dive: Divers: Horgan, Stone, Madin, Caloyianis, Lee
1100 ROV launch
1600 ROV recovery
1630 RopeCam deployments
1900 VPR cast
2100 SCUBA dive: Divers: tba
The RopeCam test deployment did get done this morning and since no one seems to be frantically working on it, it must have gone okay. I guess I could look in the lab to see if Ralph or Mike are working on itŠ
Well, things look calm in the lab. Russ, Bill, and Cabel are processing some of the plankton from the tow they did this morning, though. They have several gymnosomes and right now a baby squid is under the scope. Bill tried adding a gymnosome to the small kreisel, but it went half way around, went behind one of the curved pieces that deflects things from going into the corner, and promptly got stuck in a small pocket between the plexiglass and a tiny piece of silicone rubber sealant.
So, it's already 10:10AM and the SCUBA divers are preping themselves and the rubber boat now. I should go take some photos.
They loaded the boat with tons of camera equipment, 5 divers, and 2 Navy Seals. And off they went. They'll probably be back in about an hour. Then it'll probably be lunch time and then we'll deploy the ROV.
I have been working on formatting an excel sheet to take notes during the ROV dives. I'll probably squish in the back of the control room again and try to take notes. We'll see how that goes.
We finally got things rolling with the ROV at 1PM. The ROV was lifted and put into the water. As we tested some controls and the focus of the camera, we started seeing what looked like part of a bubble in the bottom of the screen. "What's that?? Is that water?? All stop! All stop!" After they spent all that time yesterday with Nick and Lee's help fixing the back focus on the HD video camera, now the housing was leaking and had water in it. At least we still had picture, so we knew the camera was still working and they hadn't unhooked the ROV from the crane, so it could be quickly recovered and put back on the deck. Sigh. Another challenge.
After another session of opening the camera housing and replacing the glass dome (where the camera looks through into the water), the ROV was back in the water around 5:30PM. Things were going well until we got down to about 250m. Then the dome started fogging up. Sigh. After a lot of debate, Toshi decided we should come up some and see if it cleared up. I think we came up to about 100m and the glass was okay. Then we went back down and it wasn't as bad as the first time and we finally spend some time with ROV down underwater. The good news is that the picture is amazingly crystal clear now that they fixed the camera.
We took turns having dinner and rotating in and out of the little room. We tried to find the bottom, but it was deeper than the ROV is rated to go. We went to the max depth rating for the vehicle (2800m) plus some to end us up at 2820m. The tether and the cable got twisted up, so a lot of time was spent trying to untangle it. The ROV was brought back on deck around midnight. I finally went to bed when the ROV was about 40m down and ascending.
Unsurprisingly, the night dive was cancelled.
No comments:
Post a Comment