let the ops begin... maybe

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.

we're here!

Greg Stone gets video of the ROV taking it's first dip in the Celebes Sea.

04 Oct 2007
day 9
cruise day 4 - we are here

The alarm went off around 5:30AM this morning because we thought we'd be on site at 6AM and work would start then. Before anyone moved in their bed, Caron said that she had been to the bridge at 2AM and they said we wouldn't be on site until 10AM, so we decided we weren't in a hurry to get out of bed. We were still up in time for breakfast at 6AM, though, and then hung around until we were on site at 9:45AM.

When the boat stopped, absolutely everyone, including kitchen staff, went out on deck to watch the ROV set up. The Navy Seals were outside in full camouflage: one with a gun, one with a pair of binoculars looking around the boat, with the other two wandering the deck.

It was quite hot today and the strong sun beat on all of us standing on deck who were anxiously awaiting the ROV's launch. We are about 5 degrees north of the equator, much closer than before. We couldn't ask for nicer weather for running equipment or for the photographers to take photos, though.

The first test dive for the ROV didn't happen until 11AM, so we waited in the sun for a long time. Before the ROV went in for the first time, Michael Aw and Greg Stone went in on scuba to take photos of the ROV while it was underwater. Nick and Lee stayed on deck to video from above.

I was sitting in the back of the very small control room with 3 others: Joe, our ROV pilot, Emory and Russ. I was trying to figure out a way to annotate the ROV video logs in real time. During the first dive Joe realized that the camera for the suction sampler jars wasn't working right and we couldn't see if things made it into the sampling jars or not. They think that it was an overheating problem, so they brought it back on board and I think they put some ice on it to cool it down while we ate lunch.

It was almost 1PM when we began ROV test dive 2 and we had actually waited about 20 minutes for it to get started, so I ran upstairs to get something to do in the meantime. When I came back there was a picture on one screen and I asked if we were in the water and Emory and Joe said no and that the picture we were seeing was from the first test dive, but it turned out that the ROV was indeed in the water and no one outside had said told Joe. Then Joe switched on all the equipment and his monitor didn't work. All the other ones did, so he drove a bit using the other ones until Toshi figured out that the monitor's connection in back had come loose. All 3 photographers had jumped in the water to take photos and video this time and we got video of them taking pictures of the ROV.

Things seem to be working well, so they decided that they would turn the test dive in to a real dive to at least 75m, but of course, the fathometer/sounder? on the ship had stopped working that morning, so we didn't really know how deep the ocean was at that location. Then when they tried to put the clump weight over the side, the winch wasn't working. During this dive, Emory and Russ decided that there was something wrong with the HD video camera, too. It wasn't focusing properlys. And even though the bridge said the bottom was at 100m, we went to 154m and never saw the bottom.

The big problem for the day is that the HD camera is not focusing correctly. I think the ROV crew and Nick and Lee are in the lab working on fixing it right now. HmŠ Russ also just finished towing a bongo net, so he'll be in there with the new plankton sample soon. It's going to be busy in that lab tonight. I think Cabell is also dropping his VPR right now, but I don't think he'll need lab space.

Being crammed in a little room for over 3 hours was hot and apparently tiring. I'm falling asleep as I am trying to write this.

calm waters

Calm water and the aft deck of the boat.

03 Oct 2007
day 8
cruise day 3 - transit, Sulu Sea

This morning was the sunniest day so far and it isn't very humid. The weather and the water have been wonderful since that first night after we left harbor.

Sounds like we are going to send people off for a shopping trip in Zamboanga at some point during the cruise. I guess primarily we need more food and Larry said we might have room on the list for personal items. I don't I need anything, though. Some people are unhappy with food - sometimes it is fine, sometimes it is not. I think the catering company isn't used to feeding so many people and so many big appetites. The portions are small and I don't think much of the food is familiar to many of us, so it can be a little disconcerting especially when you're working so hard and sleeping on a boat, the last thing you should be worrying about is if you'll get enough food. We have rice three meals a day and that's okay with me, but I definitely know that is out of the ordinary for everyone, including me. Sometimes the rice is not cooked well, but most of the time it is okay. Peggy said she found a cooked maggot in her rice. After what I saw at the fish market, I'm surprised I can get the fish at dinner to my lips, but I think if I think too hard about it, I won't be able to eat anything at all.

The Navy seals were on watch this afternoon as we passed by certain islands. They stood outside on the bridge level and were keeping a close eye on the boats between our ship and the islands. I guess they are worried about pirates or being attacked. The seriousness with which they take their job is comforting, but at the same time it is somewhat disturbing that it is necessary that they do so.

We had a brief update meeting at 10AM today and then at 2PM we had the SCUBA diving meeting.

Russ took another plankton sample tonight and there were lots of cool things swimming around in it. There were lots of diatoms, too. I think they are still in the lab identifying stuff.

The bioluminescence tonight is not as bright as last night, but that may be because there are a few more lights emanating from what look like fishing boats. It looks like there are several fishing boats out and we are not that far from one of the islands right now. We did spend a large part of today in open water, though.

The big news is that we should arrive on site tomorrow at 6AM and the first work schedule (subject to change, of course!) is posted outside the mess hall:

0600 on site
0630 ROV test dives
During the morning sometime, rig block on crane for deployment of VPR and bongo nets, set up kreisel in lab
1500 (or after ROV deployment) test RopeCam deployment
1600 SCUBA dive. Dirvers: Horgan, Stone, Madin, Caloyianis, Lee
1900 Bongo nets
2000 VPR

full steam ahead

Calm waters viewed from the bow of the ship.

02 Oct 2007
day 7
cruise day 2 - transit, Mindoro Island

Our first full day at sea! Luckily, the water has been pretty calm since we've been tucked between islands. The big island to the west is called Mindoro Island and we'll be in its protection for a while. The word is that we've lost some time because of the large tidal surge from the tail end of the second low depression that passed through the Manila area. It may not be as rough on the way back throughŠ unless of course there is another storm here in 2 weeks. I guess it was so rough the captain asked Larry if we could turn around and go back to the dock.

At 10AM, we had our first full science meeting. I have notes of that somewhere. We did introductions of ourselves and Nick and Lee got it all on film. Larry had our route and pointed to the map a couple times for the camera.

I wandered around and tried to get answers to one of the first two questions we have received through NOAA from the website. I went around to the photographers (Emory Kristoff, Nick Caloyianis, Michael Aw) and asked them about their underwater camera equipment and I got way in over my head! Mostly what I got back were numbers and letters of cameras and acronyms for types of lights and funny names of companies that make underwater housings. It was fun and I might have learned something from them. I'll probably need to hear it all about 20 more times before I begin to understand it, though.

At 2PM, we had another meeting led by Mon who summarized the fisheries of the area and Bill who talked about some of the literature that he brought along that pertains to the region and kind of science that we'll be doing.

I think Russ threw some bongo nets in the water to collect some plankton. There was a flurry of activity in the lab to photograph and identify organisms.

Some time in the afternoon, the ship got stuck on fishing line and the navy seals jumped in to fix it. It didn't take long at all and we were on our way again.

Tonight we were able to see bioluminescence at the bow of the ship. It looked like welding sparks bouncing off the ship, but bluish in color rather than reds and oranges. I don't think I've seen such large bioluminescence before. Some people saw dolphins riding the pressure wave off the bow. When the dolphins swim through the water, they also leave behind a wake of glowing bioluminescent organisms. I haven't seen that yet, but I hope to one of these nights.

let the adventure begin (please?)!

The first group photo opportunity of the trip.

01 Oct 2007
day 6
cruise day 1

The day started at the same early time of 6AM. And as usual, we had no idea what the plan was for that day - except for that we might actually be leaving dock. At first, there was word that there was going to be a short ceremony at 8AM with NAMRIA and a few other officials. Talina and I watched as people showed up at the dock and came aboard. Just after 8AM we heard that there wasn't going to be a ceremony because the Director of NAMRIA, Rodolfo Agaton, and Press Director, Lida Papa, hadn't arrived, but then they did and so the ceremony was back on. The ceremony was a short ceremony with a few words from the Director, Captain Pascual, Caron De Mars, Larry Madin, and Mon Romero.Š We all went out and took a group photo in front of the boat.

The last thing to be brought aboard today was the MOC 10 trawl frame. It was lifted by crane and tied to the starboard A frame.

Caron offered to let Talina and I tag along to the Embassy (to see a little more of Manila) because she was going to try to mail Nick's broken underwater housing back to the US, which would go by Navy airplane. Afterwards, she had the Embassy driver drop us off at Balikbayan which is a store with crafts made in the Philippines. Talina did some of her Christmas shopping and Caron bought presents for Toshi's and Peggy's birthdays.

Shortly after we returned, we were informed that birthday cake would be at 11AM. When most people had gathered, the lights were dimmed in the mess hall and we sang happy birthday to Toshi & Peggy. The cakes were beautifully decorated. We were then told that we had to lunch before they'd serve us cake!

We actually then heard that departure time would be 1PM. All we needed to leave was Michael Aw, who had been sick with pneumonia for the last few days. We did leave close to 1 PM and everyone was on deck to watch us push off for the 63 hour trip.

We didn't go very far before stopping, though. We tested the ROV just outside the breakwater. After dunking the ROV just barely underwater for about 15 minutes with a full audience, we got a thumbs up signal and applause and a collective sigh of relief erupted from the onlookers who then all quickly dispersed. It was another 20 minutes to get the clump weight secured to Toshi's and Mike's satisfaction.

At 4PM we had a meeting where most of the scientists were in attendance. We talked about the general plan for the trip and that it was going to be subject to many changesŠ and scheduled another meeting for tomorrow at 10AM.

Right after the meeting, around 5PM, I went to bed because it was getting quite rough. Not too long later, Talina came to the room to lay down, too. I actually felt perfectly fine laying down, but my stomach was clearly unhappy, though it didn't hurt. Between 8 and 10PM, there were really large swells that made the whole boat creak and everything in our room sway. Around 11PM, it finally calmed down after we ducked behind Mindoro Island. After that I was actually able to get some real sleep.

anticipation builds

Fish market venue with green buckets used to hold fish until they are sold. Sometimes there is ice in them, too.

Alley-like walk/driveway between two of the fish market buildings.

On the left is Tanigue and on the right is Imelda (not to scale; Imelda are only about half as long as the Tanigue).

30 Sept 2007
day 5

The big news today is that we might be leaving tomorrow around 8 AM.

At breakfast, Emory and Bill were talking about going to the fish market to get bait for the RopeCams and I asked if I could go along, too. I anticipated another slow day and wanted to see a little more of Manila. Talina joined us and we piled into a double cab pickup truck around 6:30AM.

The scenery on the 20-minute drive was interesting. We drove the opposite direction that we had gone for the Mall of Asia (I think) and past large neighborhoods of raggedly put together dwellings primarily consisting of tires and pieces of sheet metal. There was something about the chaos of hundreds of two story dwellings that contained some order. We drove over a large bridge over a wide waterway (river? ocean? delta? water between 2 island? no idea) and none of the bank was visible on one side because the edge of the homes sat right on it. There were a few rickety looking boats tied to small piers attached to a few of the houses. We passed a large gym that was mostly enclosed, but was open on the sides. It looked fairly new and there were people in bleachers watching people play some game that I couldn't see. We drove past piles of shipping containers and these are the large ones like we see in the United States, not the tiny ones that I saw being hauled around in Japan. In front of some of the shacks that were right on the street (no curb or sidewalk), they were selling lots and lots of bananas. As we drove down the street past the Jeepneys, bicycles with side cars, and motorcycles with side cars, I noticed that all the lane lines were all white dashed linesŠ no double yellow lines in sight nor anything to indicate the middle of the road or divide the street into lanes for opposite traffic. It more or less seemed like everyone knew where they were suppose to drive. The most common problem with drivers is that they don't drive in their lanes nor do they go forward when they are supposed to - which results in a lot of honking. There were a few intersections with signals AND people directing traffic, but they seem about equally chaotic to the rest of the driving around here. We passed large piles of trash mixed with what looked like mud (probably decompsingŠ things) and who knows what else was in there. We also passed people (and dogs) digging through the piles of trash and the dogs were trying to eat stuff.

Our driver finally pulled over and dropped us off at a partially fenced off open air structure. There weren't too many people there selling fish, but my impression was that we were early because as the morning went on, more and more fish in buckets showed up. The condition of everything was very poor. There was trash everywhere and green water (I assume it was antifreeze) in the alley-like asphalt laid down between the raised, roofed cement slabs that seemed to be the staging area for the fish market. There were dogs and children, some of which were partially or completely naked, wandering around. The only time I saw anyone attempting to clean up the fish market was when one man stood using a hose to wash down the concrete to get rid of the trash and fish gutts. In the run off water, one small, completely naked boy was having fun running and sliding in the water like it was a slip 'n slide. He would stop, look at us, and then repeat. He was having a lot of fun.

This first stop on our fish market shopping trip only had very small fish. There were thousands of fish, but all of them could fit in the palm of your hand. We saw silver dollar fish and whitefish mostly. Emory wanted to try to find tuna or at least some bigger fish, so we got back in the car and drove a few blocks away and there we found much larger fish. They had mahi and something that looked like barracuda, but didn't have the right teeth that the people called Tanigue. There were also more of these strange fish that looked like cross between carp and arapaima with an upturned mouth. They definitely looked like a freshwater species and looked very primitive. We found out that these are called Imelda by the locals. We purchased Tanigue (later I found out that it was King Mackerel), locally considered a delicacy, and Imelda for a total of almost 100 kilograms of fish for bait. We did all that and returned to the ship before 8AM.

When we got back we helped move more stuff to the hold, while others worked on securing the last few things. One last large thing to secure was the MOC 10 trawl net. That required the crane and a lot of rope!

I worked most of the afternoon on writing the second cruise log for NOAA and since our Iridium phone is misbehaving, we also tried to prepare a bunch of photos in the right format with captions that might be matched with later logs that we send to NOAA. Greg offered to send text through his phone, but we probably can't send photos.

We had an impromptu happy hour with the gin we bought at the Hyper Market and had a toast to leaving tomorrow on Peggy's birthday.

To see all the NOAA cruise logs, go here:
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/07philippines/welcome.html

and use the links on the right hand side.

The weather & shopping

The armored van.

HyperMarket, one stop shopping.

29 Sept 2007
day 4

The big story for today was the weather. We woke up to a low pressure system rolling through (if they get stronger they call them typhoons here in the Pacific rather than hurricanes), with gentle waves rocking the boat and large white waves breaking over the nearest breakwater. We are 40 miles from the opening of Manila bay, which is quite a long fetch for winds to move across and act upon to create large waves: the longer the fetch, the larger the waves. Currently, there is one low pressure storm to the east of us and one to the west that has already passed over the islands. Val, one of the Philippino biologists, thinks that the second one will be done with tomorrow. We hope so because it would be a shame to finally get everything together and then be delayed by a storm.

However, we are having problems getting parts we need to accomplish the set up for the ship. Apparently, the group that went out yesterday had an embassy driver and had the armored van for the day and it tried to pull over to a curb to wait for them to finish shopping and pulled over to a place where a trench had been recently dug and filled, but not packed down tightly, so the two right side tires sunk all the way to the axel - and remember this was an armored van so it was much heavier to dig out than a regular van. That caused a delay in looking for parts at a store where the shopping convoy would eventually find out that they didn't carry the part (or anything like it) anyway.

The new meal schedule went into effect today. Breakfast was from 0600-0700 hrs so we set the alarm for 5:45AM (2:45PM PST). For breakfast, we had 'spaghetti' (definitely regular spaghetti noodles with some sort of sausage, and a thin red sauce) and toast. And it was so early that even Bill had a hard time making fun of it. We had some hot tea and sat around and talked to the few others who had actually stayed the night on the ship with us. The talk was mostly about the storm, trying to decipher the weather warning that was issued, and more about yesterday's failed shopping excursion.

To kill some time, I went out in the rain and reorganized my dive gear and put it in the hold. Then Talina and I tried to be helpful and did manage to take one box to the hold. Then we walked down the dock and back for some exercise while it was not raining too much. We also climbed up the ladder to the largest unused boat onboard to check it out. Not much there to see - it's gutted of most of it's electronics.

Larry, Emory, Bill, Peggy, Talina, and I made a shopping run to the Mall of Asia (huge shopping center across the street from the water that even has an IMAX theater) - specifically to the HyperMarket which was like a full service grocery store and fully stocked Target in one. Our shopping list consisted of everything from ice cube trays, gin, and beer to sponges, paper towels, and bar soap. We also made a stop at Home Depot which is kind of like an Expo (kitchen and bathroom fixtures, sinks, tubs, toilets, saunas, tile, etc.) that also had some plywood. We were there for the plywood. And they had to get it out of the back somewhere. And it took about 7 guys to do it. They also had some lighting fixtures by IKHEA, which I assume is the same as IKEA in the US.

As we shopped in the various stores, people sort of looked at our group kind of out of the side of their eyes because we are definitely an unusual group, but when the armored van pulled up, they were definitely full on staring at us. I will it admit it was overkill just a bit to put groceries from Hypermarket (where I got a small pillow for 1 USD) into an armored van.

Tonight Mon, Mely, and Hildie arrived to the boat. Mon and Mely have 5 sons who live in Manila so they have been visiting them while we are preparing the boat. They thought we might leave in the morning, but the ROV guys say they need one more day. The plan is to leave at 8AM on Monday morning. Caron, Greg, and the National Geographic photographer (Nick and assistant, Lee) are back from their scuba diving trip. They said the weather was beautiful and they got some nice shots of reefs.

Tonight we saw a short fireworks show from the direction of the Mall of Asia. No one seemed to know why there would be one, though. Someone suggested that there could have been a grand opening for a store. Huh.

Still waiting around until we depart. . . hoping there is something productive to do in the meantime. . .