There are two comfy chairs to sit in for the ROV pilots connected to the two large blue metal boxes, which are the consoles. What you see of the room is all there is to see!
28 Sept 2007
day 3
While yesterday's excitement was about moving the big things - several 6x6x6 foot crates, a wooden box with one million dollars worth of equipment, the 6-ton winch, the ROV, etc. - today's excitement was unpacking the boxes and moving in the little stuff to make ourselves at home.
The guys working on the ROV are fussing with the exact positioning of the winch and unpacking several boxes of equipment. They have enough stuff to almost make another whole ROV, which makes sense because if you get out to sea, it's often too many days away from land - let alone a big enough city - to go back for parts.
We found out today that the electrical system in the lab only has about 15 watts of power to run everything we've got down there (microscopes, digital holographic equipment, the kreisel, photographic equipment). It might have to be completely rewired - at the very least it will require several specialty plug connections because I think we have a generator with a voltage converter to step down the voltage from 220-250 to 110.
Being Friday, we want to make sure that specialty parts are picked up today in case those stores are closed tomorrow. We'll likely make a general shopping run tomorrow for things like hangers, clothesline, shower curtain, adhesive hooks, etc.
Also, now that the equipment to steer and control the ROV is put together in its own little room, it is apparent that no one but the two gentlemen at the controls will be able to be in the room to watch. There is talk of purchasing a large flat panel television and running a cable from the ROV controls to the dining hall, so that more people can watch.
The big news for today is that the four men from the Philippine Navy are here. They arrived in full camouflage uniform with scuba gear and various types of guns. They headed to the deck just above my room (where the 50 caliber machine guns are mounted) to get settled in while Peggy, Talina, and I were fighting with the computer and iridium phone to try to connect and send off our first daily log for NOAA's Office of Exploration. We ran Peggy's computer battery down, switched to Bill's computer, then the phone's battery was low before we gave up - and apparently the phone requires overnight to charge.
Our (thus far) daily swall is here right now - which, according to the ship's captain, is unusual for this time of year. This is suppose to be sort of slack time or dry time between the changing of the seasons - if you can call them that. It began raining around 2PM, but so far, without thunder or lightening. The rain comes down pretty hard in large quantities. When it first started today, it was coming down at a 45 degree angle from vertical. It's pretty much vertical at the moment, though.
Well, that didn't last very long - maybe an hour - and it's back to work for the crew. They have been slowly emptying boxes all day, putting things away and now the empty boxes are slowly getting stored in the hold via the onboard crane.
Talina and I felt quite useful this morning for a little while helping Erich unpack his lab equipment from the large crates. He showed us how to access the cargo hold on foot and we stored some of the extra collecting jars in the part of the hold that was set up as a gym with an exercise bicycle, a punching bag, and weight lifting apparatus. After that, we didn't do much. We didn't leave the ship and we felt like we just went and ate at the mess hall all day. So not only do they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they have added morning snack and afternoon snack. Today's afternoon snack is best described as mac and cheese soup. It looked like the broth of chicken soup, very clear, so you couldn't see the cheese, but it tasted a bit cheesy. It was actually not bad.
28 Sept 2007
day 3
While yesterday's excitement was about moving the big things - several 6x6x6 foot crates, a wooden box with one million dollars worth of equipment, the 6-ton winch, the ROV, etc. - today's excitement was unpacking the boxes and moving in the little stuff to make ourselves at home.
The guys working on the ROV are fussing with the exact positioning of the winch and unpacking several boxes of equipment. They have enough stuff to almost make another whole ROV, which makes sense because if you get out to sea, it's often too many days away from land - let alone a big enough city - to go back for parts.
We found out today that the electrical system in the lab only has about 15 watts of power to run everything we've got down there (microscopes, digital holographic equipment, the kreisel, photographic equipment). It might have to be completely rewired - at the very least it will require several specialty plug connections because I think we have a generator with a voltage converter to step down the voltage from 220-250 to 110.
Being Friday, we want to make sure that specialty parts are picked up today in case those stores are closed tomorrow. We'll likely make a general shopping run tomorrow for things like hangers, clothesline, shower curtain, adhesive hooks, etc.
Also, now that the equipment to steer and control the ROV is put together in its own little room, it is apparent that no one but the two gentlemen at the controls will be able to be in the room to watch. There is talk of purchasing a large flat panel television and running a cable from the ROV controls to the dining hall, so that more people can watch.
The big news for today is that the four men from the Philippine Navy are here. They arrived in full camouflage uniform with scuba gear and various types of guns. They headed to the deck just above my room (where the 50 caliber machine guns are mounted) to get settled in while Peggy, Talina, and I were fighting with the computer and iridium phone to try to connect and send off our first daily log for NOAA's Office of Exploration. We ran Peggy's computer battery down, switched to Bill's computer, then the phone's battery was low before we gave up - and apparently the phone requires overnight to charge.
Our (thus far) daily swall is here right now - which, according to the ship's captain, is unusual for this time of year. This is suppose to be sort of slack time or dry time between the changing of the seasons - if you can call them that. It began raining around 2PM, but so far, without thunder or lightening. The rain comes down pretty hard in large quantities. When it first started today, it was coming down at a 45 degree angle from vertical. It's pretty much vertical at the moment, though.
Well, that didn't last very long - maybe an hour - and it's back to work for the crew. They have been slowly emptying boxes all day, putting things away and now the empty boxes are slowly getting stored in the hold via the onboard crane.
Talina and I felt quite useful this morning for a little while helping Erich unpack his lab equipment from the large crates. He showed us how to access the cargo hold on foot and we stored some of the extra collecting jars in the part of the hold that was set up as a gym with an exercise bicycle, a punching bag, and weight lifting apparatus. After that, we didn't do much. We didn't leave the ship and we felt like we just went and ate at the mess hall all day. So not only do they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they have added morning snack and afternoon snack. Today's afternoon snack is best described as mac and cheese soup. It looked like the broth of chicken soup, very clear, so you couldn't see the cheese, but it tasted a bit cheesy. It was actually not bad.
At dinner we talked to Mike (there are two on the trip so far - this one works on the ROV) and he was recounting their tales of attempted shopping for the day. He said that the "Home Depot" that they went to was more like a store where you buy furniture and decorate your home, not a hardware store with specialty plugs, fixtures, cabling, etc. Captain Pascual sat with us and we ended up talking about scary animals encounters we've had. We also were asking him about poisonous animals in the Philippines. We also found out that he didn't know we were staying overnight on the boat last night! Oh well, he wasn't worried about it.
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