Jan. 10: Rough Seas and Research

Jan. 10, 2011

Hi all.

It was another beautiful day today.  Actually, even better than yesterday since there was no wind.  It is amazing how I can feel warm and comfortable, then the wind picks up a little and everything feels like it is going to fall off.  Even in this warm weather (35 F) we have to wear full float suits and warm clothing underneath. 

We had another cruise ship arrive last night and come to visit the station today.  It is actually the ship that made the world news when it was crossing the Drake and got pretty beat up with busted windows and a bruised load of passengers.  I’m guessing everyone was happy to have good weather as well. 

We couldn’t really do much since they were bringing boats over with passengers to take tours of the station so I worked with the vehicles and got our new computer all hooked up with the vehicles and their software. 

 It is a fancy computer that allows us to work on the water and in cold environments when it raining and we are getting splashed with water, which is very important since the weather doesn’t really care if the vehicles or instruments are in the water.  Mark put together a poster to leave at the station that explains what we are doing for the tourists and station employees. 

He also had a class meeting set up with his sons class on Skype so that he could talk about everything and show them what we are doing down here. While he was doing this I went out with Matt and Kaycee (a student who has been working down here for Rutgers) and moved one of our transponders and deployed the second REMUS to work out any kinks.  Everything went very well and they got to see their first REMUS deployment.

It is always amazing to see these things get their propeller going and take off into the water and then come back in a couple of hours.  We watched penguins and tried to imitate their calls as they swam around us.  We were also keeping track of a couple icebergs that have been hanging out around the station since we don’t want to run into them with the REMUS’s. 

After we picked up the REMUS, we went back to station and got the other vehicle to deploy it again since we had some problems with the fluorometer and propeller calibration.  Mark switched places with Matt and Kaycee since they had to go work on another glider and get it working.  We sent out the other REMUS, waited for it to return and then grabbed some dinner. 

The glider crew had got the other glider working so we went out and deployed it so that it would be out sampling when the ship is on location so that we can take some net tows of what is in the water. This will allow us to count actual organisms and relate them to what the gliders and REMUS’s are measuring.  After watching the sun get low on the horizon we headed back to get some rest for tomorrow.