Buffalojunkie

An OBS Swan Song Sunday, 22 July. Day 15! After all the watches have been stood, all the proper instruments have been collected and deployed, bathymetry data compiled, there remains only one last thing to do… write about our bittersweet last day at sea. The 0000-0400 found John and I with a lot of spare time. Part of it I wrote the blog, but then we settled into The Life Aquatic with Bill Murray. It was appropriate for a couple sailors at sea, funny, but really strange. We ate some snacks and just generally chilled out while a vast majority of the crew slept. The watchstanding goals were to survey on our watch and the 0400-0800 watch and when the Jason team and ship’s crew were up and at ‘em, we would do a favor for ... read more

Friday, 20 July and Saturday, 21 July. Days 13 and 14. I can’t believe it’s the two-week mark already! I guess time flies when you’re picking up and dropping off Ocean Bottom Seismometers. When I left you last, there was some frustration over a string of complications and my lack of attendance at a music festival… If you’re into reading abstracts and skipping most of the paper (which I am), I will tell you that one of those problems has been rectified and I write to you this evening a happy man. To get you there is a bit of an adventure… When I was just a boy…. Kidding, kidding. What was ahead of us, however, was no laughing matter. We were left with 7 TRM’s that had malfunctions of some sort and were going to ... read more

….And we’re back! Days 11 and 12 (18 and 19 July) are in the books with plenty of excitement, trials, and tribulations. When we last left each other, we had a line snap and a TRM crashing back to the seafloor. Jason and Medea were called into action and they were hot on the trail of retrieval. Well, Jason clipped on and the collection process began until a series of large swells got the best of our line again…. You guessed it…. SNAP! It’s an old sailor’s tale that the Pacific doesn’t give up her TRM’s when the skies of July turn gloomy. I guess that is Lake Superior not the Pacific, lives not TRM’s, and November not July, but you get the idea, she wasn’t letting go of FN09A quite yet. It would be another ... read more

Days 9 and 10. Monday July 16th and Tuesday July 17th First order of business, I’m noticing that days 6 and 7 have somehow managed to sink to the first page of my blogging, so they are there, just out of order. Now on to the new stuff! Monday kicked off with an OBS deployment bang. When John and I relieved the mid-watch (0000-0400 for you newcomers), we were in transit to site M10B for an A-Frame (TRM) deployment. Within a half hour, we were on site and preparing for action. The co-chief scientist, Dr. Richard Allen, requested a move to the north in accordance with a recommendation from local fisherman that had hung their nets on a rock structure in the area. Of course for seismologists, no fisherman = no OBS’s stuck in their nets, ... read more

Day 8. Sunday, 15 July 2012. Upon original thought, I supposed that today was halfway day, but then I realized that Sunday (the day we arrived) minus Tuesday (the day we are finished) divided by 2(for average) = Monday. So I guess that means halfway day is tomorrow, right? I guess the cigars and brandy will have to wait… When Caitlin last left us off, we were getting ready to deploy the TRM with almost everything on the ship that floated (with the exception of lifejackets and humans treading water) the purpose of increasing positive buoyancy and easing it to the bottom. When John and I relieved the midnight watch, everyone knew what time it was…. Jason time. The plan was to deploy Jason and take a look at our TRM, pick it up, and carefully ... read more

Day 7 . As promised yesterday, we have a guest writer on the blog today! We all know what this really means…. I got lazy and just copied our Lamont blog for continuity purposes. She did a great job though, so enjoy! Saturday, July 14th 2012 This morning I woke up to calmer waters than the ones I had fallen asleep to (last night I felt as if I was on a roller coaster that was going around and around in continuous choppy circles). Feeling a bit more tired than usual, Natsumi (my roommate, who is a graduate student from Brown University studying Seismology) and I woke up around 7am for our 8am watch. Breakfast on the ship is served starting at 7:15, and it is customary for watch standers to try and eat first so ... read more

Day 6. First things first, to clear up any confusion… I’m putting in photo numbers with the blog for my posterity so that when I have the bandwidth and capabilities to upload, I will do so. Unfortunately, that probably will not be until I get back, so you can read now and check back for photos later (it will especially be worth the time because I was able to get my paws on the HD photos from the Jason control van, so there are some SAWEEEET shots of yesterday and today’s excitement). Alright, so when I last left you, we had recovered a TRM that was lost overboard with Jason. The new day would see new opportunities for John and I to excel on watch (or so we like to think, but in actuality it has ... read more

Day 5. By the time we woke up for our next watch, excitement, albeit negative excitement, was high. Last night while on site for Jason testing, a winch test of a Trawl Resistant Mount (essentially a hood that covers the OBS and protects it from fisherman nets) failed. The line snapped under the weight of the hood for reasons unknown and the hood was lost overboard. Thankfully we can put our faith in the capable robotic hands of Jason to save the day. A plan was implemented to deploy Jason down to the bottom of approximately 950 meters of water to search for our renegade TRM. Needless to say, John and I were pumped that Jason was about to spring into action on our watch because that means we were headed to the control room (photo ... read more

Day 5. By the time we woke up for our next watch, excitement, albeit negative excitement, was high. Last night while on site for Jason testing, a winch test of a Trawl Resistant Mount (essentially a hood that covers the OBS and protects it from fisherman nets) failed. The line snapped under the weight of the hood for reasons unknown and the hood was lost overboard. Thankfully we can put our faith in the capable robotic hands of Jason to save the day. A plan was implemented to deploy Jason down to the bottom of approximately 950 meters of water to search for our renegade TRM. Needless to say, John and I were pumped that Jason was about to spring into action on our watch because that means we were headed to the control room (photo ... read more

Day 4. Because the day started immediately with action, so shall I. We awoke at 0100 to station our at-sea watch and prepare for the recovery of our first OBS. John and I settled in and it wasn’t long before we were on station and ready to send release codes to the instrument. Much to our satisfaction the codes were immediately acknowledged, burn sequence was initiated, and by 0145 our package was on its way to the surface at a rate of 40m/min. We were in ~1800m of water so it took some time to get there, but by 0230, we had eyes on and the camera rolling (photo 006)! After some awkward attempts, we finally got a hook in her and the day was ours. Twenty-three to go. Smitten that our first watch went off ... read more