The Final Countdown..... Days 13 and 14!

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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 require deployment and retrieval of Jason and 2 OBS’s which have pop-up buoys that make retrieval easier… if they work… but nonetheless still time consuming. The tasks ahead of us for the next couple of days were tall, but not insurmountable. It was going to take a lot of work from everyone on board and had a ton of moving parts. Nobody was taxed more than the Jason team who needed to be awake for each deployment and retrieval. Since keeping them up 24 hours was obviously not an option, we also had to stop our round-the-clock operations. The plan was to attack two TRM’s overnight Thursday into Friday and then two pop-ups during the morning/early afternoon hours while the Jason team slept. That would allow us to 5 remaining TRM’s Friday later afternoon through Sunday. The idea was to slowly wean the Jason team onto a day schedule, so sleep was in short supply. Like absolutely everything so far on this trip, the plan had to be flexible and subject to deviation.
First up was the TRM at site FN14A which was an easy one at 174 meters. We got off to a good start and retrieved it successfully on the 0000-0400 watch. Next was the transit to FN12A which took about an hour. This recovery was slightly more time consuming because of its depth at 655 meters, but none more complex and we were able to recover it on the 0400-0800 watch. At this point it was time to retire Jason for the evening and move on to the pop-ups. First site was FN16A which was a deep water site at 2000 meters. Release codes were sent, release was acknowledged and then… nothing. This was incredibly discouraging because not only were we counting on these two being cooperative during the Jason Team down time, they were in a ton of water and would take another big chunk of time to retrieve. As we had already done many times before on this cruise, we regrouped, adapted, and pressed on. Sailors, scientists, and engineers, it turns out, are a hearty bunch, especially when the times called for everyone on board to be a little bit of all three.
Without taking time to mourn the absence of FN16A, we moved on to J50A and tried our hand at another pop-up OBS. Within 3 hours of leaving FN16A we had transited, released and recovered J50A successfully. All was not lost on the shift! We were now down to five from the original stack of TRM’s plus one more malfunctioning OBS. It was just after noon and time to get Jason back in the water to go after FN07A. Time lapse five hours and we had transited, deployed, and recovered Jason, but more importantly FN07A was on deck. Onward! Next was FN19A, time lapse five hours and we had transited, deployed and recovered Jason again, and again he brought us back our TRM. Next was FN03A, time lapse five hours and we had successfully deployed and retrieved Medea and Jason three times in a day, but more importantly we landed three TRM’s. Now that’s some momentum!
It was time to shut things down with Jason for a little while, so we were going to survey through the night to pass the time and prepare for another deployment around 0930 Saturday morning to take another crack at FN01A. In the meantime (it’s about 0100 at this point), we were going to take a quick swing back to FN16A on the off-chance we could get it to pop, but mostly surveying was on the agenda until morning. After arrival, release codes were again sent, again the instrument responded, but this time it was actually ascending to the surface! What a break! We were going to be able to get one we didn’t count on leaving us with only three left! Morale was very high, and at this point, nothing was going to stand between us and an early finish line. As the weather would seemingly have it, getting in early is more crucial than allotting the land-lubbers some extra time on terra firma. Winds of 25-35kts is expected by Monday with swells of 18 feet… yuck.
0930 was met with great enthusiasm and excitement. We were on site and ready to deploy Jason and Medea and grab our second-to-last TRM. It was a good thing we got ahead of the game the night before because FN01A wasn’t done giving us fits. We stopped en route to survey a shipwreck, which was AWESOME (but would’ve been more awesome if we had the time to dive Jason down to it), but it took multiple attempts and six hours of just on station time before we were able to wrangle her off the seafloor. Alas, we did it, and it was time to move to our final instrument. FN08A was supposed to be another tough one, but I think we willed this one into the boat because it took a total of three hours and it was strapped to the deck. What a relief, cruise mission complete!!! The Chief Scientists and crew were ecstatic. The Captain, however, in his sly voice reminded everyone that their jobs weren’t done until “those damn things are all off my deck”… or something to that affect.
I stayed up the whole day today to be a part of the excitement and relief, and it came with some fun of course. James (one of the Jason crew members) is a hell of a guitar player, so he jammed and I sang some tunes up in the lounge. We played UNO, ate some chocolate provided to us by the Chief Sci’s, watched movies and enjoyed ourselves. The plan for the rest of the cruise is set. Tomorrow morning we are going to do a favor for some scientists at Woods Hole and retrieve one of their wayward OBS’s in 2100 meters of water and test out an ROV made by Lamont-Doherty. The transit back to the pier is set for Monday morning around 0900 local, noon east coast time. That should give us a couple days in Seattle to enjoy ourselves and of course a few cold beverages. Can’t wait! Also of note, the marine mammal observers have seen some really cool things the last few days ranging from tons of whale siting’s to dolphins and porpoises at play. Awesome pictures to follow upon my return. Now, it’s time to post this thing and enjoy another movie! G’night y’all!

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