Archive of September 15th, 2007

Teacher at Sea log for Saturday September 15,2007

At 5 am in the morning and we are off the south coast of Kauai. The Jason crew is topping off the mineral oil in many of the components of the Medea and the Jason 2. The Jason 2 is where the claw robotic arms are and where the cameras are. The Medea is a support vehicle that travels with the Jason 2 on the same tether. The engineers are checking all the mechanisms on the two vehicles to be sure we are good to go. The stars are still out and the glow of the coming sunrise is beginning to emerge. The strobe on the top of the Jason is flashing. The electronics on the Medea that they were working on last night are now covered with a watertight cover and then a protective grill. There is a tire and a metal attachment bolted onto the top of the Jason to add some stability to it as they lower the Jason into the water. The magnetometer, which we towed from Oahu, is pulled out of the water and set carefully on to the deck of the ship. The water in the ocean is smooth like molasses. There are no white caps. The crane operator maneuvers the crane over the Jason 2, the tire with the metal attachment is fastened to the crane and the entire ROV is lifted over the rope handrails. A small clothesline diameter rope is attached to the Jason 2 and it is held by a crewmember. He applies gently tugs and this settles out some of the resonance that is building. They do not want the Jason 2 to slap the water or slam into the side of the boat. One crew member drops scraps of natural rope into the water to see the surface currents. Carefully, they time the descent and the Jason 2 goes safely into the water. One light comes on and then the whole array of lights come on and it glows gently below the surface of the water. Next, the Medea is dropped in. The tether between the two vehicles becomes dangerously taunt at one moment, and then all is well; both vehicles are in the water together and the cable is rolled off the drum. The spooled cable has been spray painted after each complete wrap, I watch the numbers scroll from 20 to 8. Two hours later 4300 meters of cable have been played out. I cannot wait to get a chance to see what they see on the bottom. I will need to go to the control van to see the live feed from the bottom.

Presented by the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii, with financial support from the National Science Foundation.