Day 34 HIGH SEAS

The seas are still rough, Jason can’t safely be brought aboard, and so we continue the exploration of the summit of Blue Moon Seamount. We still hoped to find the site of the break-away core which was 650 meters to the south. We raised Jason high off the seafloor and the ship towed us to the approximate site. This took several hours and most of my watch. Instead of watching the seafloor, we watched blue water. There is always the possibility that an exotic creature might swim by the camera, but on the whole, watching the monitors is not very exciting during this kind of move. Those of us in the control van got started on sea stories and we passed a delightful 4 hours telling real-life adventure tales of scuba diving and sailing.

Logan showed us the types of fire extinguishers and how each is used. Most common on this ship are carbon dioxide extinguishers and dry chemical extinguishers. Logan had 3 extinguishers that were being replaced so we got to use them off the stern of the ship. It’s much more fun to use an extinguisher than to watch it on video and I was the first to volunteer to give it a try. Logan also had a smoke bomb that was being replaced so he set that off too. It emits a steady trail of bright orange smoke and is used to call attention in the case of an emergency. Logan first made sure there was no other traffic in the area because he didn’t want to call other ships to a false alarm. The smoke bomb went for almost 30 minutes and is highly visible from a distance.

Jason, back on the seafloor, was searching for the core site when a rusty old piece of pipe came into view. The group on watch was very interested, discussing its possible origin and grabbing still pictures from the video. Amazing, a piece of trash you wouldn’t think twice about if you passed it on the side of the road but, in the deep sea, it becomes an item of immense interest.

The high swell at the surface takes a toll on Medea and Jason. Each swell jerks the tether and eventually communication with the surface was lost. This is the second time this trip, but today it is too rough to recover Medea and Jason. The cable is lifted so they are high off the seafloor and the ship tows them at a speed of about half a knot. This is too slow to use the multi-beam sonar effectively so all we can do is wait until the seas calm enough for a recovery of Medea and Jason. Time out for the scientists? Those words are not in their vocabulary. They can now be found at their computers, compiling and processing data that has been accumulating.

I asked Stu, “How high are the swells?”
He replied, “Oh, about 7 feet.”
“What? Only 7, I can’t write about 7-foot seas.”
“Ok,” he says, “make it 15 feet.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
“Sure he says.”
I asked Andrea, “How high are the swells?”
She is looking a pale shade of green and replies, “At least 25 feet.”
Now, I can write about rough weather.

Science Summary - Day 34, April 25th

Science Objectives, Day 34:

The thirty-fourth the cruise, Apr. 25, after a failure of the ROV system we will wait until morning to perform a dead vehicle recovery then head south for S. Chamorro Seamount. The transit and bathymetric survey will take all day. During the transit time the Jason crew will be working hard to repair the vehicle. Tomorrow we will dive on S. Chamorro Seamount. Having left the transponders there when we left after the DSL-120 survey at the beginning of the cruise, we will not have to spend time deploying more or navigating the net.