I managed to make it to dinner to eat a little salad and shrimp pasta, but that's all the food I've had. The doctor came by, and sort of waggled his head, yeah, it sounds like flu, rest up, not much else to be done. Aspirin doesn't seem to make much difference.
From what I could see of the weather, it continues very nice, hazy bright with some clouds, pleasant shirtsleeve temperatures (not hot like Guam), and fairly calm seas. Sure wish I could get out more.
The Brits are all very excited by the quality of the images we're getting. They definitely know their stuff; Robin (the team leader) can identify twisted scraps of metal with amazing accuracy.
1200 - 1600 My first watch doing image scans (using Argo). Apparently, my post is a backup for the pilot, or "alti-dude" since the job consists of running the winch to maintain altitude of the ROV off the sea floor. It's not too hard, although it takes a certain vigilance (constant attention to keep altitude steady) and care (the winch is powerful enough to wreck itself if treated roughly). But it's kind of neat having control of the thing.
We saw a "dumbo" octopus, with a sad face and long droopy ears like a hound dog. It swims by flapping its ears up and down! Other than that, we haven't seen much biology down there, just a few medusa jellyfish and some shrimp.
Another fire & boat drill today, which is slightly tedious, but not difficult. Did some more sonar post processing, and tidying up. I am still feeling pretty lousy, and went to bed right after dinner. I think my cold is getting close to being over with, as I am now at the "nasal Niagra" stage. Good thing I brought extra hankerchiefs.
I'm starting to feel less ill, but I have a harsh rattling cough with mucus and all sorts of goo, and the clogged sinus sneezing and headache ensemble. I can't wait to feel healthy again.
The weather has turned cloudy and wracked, with intervals of spitting drizzle over a gray and choppy sea. I was surprised to feel a tug of homesickness when I saw the sea, because for the first time it looks the way I'm used to seeing the Atlantic, not the placid indigo of the last week. I also felt another tug of seasickness, since we're now rolling strongly after several days of calm weather, but it's not bad.
1200 - 1600 On this watch, we saw deep parallel gouges in the sea floor, almost certainly left by the Oceaneering sidescan sonar. (Oceaneering was the firm that did the preliminary survey of this site last year.) There was much joking about "sideslam sonar" and so on, the point being, they either didn't know what they were doing or they didn't care, letting their instrument sled bang into the bottom. Needless to say, we haven't hit anything with Argo. (And if we do, I sure don't want it to happen on my watch!)
So I should describe the working environment for Argo operations. The control van is a pair of shipping containers welded together and crammed with electronics, maybe twelve feet square inside. It is fastened to the fantail (the open deck at the ship's stern) next to the winch, where all the information comes from the "fish."
Inside, you see banks of displays (mostly computer and video monitors) and racks of electronics for data handling. The front area centers on the pilot's elevated chair, which has the controls for the vehicle. The engineer sits to the pilot's left, and the navigator to his right. In the rear corners are the data stations (video and imaging to the left, sonar to the right). Against the rear wall is a large map of the target area, with sonar overlay to show a coarse picture. (This is the sonar data we gathered last week.)
The DOT has three people on watch: the watch leader decides where to go and what to do, the assessor looks at the images and identifies what they show, and the data logger monitors the recording and storing of data. WHOI has four people on watch: the pilot or "flyer" controls the winch, the navigator controls the ship's position, the data logger oversees the recording of data, and the engineer (me) acts as backup relief for the pilot. (Since Argo is a towed vehicle, or "dope on a rope," the pilot and winch operator are the same person. When we use Jason, which navigates on its own, the pilot will have his hands full flying Jason, and I will run the winch full time.)
So the watch leader decides where to go, and tells the navigator, who drives the ship by remote control (the ship's bridge crew is twiddling their thumbs during all this, and not real happy about it). Since the navigator controls the X and Y directions, all I do is control Z (height), to keep the fish at the right height for the cameras (about 12 meters from the bottom, usually). Then the data loggers record the pictures, while the assessor tries to figure out what we're looking at.
Argo has one video camera looking forward, another looking down at an angle, an imaging sonar looking ahead (to help see what we're approaching), and a sidescan sonar (to help see what's to the sides, i.e. what we've missed), plus a bunch of telemetry (depth, altitude, attitude, and so on). A camera on the fantail shows me the winch, so I can see what it's doing as I operate it with a joystick. I can also look at the electronic still images and high definition video, which is what the assessor and data loggers are seeing. So there's lots of stuff to watch. After a little practice, I have gotten pretty good at scanning constantly.
Argo does have thrusters, which are used for attitude control. Almost always, this system is on automatic, so I don't have to do anything about it. Once in a while, we grab the thruster joystick to turn the vehicle, to look at something interesting off to one side.
After dinner, I went right back to sleep again. I haven't gotten a daily routine down yet.
On this watch I saw the stern section of the wreck for the first time. Navigation knew where it was and was aiming for it, so when I saw a huge bright return on the forward sonar, dead ahead, it wasn't a surprise. But it came up rather faster than I realized, and it's big (maybe 20 meters tall), so I had to run the winch up to 30 meters/minute (faster than usual) in order to jump Argo up and over it. No watch is complete without a little heart-stopping excitement!
The stern section is also bristling with stuff, including a big crane, that's just waiting to catch and snag our tether. It will be very tricky to approach.
1200 - 1600 A short watch this afternoon. We had about an hour of bottom time, then it's time for a scheduled recovery of Argo (to check some flaky connections, adjust the camera and light angles, check the oil) which means three hours of "Z-time" or vertical transit, hauling in that four kilometers of cable. A no-brainer, so I got off early.
I took advantage of the time to do taiji on the 03 deck (the high "steel beach" forward of the bridge) in midday sunlight. It seems like forever since I felt warm sun and wind on my skin, very pleasant. (Not that there hasn't been any good weather, but I've been working below.) Although there was a squall in the morning, the weather has settled, and it looks like it's clearing, so there may be star viewing tonight.
I also got a chance to see the exercise class doing their thing. Maria, the only female member of the science team (British postgraduate student in biology, tall and leggy brunette, very fit) has organized a circuit of exercise stations on the foredeck. She puts the guys through their paces, complete with coach's whistle! Ordinarily I'm on watch at this time, so I don't see it. I wish I could join, it looks like fun. I call them the Ichi Bang Dancers. (Ichi Bang is a very seedy massage parlor on Guam, whose name has provided us with lots of laughs and ribald humor.)
The evening's hair-brushing movie: "Species" featuring the breasts of Natasha Henstridge. The rest of her plays a beautiful but psychotic alien with no social skills and an insatiable sex drive running wild in Los Angeles ... talk about typecasting. An excellent flick to make fun of.
A front and tropical depression have whipped the wind up to about 25 knots. The wind blows up a choppy sea right away, but if it persists, the waves will lengthen and become the heavy ground swell that makes it impossible to do ROV work. So the judgement call is, will the wind strengthen, and for long enough, that we'll have to recover the vehicle (which takes three hours)? Everyone has passed the buck to Andy (WHOI team leader), who has the ultimate say.
1200 - 1600 This watch, I split my time between winch operation in the control van and image processing work in the lab. Jon needs a couple scripts written to automate the process of collecting the images into "boxes," organized by area, to make it easier to find all the image data about a particular location. Once again, I'm struggling to learn. The problem of writing the script is dwarfed by the problem of figuring out exactly what it is they want. Ain't it always the way?
Tonight I sat at dinner with Felipe and Maria, the post grad students, and got to talk with them some. Felipe specializes in sonar processing, and is very much in his element. Maria is a biologist, and is on this trip for the experience of being at sea, learning how to organize and run things, and so on. She describes herself as a "dogsbody," meaning the same thing as I do when I describe myself as a grunt.
I have fallen into a lousy sleep pattern. If I stay up till 9:00 pm or so working, then I have to get up at 11:15 pm to get some food and start my watch at midnight, then back to bed at 4:00 and sleep till 11:00 or so in the morning. Not good. I am trying to get to sleep right after dinner, 7:00 pm or so, get five hours, stand my watch, and then get another three hours. The key is to set my alarm and wake up at 7:00 am without fail, that way I'll be tired enough after dinner to get to sleep.
I've offered to teach a taiji class to people who are interested, but people are on different watches, and it just doesn't seem to be working out. Today, although the weather was nice, the ground swell from recent wind made balancing so difficult that I gave up. Instead, I went to the exercise room (for the first time) and rode one of the exercise bikes. These are Schwinn rigs with a fan flywheel (like my Erg at home), with pedals and handlebars coupled to the same crank, so you can use feet or hands or both. Half an hour at a good brisk pace is a moderate workout, but the seat makes my butt hurt.
Today is Ostara (Vernal Equinox), and I haven't really been able to celebrate it in any major way. I did a brief prayer up on the 03 deck at sunset, thinking of springtime and wishing for green growing things. This is laundry day, also, which is a nice little self-caring ritual.
Good taiji set today, in the afternoon. Finally, for the first time since the trip started, I feel pretty much healthy, although I still have a phlegmy cough, and I'm still feeling twinges of seasickness. I'm starting to get the feeling that the seasickness will lessen with time but never go entirely away. (This is not as advertised!)
High point of the day is a complete roast turkey for dinner, with stuffing, tatties, squash, and all the Thanksgiving trimmings. It's also Maria's 29th birthday, and Suzy (assistant cook) brought out a cupcake with a candle, and we sang Happy Birthday to her. (My first chance to harmonize in weeks!)
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