Thursday, June 2, 2011

Swinging Anchors and Inspecting Gadgets

With creative influence from our Backstreet Boys a cappella, Dave and I transformed these ordinary wing nuts securing battery packs in the ADCP’s into Bumblebee wing nuts with a few swipes from the sharpie. 


The dripping J-box in all its glory is given a royal welcome back to the quarter after a valiant attempt to connect to the cable termination. 


Jason’s underwater coiling job remains intact after being dragged through 5 km of the water column.


Tired of supplying the glorious lighting for these photos, the sun sets.


During its spa treatment, the titanium casing that protects the repeater and the fiber optic cable junction is carefully massaged open.


Everyone wanted a peek inside.


Inspector Gadget examines the surface of the cables through the microscope and determines that one of them could use a little attention.


Scott exfoliated the fiber’s surface by drawing figure eights on a piece of very fine sand paper.


Inspector Gadget finds that, after a little spa treatment, his gadgets are in order.  


The voltmeter is brought out to make sure that the power is, indeed, on.


Using red light and a dentist’s mirror, Inspector Gadget checks for the red light scattering from the fiber optic cables to make sure that the cables are transmitting light.


Festive colored fiberglass and lashings spruce up the anchor frame.


The Aloha Mars Mooring (AMM) Node gets prepped for its plunge.


It’s hauled up --


-- and tossed away.


The sun sets in Jason’s armpit.


Several people are required to tend tag lines to ensure that the anchor doesn’t dive into the sea as it is moved to the center of the quarterdeck.



Dave and Vic restrain the green behemoth from barreling into back deck equipment.


Sedated and strapped down to the deck, the anchor awaits its morning deployment. My reclining real estate now has seaside status. 


Morning breaks, and a rainbow with it, over the anchor. Unfortunately this morning brought 30-knot gusts and high swell so the anchor will have to wait another day.


Instead of deploying the TAAM mooring, we head to Ka’ena Ridge to fill in some paint strokes on the bathymetry survey. We pass by the point in 80 m of water –close enough to see the beach.  From the bridge, Cammy gives me a binocular tour of the west side of Oahu and we watch the bow in hopes that some dolphins might catch our waves.   While at the bridge, we also spend some time pushing buttons and asking questions about rudders, radar, Doppler and bow thrusters.  I even steer the ship for a minute. I hold the wheel – such a small wheel for such a chubby ship – and obey rudder angle commands until we reach the survey line, where autopilot takes over for me.  Could someone please fish out that bucket list I tossed overboard? I have something I’d like to cross off it.


The conditions are much calmer south of the ridge and Jason is allowed to jump in for a swim.  He dives to the bottom and collects rocks for the geologist. This dive was much closer to shore on a ridge that is believed to be an old section of Waianae.  The geologists can use the rock samples from this dive to compare with those from Ka’ena Ridge to determine if Ka’ena is the same as Waianae or different. 

1 comment: