The Spool of an Anchor is a Lovely Place to Recline

As predicted, 0400 came early than I’d hoped and I stumbled my way to the Jason van for another healthy dose of the water column.  Warm tea and a blanket were working against me so I fought to stay awake with doodling and periodic strolls to watch the development of the sunrise – from darkness with a few stars visible through the bright-as-day deck lights, to nautical twilight seeping up from the horizon, to civil twilight bright enough to see the waves, to the inching of the orange sun away from the sea, in no mood to rush the day.  At 0800 there was no use in fighting the drowsiness any longer and after breakfast I returned to bed.

When I awoke I learned that the reconfiguration of the J-box was not successful in getting a stronger optical signal to Makaha. As with before, the power was coming through just fine.  From here, the thought is that the problem may lie in the configuration of the repeaters on the seafloor between Makaha and Station Aloha.  There are over 200 possible configurations for that series of repeaters so the folks at the cable station are working their way through as many as they can.

In the afternoon, it was the anchor’s turn for a little affection. At the end of each of the neon green cables wrapped around the anchor are the same fragile connectors found throughout the equipment. They had been resting in holsters, but to protect them long term at the bottom of the ocean we installed the female end of the connector for a better seal. Lashing the fiberglass grid, on which the connector was mounted, to the anchor frame was my and John’s task. Similar to the macramé of my first day on the ship but with an improved knot-tying repertoire, I wrapped red twine this way and that until my hands were tired and stained with red dye.  That fiberglass grid has no chance of escape.

While wrapped up in lashings on the quarterdeck, I hadn’t noticed the sudden absence of normal commotion.   It wasn’t until someone said to me, “So the meeting’s already over?” that I realized there had been a meeting. I made it to the conference room in time for the last 5 minutes of it but I was assured that the first 25 minutes were too boring to merit relaying.

After dinner, it was the AMM node’s time to plunge. I watched the operation while reclining inside the spool of the anchor.  With some last minute adjustments – adding holsters for the USBL and Homer beacons that will be used to find the runaway node on the seafloor – the orange hulk was lowered into the water and released.  Within ten minutes, the beacons told us it was plowing at over 100m/min towards the seafloor.

With the bird perch out of the way, it was time to move the anchor to ready position for the Thermistor Array/Acoustic Modem (TAAM) mooring deployment scheduled for the next morning.  I tried to convince the crane operator that it would be just fine if I stayed in the spool while he swung the anchor under the A-frame but he was not so sure. The rest of the back deck was decorated in preparation for the deployment including laying out the strings of glass balls and rearranging the furniture to leave more room for dancing, I mean deploying. 

Fiber Optic Facials

Yesterday’s dive intended to send a test signal from Jason’s bellybutton to Makaha was cut short by a decision to remain on the safe side. Though the electronics from the umbilical cord were all wired through the connector in front of Jason, there was a worry that the connector itself was not suitably prepared to make the connection.  The connectors used throughout the observatory, J-box and termination frame are designed to be able to connect electronics underwater by gates and an oil-filled chamber. If the connector was not properly filled with oil, then seawater may be able to weasel its way in. The incompatibility between water and electronic equipment could have damaged the cable termination – a problem which would be bigger than any we’ve yet to face. Proceeding with caution, it was decided not use the bellybutton just bring the J-box back up for another period of pampering.

As with tasks in the past, what sounded like a simple motion – J-box up – sprouted difficulties left and right.  Firstly, Jason needed to coil up the cable that had extended from the J-box to the termination frame and place it securely on the J-box frame. We all watched from the lab television as Scott, Jason’s puppeteer on watch, coaxed the stiff orange cable into figure eights.  It was like watching Jason try to line up her kindergartners after recess. Each loop was constantly avoiding Jason’s grip and once he did get control of them, he had to keep a hand on them an all times or they’d duck under his arms and escape. Once he had the kindergartners remarkably well behaved, Scott had to strap them in with bungees attached to the frame by carabineers.   As you could imagine, the kindergartners wanted none of that. Difficulties ensued with carabineers clipping themselves where they’re not suppose to and handles breaking until the biggest battle of the watch: closing the shackle. Jason has no problem unscrewing a shackle with the extended handle. Perfectly lining the bolt up with the shackle’s holes is a different story that took about 20 minutes to tell.  As with Jason’s successes grabbing rocks, his fans in the lab cheered when the winding bolt came out the other side.

While Jason and the J-box were on their way up, there was work to be done in the staging bay to prepare for the AMM, or the orange bird perch, deployment late the next evening.  The weights, which will assist the AMM in its free fall to almost 5000 m, were at risk of harming the oxygen sensors mounted above them when Jason removed their bungees. To give a safe distance between ultra sensitive sensors and insensate metal hulks, Cammy, Jefrey and I relocated the instruments a foot higher. After unscrewing and retightening of bolts, clipping and re-zipping of ties and a bit of pampering, the bird perch is ready to take the plunge.

Jason just missed dinner, arriving on deck at 0700 or so.  Now it was the J-box’s turn for a bit of pampering. The treatment began with a freshwater bath – lemon and cucumber scented, of course, – followed by a towel pat down.  Then one of the metal cylinders resting on the bottom of the frame was carefully unbolted and slid open to reveal the colorful cables and foreign shapes that make up the fiber optic communications junction.  For a while, we all stood peering over Bruce’s shoulder as Bruce peered into the dark tunnel. Over the course of the night, this mysterious tunnel of wires became clearer to me but I will not be accepting questions at this time for my comprehension hangs by delicate strings.  Any prolonged pondering many detach me entirely.

What needed to be done was check the quality of the fiber optic cables in the tunnel and then reconfigure the cables.  For the first task, Scott looked at the end of the cable through a microscope shaped like a hiking flask.  The first cable looked fine, he said. The second showed signs of minor damage, which they let me look at through the microscope.  The fiber in the cable that communicates signal is no wider than a human hair so in the microscope I saw a thick exterior surrounding a tiny dark circle with streak marks across the screen -- scratches or residue to be removed.  To continue the spa treatment was a fiber optic facial. Scott brought out a sheet of very fine sand paper and drew figure eights on it with the cable tip. He repeated this exfoliation with three other sheets until both he and Bruce seemed satisfied with the result.

With the facial complete, the cables were reconnected to new pins. There are six pins in the tunnel from which to choose because the repeater on the J-box has the capability to send signals through six cables. The AT&T cable that extends from Station Aloha to Makaha has the capability to transmit on only four, narrowing down the pin choice in the tunnel by two.  This leaves two cables – one to receive and one to transmit – and four pins forming twelve possible configurations of how to connect the cables. Two have already been tried by the first and second J-box installments. The pin configuration chosen this time is the same one that had been successful in the hydrophone installation in 2007. 

At the same time that I was glued to Bruce’s shoulder watching him test the loss of attenuators and wipe the surface of cables, Grant and Roger were preparing Jason’s bellybutton for testing. They dissected the whole connector and laid out each part on the bench, looking for which pockets contained oil and which contained water. I was too sleepy to wait up for the tests once they closed back up the connector but I knew that I would find out soon – too soon as 0400 was approaching and my sleep window narrowing. 

Cracking Open the Mysteries

When I stepped into the Jason control van at 0400 David informed me that I had just missed an albino octopus moseying across the screen. My hopes of the eight legged fellow returning were never realized. In the trail of the octopus were never-ending flat plains of the geologists’ least favorite rocks. Even void of dazzling biology and geology, the bottom of the ocean is still a rarely experienced scene so I was consumed by Channel Jason for 4 hours wrapped in my blanket like a crepe – which we had later that morning for breakfast.

After crepes, Roger explained to me the obstacles that this project has dashed in the past, which was more tiring than I had thought. The ACO project started over a decade ago with the first plans to set up this observatory using a copper telecommunications cable – the predecessor to the current fiber optics technology.  The company that was going to donate this cable went bankrupt so could no longer give them the cable.  It wasn’t until AT&T donated a fiber optic cable that the project regained momentum. The next obstacle appeared immediately when the programming prepared for communication with the observatory through a copper cable was not compatible with the code of AT&T’s cable. Someone cleverer than the cable tricked it into speaking ACO’s language and the project took another step forward.  To prove that the cable system to Station Aloha worked, the project installed the predecessor to the observatory, the proof module. Mounted on the proof module was a hydrophone, which remained down there for over a year eavesdropping on whale songs and ships passing by.  Roger let recordings of the whale sounds squeak and moo across the lab for a while. Because Jason wasn’t in the water, the pounding winch noises were absent and you could hear subtle clicks and whooshes from the sea.  To replace the proof module came the first try at a installing an observatory with more instruments than just the one hydrophone.  Faulty connectors prohibited this installation and bad weather cut the time for reinstallation of the hydrophone. The cable termination has been waiting patiently at Station Aloha since then for another try. 

The news from Makaha, where troubleshooting abounds, is that there is nothing wrong with the cable itself between the termination frame and the AT&T station.   This is good news – we don’t have to send someone swimming done to the bottom of the ocean to regenerate a regenerator or patch a fish bite in the cable.  It does, however, mean that the problem lies elsewhere. We’ve yet to figure out where that elsewhere is.  Working at Makaha alongside people from the ACO group is the original engineer of the fiber optic cable who flew into Honolulu to assist in tracking down the rascal errors.

Later in the day I pretended I was a geologist while the ones with degrees in Geology were describing their specimens. John said, “Let’s crack open those rinds,” and handed me a small metal object on a string. Thinking “crack open” meant something like The Mud Slinging Show of the previous day, I swung it around a couple of times trying to figure out how to I was going to exert force with this tiny weapon. “No, no, it’s a hand lens,” John said as he took it from me and opened it to reveal a magnifying glass. Crack open the scientific mysteries, he meant. They held rocks up close to their faces and crouched under the heating lamps with one eye squinting. “20% Olivine,” one says. “There are many vesicles in this one,” says another. If you can use these words in a scientifically accurate sentence, you are further than I. I know that vesicles are different than vessels and Olivine is shiny and green. My own observations – “This one looks like pâté,” – I kept to myself.

Yesterday was the day intended to be Jason’s launch of the signal test to Makaha. Over the past day, Jason’s umbilical cord had been reconfigured to extend out in front of him with a connector the same as those used throughout the observatory and J-box. Jason could then plug his bellybutton into the cable termination, connecting the lab on the KM up to the control van, down the winch wire, in one side of Medea and out the other, passing right through Jason and 100 km of fiber optic cable to Makaha.  A regenerator in the lab would then produce an optical signal that anxious observers on land could receive.  Like the whale songs, this signal would prove that communication is possible between land and sea.  If the signal is not received, this is not necessarily an indication of the impossibility of communication – it just means we need to try something else.  In the event of light seen at the end of the cable or not, the J-box would be retrieved on this dive for reconfiguration and redeployment.

Unfortunately, 0400 brought swell taller than four of my groggy selves standing on each other’s sleepy shoulders – conditions unsuitable for tossing Jason in, even with his remarkable swimming ability.  When I woke for a second time at 0600, the swell was just as tall but now I could see it’s peaks and troughs fluctuate.  The swell hung around for the rest of the day, as did the high 20-knot winds.  Jason with his new protruding bellybutton rocked on the quarterdeck for the rest of the day.

Without Jason, there was little ACO work to be done.  Instead, we prepared equipment for the next cruise. Already experts at switching batteries and cleaning o-rings, David and I flew through prepping a couple ADCP’s and their auxiliary battery packs.   Of course, we couldn't have done it with the help of the Backstreet Boys and a little a cappella. These instruments will be attached to the WHOTS mooring in July. Though we had little to do on the ship to further the observatory installation, the folks at Makaha continued to tinker with their end, finding small errors here and there to correct.

At 0400 this morning, the swells were quiet and the wind cut in half.  Jason jumped in as I rubbed my eyes and drank my tea at the event logging station. The events were few on my 4-hour shift – limited to “Jason in water” and “Jason on bottom” with 3 hours of travel through the water column between.  The rest of the dive will bring more information – and fish.  In order to view a bit more biology at the sediment covered flat bottom, Jason brought with him fish carcasses.  John hopes to find scavengers flocking to the smell -- possibly getting video footage of some for the first time. By 0800, when I was relieved, there was already a thin spattering of white in front of Jason – amphipods looking for their meal. 

The Robot Dances and the Mud Slings

Toss the bucket list overboard; I’ve no need for it anymore. I’m fairly certain that nothing on that list could match manipulating Jason’s left arm. As of 0630 this morning that experience has been checked off the list. While passing over a particularly bland patch of seafloor on the geology survey Akel, the pilot, asked if anyone one would like to try their hand at running Jason’s hand.  A little shocked that this was even an option, I didn’t respond so Deb, a geologist who shares my watch, went first.  Anxiously, I waited at my DVD labeling station until it was my turn.  “Does anyone else want to try?” Yes. The controller for the arm is a mini replica of the arm itself that the pilot holds with two hands. One hand operates the shoulders and elbow, the other controls the wrists – that’s right, Jason has not one but two wrists – the claw, and the on/off switch.  It was harder than I had thought – possibly because of the two wrists but more likely because of the millions of M&M’s worth of titanium resting in my hand.  At first I just swung the arm back and forth out in front of Jason, trying to stay away from anything I could break. I attempted to make him dance but the disco takes more coordination than I could muster and doing the robot meant, well, just being himself.   Then I tried the more daring move of picking something up from the basket. I went for the color palette, which Akel assured me was already broken so I couldn’t harm it further.  Like a blind contour drawing, you have to trust that your hand is doing the right thing as you stare at three different camera angles trying to calculate the depth field. My first try: a swing and a miss.  My second try: a success. I inched the palette out of basket and quickly put it back down.  Having performed this task without breaking Jason’s arm, I decided to quit before I did.  I stowed the arm in defensive position and handed it back over the guys who rip rocks out of the seafloor, stow them in labeled baskets, unscrew shackles and plug in connectors, grasp small loops of twine with expensive equipment dangling from them all while controlling the rest of the vehicle too. Maybe someday they’ll learn to disco.  

After my stint at the helm of Jason’s left arm, the seafloor became rocky again and the geologists became excited. From standing watch with them, I have come to understand why geologists are so picky.  To me, all the lumpy mounds at the bottom of the ocean appear the same. Why not just pick one up every few hundred meters and call it a survey? Because picking up any old rock and analyzing it doesn’t guarantee that those rock characteristics originated in that location. Rocks can be relocated by current or come tumbling down the side of the ridge by gravity. So the geologists look for outcroppings on the ridge of rock solidly connected to the topography. Of course, this makes it harder for Jason to collect these unwilling rock samples but it guarantees for the geologists the original location of the rock. We picked up several rocks and almost got a spiny pair of crabs as the ridge became shallower.  The dive ended at 0730 and Jason and Medea arrived on deck shortly after. With several pounds of rocks to unload from Jason’s baskets, the geologists employed my assistance again, and again rewarded me for my efforts. This time I received two pieces of sponge from the side of Ka’ena Ridge.

In the rock lab, once the rocks were all laid out and drying under heat lamps, the rock team began their processing.  This started with measuring and describing the samples, then came “The Slinging Mud Show” in which Doug sawed the rocks in half to reveal their insides.  Water and rock particles abounded so he wore an apron. During the many years that these rocks have spent at the bottom of the ocean, manganese has built up on their exterior making each rock look like the same coarse black blob in different shapes and sizes.  In reality, each rock is slightly, or in some cases wildly, different.  “Like truffles,” Doug says, slicing them in half shows you the true flavor of the rock. In most cases you can see a difference in color immediately from the black manganese to the green or brown or grey insides.  What the geologists hope to find on the inside of the rock are glass chards because they offer a quick form of analysis. Analyzing the samples that they collect on this cruise in full will last them a couple years.

Over lunch, John was explaining to me his hypothesis for Ka’ena Ridge’s formation and the purpose for his research on this cruise. Ka’ena Ridge juts off of the northwest point of Oahu about 1000 m under the sea at its peak. Many have considered it to be a distal extension of the Waianae volcano on Oahu but John says that there are reasons to believe otherwise – to believe that it was a volcano all of its own.  From the research conducted on this cruise John and his team hope to find evidence pointing one way or the other. When I asked him if it was too early to tell, he said it would take a lot more age and composition analysis of the rocks to determine whether they’re related to Waianae or not.   So the geology dives will continue while things are straightened out for ACO at Makaha.

The Paparazzi Returns

As we are taking a brief intermission today and tomorrow from diving for ACO, I will take the opportunity to update the photo documentary:

The crane doubling as a carnival ride. Step right up for your chance to switch blocks on the A-frame. Must be taller than Jason to ride.

Jason, doing some sun salutations.  There’s no better time than sunset to have your electronics worked on and your oil changed.

The neon green cable with its banana yellow accents sprucing up the quarterdeck’s grey and forest green.

Pondering the upcoming deployment of the camera and the J-box. Medea will have to budge from the center of attention and the center of the A-frame to allow room for the newcomers. 

The giant eyeball steps up to the plate. After John finishes attaching weights to its feet, it will be ready to free-fall the seafloor.

The eyeball takes in one last, long scan of the horizon. It has to last him 3 or 4 years until the observatory is recovered.

Inside the eyeball, the camera can pan 360˚ to see all the shrimp and fish passersby.

And off the eyeball goes.

The J-box then steps up to the plate. The quarterdeck is indeed a party at this point.

The shackle by which the J-box hangs from Medea is specially made with a large handle for Jason to grasp and unscrew. 

The eyeball says ‘Come on in, the water’s fine’ so the J-box follows suit. 

Once the J-box is lowered a safe distance from the ship’s hull, a bridle is attached to the line and the J-box’s load is transferred to Medea and down the party goes to the bottom of the sea.

The next night, when the J-box was brought back on deck, long poles were used to grab tag lines onto Medea while she swings through the A-frame to the quarterdeck.

After a long day at the bottom of the ocean, the J-box is back to rest among familiar friends in the staging bay.  

While he is resting, many will not as they work away on his cables and connectors.

The after-party on the quarterdeck conferencing on the re-deployment of the J-box.

Once the plan is solidified, Jason and the J-box jump right in.

The cockpit. Though the sun is up on the quarterdeck, the only light that reaches the control van travels down through the water column and back up through Jason’s cameras. 

Dave, logging events. A vigilant watch stander, he never lets an event fall through the grasp of documentation, including “Standing by” and “Discussing the possibility of…”

 As always, the equipment anxiously awaiting deployment requires attention here and there.  Cammy and Dave acquiesce. 

Though not diving for ACO, Jason doesn’t get a break as he is now diving for the geologists. I spent my 0400 to 0800 watch imagining what Jason might do in his free time. 

Photo credit to Cammy, the paparazzi responsible for many of these pictures.

How About Papayas and Sunsets?

For the judge’s record, I managed to stay awake long enough to see the end of the bathymetry survey this morning. Luckily the survey ended an hour and a half into my watch. Within the first hour, Trevor, my professor of knots, supervised my completion of a monkey’s fist.  After a half an hour of watching the swath of bathymetric paint appear on the screen at the rate of one inch per century, my eyes were scheming. I was relieved of my duty just in time.

Overnight, many brains on the ACO team got little sleep while working away on the J-box to reduce attenuation. By the time I returned to sleep at 0600, the J-box was ready to go back down to the bottom of the deep blue for a second try. When I awoke for breakfast – you can’t pass up breakfast on the KM or the spread of mangoes, raspberries, strawberries, and papaya may feel lonely – Jason and Medea were ready to go swimming as well.   At about 0800, the whole crew made a splash: Jason, Medea and the J-box.  I played paparazzi on the Jason crew during deployment until Dave caught me grabbing a candid of him and my cover was compromised.

While in the lab I heard over the PA system a message telling the ship’s company to disregard the following horn blasts because they are directed at a nearby fishing vessel. Apparently the fishermen were not responding to communication, running on autopilot and heading straight towards us. I came out to the quarterdeck in time to see the ship motoring away after coming within 100 m of us. Though the fishermen would have to travel the length of a football field to reach us, with Jason in the water the KM can’t move faster than a half a knot to get out of the way. Given the whole ocean, one would think this ship might be able to find fish elsewhere.

With more attention to spend on the observatory, I helped Jefrey and Cammy put bungee cords around the loose cable. These bungee cords need to be secure enough to not let the cables escape on the descent yet easily removable by Jason once on the seafloor. In the afternoon Cammy and I did the same for the cables wrapped around each side of the anchor. Out under the sun for an hour or two, we needed some inspiration to continue cutting bungees and fashioning handles for Jason to pull. James provided that inspiration when he hooked up the speakers to Alpha Charlie Delta Charlie, in acronym form: ACDC. Though the CD only provided 3 working tracks on repeat, it was enough to get us through the task.

At 1600, like clockwork, I marched up to the cockpit and took my seat behind the event logger for a period of waiting.  Just before I had arrived, Jason had inserted the connector back into the J-box and the cockpit was silent waiting for the verdict from Makaha. Makaha called back twenty minutes later with the same half good, half bad news: the power is on but the optical signal is not. Papers shuffled around desks, thoughts and questions volleyed across the blue-lit, crowded shipping container. Sentences started with “It’s gotta be…”, “Well, but then…”, “How about…” The satellite phone began to have poor reception so the decision makers moved to the bridge.  Yet the volleyball game continued in the van well into dinner passing suggestions back and forth, such as having Jason send an optical signal to Makaha and see how far it goes.  The solution that was arrived at after dinner was to test the cable thoroughly from the Makaha side and eliminate the issues that arise from solid ground. In the meantime we will be heading to Ka’ena Ridge to do some early search for some rocks. Jason‘s rock collection was looking a little lackluster last time I checked.

After dinner, I snuck out of the van “to use the head” just in time for the sunset. The sky was calm and the swell was not.  Where the two met, a yellow blinding ball gave way to shades of breakfast fruit: grapefruit slices and papaya halves then eventually came blueberry blackness. 

Innocent Until Proven Drooling

Since Jason wasn’t in the water at 0400 for my watch, I spent it in the computer lab making sure that the bathymetry survey of the surrounding areas of Station Aloha continued as planned.  This meant occasionally glancing at the screen on which the colorful bathymetric data was being painted in wide strokes. This activity was accompanied by curling up in a blanket, this time more like a dumpling than a burrito, in a chair that swung me around with the roll of the ship. If the control van was freezing yesterday then the computer lab was 0 Kelvin this morning.  Trevor, an ocean technician on watch with the same assignment, tried to keep me occupied for a while teaching me knots. By 0600, we reached the point of making up knots and he was attempting the interwoven monkey’s fist. Though I was intrigued to find out how it ended, my eyes were apparently not. They found other ways of passing the next hour, namely remaining closed. Apparently I had several visitors during that hour, all of which decided against waking me up in favor of mocking me later for my dumpling position in which only my face was visible. There is no photographic evidence, thank goodness, nor drool remaining on the keyboard so I will plead innocent if prosecuted for relinquishing my watch responsibilities. My eyes were conspiring against me, anyways. The bathymetry survey painted its picture without hitch, you’ll be happy to know.

The observatory, the anchor and the AMM all require a little bit of attention everyday to remain content equipment. This morning’s attention was focused on trimming. It has apparently been a while since their last hair cut so Cammy and I took the clippers to them and trimmed the ends of the zip ties. The anchor was also feeling a bit monotone with the green cable wrapped around it, so Cammy and I added banana yellow chafe gear to the delicate ends of the cable for a cheery accent.

After reconnecting to the cable termination that was tried yesterday didn’t succeed, the thought for today is that there is a problem with attenuation in the Junction box.  This would mean that there is a loss of signal through the cables and connections. I am told that could be recovered relatively simply through some edits to the system.  The plan, then, is to have Jason recover the J-box and bring it to the KM where it will be worked on overnight and sent back down in the morning.

I stood my watch for Jason from 1600 to 2100 when this operation occurred.  At first, Jason removed the Homer and USBL beacons from the camera tripod. As the camera is now located near enough to the rest of the observatory to be found again, there is no need for these locators.  The next job for Jason was to disconnect the J-box from the cable termination and bring the J-box up to the ship. Though this sounds like a series of simple pushes and pulls with the manipulation arm, everything underwater becomes more complicated.  Jason’s arms are so powerful, and the connectors so fragile and crucial that it takes almost 20 minutes to remove one.  Jason must also be careful not to sit on a cable – for he is no dainty fellow – yet position himself as close as possible to the J-box.  In addition to these technical obstacles, the seafloor was particularly void of current so when Jason sat down, a cloud of silt surrounded him, which didn’t settle for another 10 or 15 minutes.  After disconnection, Jason needed to attach the J-box to the shackle hanging from the end of Medea in order to be lifted up. Remember two days ago when it took 20 minutes to move the J-box suspended from Medea 10 m to the left?  This watch we waited over an hour to position the ship, thus Medea, thus the shackle directly above the J-box. At 2000, when I was supposed to go off watch, the shackle appeared just meters away from position so I waited another hour to see the final operation and ascent of Jason, Medea and the J-box. My watch was filled with much waiting, for the silt to settle and for shackle to hover closer, punctuated by tense moments of operation.