I thought I'd add a page to show you what I do.  I left for a research cruise on 6May.  We do 3 of these 8-day cruises per year in the Santa Barbara Channel (www.lternet.edu/sites/sbc  gives a general overview of the entire project, sbc.lternet.edu is our website).  This cruise was not a particularly successful one as we lost an expensive piece of oceanographic equipment.

The ship we use is the Point Sur, a vessel owned by Cal State University and operated by Moss Landing Marine Labs.  It's a 140' research vessel and I've been sailing on it regularly for the last 5 years.  I've sailed on other vessels but this is my favourite - the crew is a great bunch of guys who really know their stuff.  It's always nice to have a captain who understands research needs and a crew who are willing to do the extra that is often required.

This shot was taken from the main pier in Santa Barbara Harbour.  When the Pt. Sur comes in, there's not much room for anything else at the pier!  It's quite a site to see the captain wheeling this ship around and backing it in to a relatively tight space.

On the fantail you can see the Triaxus.  It's something of a prototype.  Our group was one of the first  groups to use it.  Last September was the first time we had it on board.  We lost it 4 times and were able to recover it successfully every time.  Since that time, the manufacturers have re-engineered the termination that kept failing last fall and in February we didn't lose it at all.

The Triaxus is a towed instrument that carries sensors to measure physical, chemical, optical and biological properties of the water.  The instrument undulates through the water column from the surface to ~100m (or 5m above the bottom!) and is positively buoyant so that if something happens and the instrument is detached from the winch cable we can recover it.  The package is worth over $300,000 in the current configuration.

We left the harbour at 1200 on Thursday, 6 May.  I generally work the night shift so I made sure things were ready for the first samples and hit the rack around 1400.  The boarding drill happened at 1630 (alarms, muster at lifeboat stations with lifejackets etc....).  I went back to my bunk to get a few more hours of sleep before starting my shift.  At 1900 my bunkmate came in, I asked her how things were going and if the Triaxus was working (we'd added 2 new sensors - to the tune of $60,000).  She said everything was fine.  I washed, dressed and headed topside.  I got up to the lab at 1920 and walked in to frenetic activity.  The Triaxus was gone.  No problem, we'd done this drill many times - everyone up to the bridge or bridge wings and eyes on the water looking for yellow.  We searched until dusk and then waited until it was dark to look for the strobe.  No luck.  We tuned the radio to the beacon channel.  No luck.  We ran up and down and all around the area where communications were lost.  Nothing.  At 0400, the 2nd mate came on watch.  He turned on the fish finder and started running over the mark.  He found something on the bottom.  We were able to run over it repeatedly and decided that the Triaxus must be stuck in the mud at 58m.  More frenetic activity, waking of the bosses, decisions to be made.  We headed back to Santa Barbara to pick up the acoustic pinger/receiver box.  It's a 4.5 hour transit to and from the harbour.

With the box, we were able to signal the instrument and it replied.  Okay, we know where it is... now what!?!?  Friday nite, we contact the Western Flyer (a research catamaran out of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute).  They have an ROV on board.  They're 60nm from us.  They turn around and start to head to our position.  Their marine superintendent says nope, they can't help us.  They turn back around and head north to Monterey.  Unhappiness on the bridge - and that's an understatement!  It's now 0200 Saturday morning.  Now what!??!  The powers that be futz around and try to decide what to do.  We keep checking to make sure it's on the bottom but head west to start sampling anyway.  We check Saturday evening and again Sunday evening then we head east and south down the SB channel towards Ventura.  Monday the powers that be have arranged for an ROV to come and check the bottom.  The winds pick up, it's blowing 40-45 in the middle of the channel with gusts to 50kts.  Lots of seasickness among the students - 3 of the 5 of them are feeding the fishes.  The ROV arrangements are not finalized until Tuesday.  More activity - try to finish as much of our standard sampling as possible and get almost everyone off the ship on Wednesday when we go to SB harbour to pick up the ROV guys.  I don't get to leave, I have an algal production experiment going on and won't have the samples out of the incubator until 1900 Wednesday nite.  No problem, I have 200 chlorophyll samples to process so I'll be keeping pretty busy.

We pick up the ROV guys, do the 4.5 hour transit to the site and drop the thing overboard.  For 3 hours we search the bottom.  Nothing.  Now we're not even getting a response with the pinger.  Can't find it with the fish finder any more either.  Not looking good.  Wind has picked up again, hard to hold ship in position and the ROV is getting dragged.  They decide to call it a nite and start again 0600 Thursday morning.  I stayed up all night to get my samples processed.  By 0600, I'd had about 4 hours sleep in the previous 40.  I crashed hard - did not hear them dropping anchor 3x, nor did I hear the ship's horn.  I must be taking sleeping lessons from Jim!  I got up at noon and watched the ROV cruise over the mud at 200'.  Lots of small fish, inverts, marine snow but no Triaxus.  At 1400 they gave up - the ROV guys had to be back in SB by 1800.

We got to the pier at 1820 and unloaded everything.  I made it home around 2130 - greeted by a very happy puppy.  Friday morning back at the school we unpacked and sorted things out.  At 1130, the other chief scientist calls and says he's renting a plane to do aerial surveillance of the area, wants to leave at 1400 - get some binoculars.  More frenzied activity, arranging vehicle, finding binocs....  off we go to Oxnard airport.  Four of us on the plane, the red tide is amazing.  2.5 hours of looking for yellow wreckage along the coastline and staring at the ocean surface looking for yellow floating things left me pretty drained.  We got back to campus at 1930.  I finally got home at 2030.  Definitely not a cruise I'd like to repeat!!!

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Last modification:  04 September 2004 13:26:44 -0700