Hi All

Today was yet another busy day. By breakfast time we were recovering a mega core. This instrument consists of a number of 10 cm diameter Perspex cylinders that are lowered onto the sea floor by a wire to collect sediment cores from the seabed.

As the mega corer nears the seafloor, it is hydraulically dampened so as not to disturb the tiny benthic animals that live in the uppermost surface layer of the sediment, which would otherwise be disturbed and washed away. Once dampened, the instrument is activated automatically using a series of levers that thrust the Perspex tubes into the soft muddy substrate and then seals the tubes with a metal plate on the bottom and o ring on the top. This ensures that the mud does not fall out of the tubes when it is being hauled back onto the ship.

The resulting cores can be anything from 20 to 30 cm deep. Today the sediment consisted of a 15 cores. Once back on board they are sieved to see what small beasties live in the mud.

The second major task of the day was the deployment of elevators which ISIS will be working with on the next dive. An elevator is a means of transporting equipment and samples to and from the seabed.

Today we loaded the Elevators with a number of experiments as well as some heavy weights which cause the elevators to sink to the seabed. ISIS will then go down and remove the experiments and place them in different locations around the canyon. Once the experiments are completed they will be put back onto the elevator. with the experiments are securely fastened we send a message to a device on the elevator which jettisons the big heavy weights. Without these weights the elevator is positively buoyant and floats to the surface where it is recovered and the experiments removed.

An email from base informed me that the beacon we have above the bridge for sending base our position had failed and asked if I could take a look at it. Due to the location of the beacon its not as simple as just walking up and looking at the beacon. There are lots of radars and equipment that would have a very detrimental effect on humans. So I had to fill out permits to work and isolate lots of equipment. Once this was done I went and removed the beacon from its windy platform and took it to the workshop for inspection.

Once the elevators were on the seabed we deployed ISIS for dive 102. As I had finished the majority of my tasks I helped out in the van during the deployment. Today I was sat in the engineers chair whilst Simon was piloting ISIS. In the engineering role my job is to power up ISIS and monitor all the individual systems to ensure they are healthy and that no faults occur when the vehicle goes into the water. I also look after the CCTV so we can watch the ROV when we are deploying her and relay instructions from the deck team to the pilot.

The deployment went well and as we dived the ships propellers and hull were visible. The sunlight penetrated to about 300m and as we descended there were huge amounts of plankton visible in the water column. As we descended into darkness bioluminescence began to sparkle as we startled the little beasties.

The descent to the seabed took a few hours and I had the great task of bringing the ROV down on to the seabed and then searching for the elevators. We soon found the elevator exactly where our tracking had said she landed. With the lander located Dave took over and started deploying the experiments a timely and demanding exercise.

The rest of the evening was spent looking at IT issues and the beacon!