Whoah, the days keep on getting busier and busier! The last 26 hours have been crazy. Despite ISIS dives being postponed due to bad weather I have been rushed off my feet. There is always something to do in this job! The last two ISIS dives have been interesting but it was becoming apparent that the weather was deteriorating as the recovery’s were a bit more “exciting” than usual! However, despite the sea’s getting rough last night, today we were greeted with glorious sunshine and the sea was like a mirror!
The two dives once again yielded some interesting beasties and I’ve been trying to get Teresa to name a new species after me…. If we find one.
We also saw more pilot whales although not as active ass the last lot.
My day’s now start with data backups to ensure all our data is kept safe in the event of our data logger crashing. Once that is done I usually spend 4 hours covering Alan in the ROV shack and then back to the myriad of tasks that crop up. Today we had to remove the large pipe that sticks out the front of the ship for sampling uninterrupted air – some scientists on the next cruise need to put some equipment on the met platform and it’s in the way. Whilst it was a nice day to be outside the operation took sometime as the pipe had become heavily rusted in its securing plate. Eventually – with a bit of “gentle” persuasion, the pipe came free.
ISIS is now undertaking a swath survey – probably the most boring part of ROV ops for us as we don’t get to fly along the seabed – infact we don’t get to see much as we fly about 40m above the seabed as our downward looking sonar maps the seabed. This goes on for hours with the ROV practically flying itself…..
Anyway, got to go – need to do some network wiring!
Above: ISIS During recovery
Above: ISIS comes close to kissing the ship during recovery
Above: The deck team realign ISIS with a wooden pole....
Above: Catching a crab!
Above: Carb in the corner of the bio-box
Above: Nathan with the tiny critter
Above: keeping the little fella at his normal temperature in the lab
Above: Paul gets excited over a find
Above: If you look carefully you can see lots of beasties in here
Above: Sea Star
Above: A holo
Above: team holo with yet another holo!
Above: The holo gets measured - she's a big one!
Above: The girls with the holo
Above: Pilot whale breaching
Above: pilot whale spy hopping
Above: A pilot whale on the surface
Above: what happens when a monitor falls off a shelf onto a £500 lens. Luckily it only hit the filter!
Above: Doug looking at the USBL
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