Heading to Samoa
After buttoning up the ship, the crew plans a swim break…
WEDNESDAY, 03.25.09
0840: To Ted Waitt
We got underway around 11 a.m., after getting the Deep Ocean Transponders (DOTs) aboard and tying everything down. Currently, we should arrive in Samoa sometime in the late evening on Saturday. We’ll probably make a swim call stop at Gardner.
When DOTs are released to the surface, the ship locates the strobe, pulls alongside and the deck crew hooks on to them with a special pole that connects them to a lifting line.
Once the floats are aboard, it's all muscle power that brings the DOT over the side.
The teams are meeting tomorrow, and I am getting the following together:
• A report on individual sorties;
• Stats on aborts, hardware issues, operator errors, etc;
• Best, current and worst-case scenarios of coverage and how to prioritize the boxes; and,
• Inventories and cost breakdowns on the current Leg.
We’ll have a long postmortem before we tie-up, making changes where we need to and making sure the lessons are learned. We’re gonna go over it until everyone is sick of it. No more of the same mistakes.
1758: Day 38 (Yesterday, March 24)
We concluded operations of Leg 1 at 2300 last night, March 24th. Both vehicles were retrieved successfully after completing their missions in boxes 16a and 16b, which are both half completed. We covered 920 square miles for an average of 24.9 square miles a day over the 37 days. We currently have no targets that merit re-acquisition.
We recovered our DOTs in the south while the vehicles were on survey in the north, leaving two in the water to cover the girls’ final efforts on this Leg. When the girls came aboard, we pulled the last two DOTs. They weren’t even fully secured in their cages before the ship came up to speed and began making her way back to Pago Pago. We covered the LARs and HPU, got everything tied down and gave everyone the night off. We will be stopping at Gardner for a swim call, probably have some kind of ceremony on the Equator and arrive in Pago in the late evening hours of Saturday, March 28th.
More on those activities as they occur. Right now, I think I’m going back to bed.