MONDAY, 04.13.09

0540: Days 5 and 6 (April 11 & 12)
Happy Easter from the Pacific! We are still ‘mowing the lawn’ with little to no drama. We have the vehicles down for their ninth and 10th missions since our arrival back on the search grounds. So far, we have had only one issue: Ginger’s software had a re-set very similar to the ones we suffered in the beginning of the first Leg. We are using yet another version of the software, and this one has more protocols for logging problems that may arise during a survey. We decided to leave this version in the vehicle as it seems to be more effective when the sonar re-set issue occurs, actually aborting the mission. While it is certainly no good for us to have a vehicle come back to the surface, it’s preferable to having the vehicle stay on the bottom when it is not making data.

On April 9, I reported 56 percent efficiency, 1,025 square miles successfully mapped and a coverage rate of 26.3 miles a day. As of the end of the day yesterday, April 11, we were at 57 percent efficiency, 1,117 square miles and 27.2 miles a day. These numbers represent our statistics over the entire job to date. As long as they are crawling up, they really indicate a much higher performance rate than we saw on the first Leg.

Ginger just came up with good data from blocks 19-20B, and Mary Ann is working on 19A. Ginger should go back in the water about an hour from now for her last run in the B column; Mary Ann has one more rotation after her present mission, and is due back on the surface in a few hours. We anticipate by Tuesday we will be done with rows A and B, and our intention is to move east into a block we have designated as E. I have included the latest search grid with this report, which is under modification to make a more efficient search plan in the E boxes. We will likely re-orient the boxes from a vertical configuration to horizontal, and begin our search in the north and work south.

When they are done, we will move over to the C boxes. These grid plans have been an ongoing effort from Ted Waitt, working closely with lead analyst Andy Sherrell and loss analyst Chris Nutter. The attachment shows the mosaic from the survey that was done in ‘06 and our current coverage as of a couple days ago. It does not show recent data up into boxes 19 and 20. There is a break between 14a and 15a that is just a result of the team constantly tweaking the mosaics. The breaks between the 16a/b and the 17a/b represent the data with bad nav information from the other day. This data exists and we are fairly confident the re-write effort of that nav data will eventually allow us to plug it into the map.

Other happenings today included the recovery of the Deep Ocean Transponders (DOTs) from box 18a. We did another net tow, this one down to 800 meters, which is the deepest we have gone. The biologists are giddy with their continuing good results. They had a large sampling come up, and I may have some more pictures from those efforts before too long. We did suffer a setback on the back deck during the net recovery last night. Apparently, the heavy line inside the A-frame used to recover the submersible had moved over so that it lay just under a hydraulic fitting. During the recovery of the net, in which the A-frame plays a crucial part, the pendant — the part of that crane that lowers and raises when picking up the sub, and that we also use for net ops– was sucked up into the A-frame, pushing the sub lifting line into a hydraulic fitting. That fitting was broken and a large amount of hydraulic fluid sprayed over the back deck. This was more messy than dangerous; the net was close enough to being fully recovered and we were able to safely stow it.

The fitting may be beyond repair and is not spared aboard the ship (this is not a survey-critical piece of equipment). The chief initially said he does not believe we can weld the break, and discussions are ongoing as to whether we can come up with a workaround. I remain hopeful for this result. If not, we may attempt to cobble-together a plan to do towed trawl net operations over the side of the ship. If this proves untenable (as I highly suspect it will), we will use the smaller net for surface sampling. The biologists do not seem too spun up about this. I think the few tows they have accomplished to date on this Leg have put a couple weeks of work in front of them already. They certainly have more information than they had before they came out. They are really good sports.

The cleanup of the oil continues and for the time being, we are getting a little oil leaked down onto the deck from the broken fitting. This makes movement on the deck treacherous, so we are all taking our time back there; hydraulic fluid is notoriously slippery on wet decks. Tomorrow at first light, we will get a better look at the break, cap off the broken part, check out potential workarounds and get out the pressure washer to clean the deck.

Morale aboard the Seward Johnson seems high and everyone has settled into a pretty good routine. It certainly helps we are turning gear with some regularity and have not been plagued by equipment breakdowns as before. It looks as if our weather may come up a little bit, but it does not seem like anything that will impact our operations. The holiday came and went without much notation, except perhaps a few more calls home and  slightly more attention paid to us by the galley. All in all, it was just another work day. Everyone aboard the Seward Johnson is professional. No complaints, just a great bunch of folks doing their best to make it happen. A good couple of days.