TUESDAY, 02.10.09

0650: Hopefully On Our Way Soon
A few issues with the vehicles (AUVs) yesterday have been worked on through the night and seem not to be too serious. As I understand it, the camera on Ginger has a problem with knowing how often it is firing, but even so is still taking pictures. We hope this is a software issue, although Greg Packard is still working on it.

That vehicle also had a fault with the EdgeTech sonar in the water last night that we could not replicate on the bench (and the housings were dry when opened, not the first time this has happened). From my discussions with Andy Sherrell, this is a tough thing to troubleshoot. In essence, it sounds like we drive on until the issue either re-presents itself or something fails more definitively. The new software that was written for the vehicles (this is the “backbone” software for the entire system) is also being worked on at this time.

This was a new development to me, since I had not been informed this had even been done. Something of a scary proposition it seems to me, but then we can always run with the old software if need be. Bottom line, although we still have some issues, there is nothing presenting that needs to keep us tied to the dock so we will very likely depart within the next hour or so. We all want to get the heck out of here and get to work.

Lots of tying down to do, so I will touch base later. The plan is to head about 20 kilometers offshore to some benign bottom, drop a couple Deep Ocean Transponders (DOTs) and then get both vehicles wet. More after a bit.

0753: Re: Time Zones…
We will very likely be operating under GMT, Greenwich Mean Time. It’s close enough to where we will be and all of our data logs onto this time frame. I plan to institute this today. Right now, local time on the ship is just before 8 a.m.

0759: Re: Time Zones…
I was wrong about GMT (it is 11 hours off what I thought). Yes, we will stay on the current clock, which is three hours earlier onboard the ship than in San Diego.

THE RVSJ LEAVES AMERICAN SAMOA

Setting Sail

Leaving Samoa for six weeks at sea

0848: Avanti!
We are bound for our testing ground about 20 kilometers from the beach. The plan when we arrive is to: 1) do a single bathymetry run over the grounds, pinging with the ships fathometer for a feel for the bottom; 2) get a quick net tow test done before we begin vehicle operations; 3) do a quick CTD drop and test our DOTs; 4) deploy DOTs and survey them in; and, 5) run a two-hour vehicle mission with Mary Ann, a five-hour mission with Ginger and then make the call on whether or not we need to put Mary Ann back in for a five-hour run.

The reason for the two-hour run is just to baseline the software. All told, we hope to be back on the road about 14 hours after we arrive at our site. We are holding position right now while we ship the tender and the film crew who ran alongside us, making some footage, on the way out of the harbor. All is well, confidence is high, weather is overcast with the slightest hint of a breeze and there’s a slow lazy swell of perhaps two feet. We’re on our way.