Out to Sea

Research Vessel F. G. Walton Smith

I’m back out to sea for work yet again, for the last time for many months to come.  We came on board Tuesday the 14^th at 6:30am.  The Walton Smith was under way less than an hour later.  Tuesday was spent getting familiar with the boat, watching a required UNOLS video, going through a boat orientation, having science meetings, and setting up our gear.  It was a slow day and I was very tired for most of it.  Yesterday was the first diving operation.  I’ll spare the details but a couple enormous weights are dropped and 2 rebreather divers descend to 180ft (50+m) to attach some instruments to them and connect a line between the two weights.  They will send up a buoy when they are on decompression which is the cue for me to descend and meet them at 100ft (30m).  I take information from the divers about their well-being and the decompression schedule, ascend and relay the information to the boat, then drop back down to be with the divers for the remainder of their ascent.  The dive I completed yesterday was to 98ft for 61 minutes.

By the end of the day yesterday we set up the second site with the two massive weights and the plan was to complete the dives on them this morning.  Everything was set and the divers entered the water on time.  Within 5 minutes, they surfaced with a current that was unbeatable even with torpedo-like scooters with which to fight it.

We are now in transit to Pulley ridge where we will set up the third and final mooring site and do a dive there.  By sunset, another part of the project will start up that involves me to dive to about 30ft (10m) to set up what is called a light trap.  It’s an apparatus that involves a net and a flashlight that will be set up at sunset and retrieved at sunrise to trap larval fish.

Hopefully we will be able to make everything happen according to plans from here on out!