August 8, 2006 Options

[Steve_Stevenoski]

August 8, 2006

Finished up at 12:30 am. Working with Steffen we were able to get Bolt gun number 3 tethered with a cable motion arrester that should help prevent the gun from moving around too much and banging into the cage. Dale, Mark and Steffen finished up the splicing and arresters, and headed for bed at 4:00. At the same time I got a wake up call from Chase and Kevin. I asked them to wake me then just in case they needed more help. All of us had put in long hours and were sneaking naps when we could.

Looking for Marine Mammals


It was the coldest day so far. It was minus 1.5 Celsius or about 29
Fahrenheit, 15 mile per hour winds but bright and sunny in the morning.
That changed quickly to intermittent light snow throughout the day. By 9:00 Larry was getting things set to start the plan of the day. We would start seismic this morning now that the cage and guns were repaired and ready to go. I went out with Kevin and Matt to make sure that the deck was cleared and that all the bolts, ropes and cables were secure and ready to go. Every one received a wake up call at 10:00. By 10:30 we had the safety brief for deployment. By 11:15 the first gun was fired.

After deployment we were able to fire all seven guns for about an hour. Two of the Bolt guns developed air leaks and were shut down. We were then limited to just five guns until we could find a fix for the air leak problem. At 4:00 the Marine Mammal Observes spotted a seal on our course and per protocol we shut down the guns. Within five minutes were cleared to fire the guns again. Since the guns were down we decided to bring in the cage for a check.

Once on deck we found two broken airline connectors, loose blast phones and one broken blast phone cable. It would take us at least six hours to fix everything. At 5:15 Larry and Harm decided that we would head to a to another coring site. The course would take us within 3 miles of a number of the seismic instruments. We would try seeing them from the bridge to determine their location.

Those of us that were working on the cage were all able to get some rest after the repairs were done. The cores on the other hand had quite a bit of work ahead. The transit would take a couple of hours. The coring team prepared the piston corer so it would be ready when they arrived at the site.

Morning Sun


Max, Margaret, and Kirill have become the primary watch standers. As things have picked up more time has been devoted to maintaining equipment and collecting data. Early in the cruise all of us shared the watch load. Now, most of us work 12-hour shifts with breaks and meals. The watch standers have 8 hour shifts.

The workdays are very long. Sometimes we work 24 to 30 hours straight.
Everyone pushes himself or herself to keep going, because they know our ship time is limited. Sleep and personal time are getting more difficult to find. One of the crew has started to call some of the science party zombies.