Ashley Arroyo

September 19, 2023

Dispatch 5: Rescuing an Old Friend: ITP 130

What happens to the Ice Tethered Profilers (ITPs) once they are no longer profiling as they should? Well, some of them continue to drift around the Canada Basin region in hopes of someday being rescued by folks on the annual JOIS/BGOS expeditions! These ITPs can be recovered and refurbished at WHOI, and re-deployed (like the ITP we deployed yesterday). Although these ITPs are no longer recording or transmitting ocean property data, some continue to return their GPS locations via satellite. Typically, their location information is acquired back at WHOI several times each day. However, when we are up in the Canada Basin on the Louis, the WHOI team can program the buoy to send its location more frequently (once per hour) so we can adjust our cruise track accordingly if one of those buoys in need of recovery happens to be in our general vicinity, so we can go scoop it up!

The science team can decide if it makes sense to go after an ITP recovery based on its location, our cruise track, and timing. Last year on the JOIS/BGOS cruise, we did not recover any ITPs. This year, the science team decided it made sense to recover ITP 130 (which we deployed in an ice floe last year), and I was super excited to watch the process! After dinner, I went up to the bridge to watch once we were at the site of the last ITP location. For some reason, I thought the buoy was going to be difficult to spot in the foggy conditions, but one of the cadets with their binoculars spotted it right away! The yellow surface buoy was floating vertically in the water, which indicated that the tether, profiling unit and weights were still attached, which was a great sign! The Captain slowly maneuvered the ship closer and closer to the ITP until the buoy was off our starboard side. A member of the deck crew was lowered down in a man-basket to clip the surface package onto the A-frame so it could be pulled onto the deck. First, the surface package (that contains the electronics for returning the position location) was pulled up with ease. However, the big yellow surface buoy was being a bit stubborn (maybe it didn’t want to be rescued), so some of the deck crew had to get into a small boat to tie additional straps to the buoy to ensure it wouldn’t damage the profiling unit during the recovery. Despite the change in plans, it was a success! The ITP is aboard the Louis and ready to be refurbished at WHOI and sent back out in the future. Be patient little guy, your time will come once again!