Updates

STATION PAPA: India-based POGO Fellow Aditi Sharma has been busy aboard the R/V Sikuliaq in spite of the cold weather and stormy seas. It is summer in India with temperatures in the 90 plus degrees Fahrenheit.  While she’s adjusting to the temperature, she’s ably “learning the ropes” of shipboard science by participating in many fantail activities. The Sikuliaq had to seek refuge from a storm directly over the Array site…

STATION PAPA: Everyone needs to pitch in when deck operations are happening.  Here Jim Edson (right), the Ocean Observatories Initiative Principal Investigator handles tag lines during overboarding of equipment.  Tag lines are used to stabilize lifted equipment and ensure the load does not move or swing in an unsafe manner.

STATION PAPA: The CGSN team successfully deployed a Hybrid Profiler Mooring (HYPM) at the Station Papa Array.  The HYPM is in a water depth of ~4000m and is equipped with two profiling vehicles that move up and down the riser wire at regular intervals to collect data for almost the full water column.

STATION PAPA: Onboard the Sikuliaq is the OOI-CGSN team to perform the yearly Station Papa Array maintenance, but there is also a team from the University of Washington Applied Physics Laboratory (J. Talbert, A. Larson).  UW/APL joins the OOI cruise to maintain a Waverider buoy also at Station Papa.  The two teams support each other operationally to optimize the science data generated at the Papa location.  The Waverider will collect…

STATION PAPA: While in transit, the OOI-CGSN team needs to prepare the various mooring components before arriving on site. Here Kris Newhall, Jim Ryder, and Keith Shadle spool the riser wire for a Flanking Mooring from a reel onto a winch in the correct orientation for deployment.

STATION PAPA: This is the back deck of the RV Sikuliaq while in transit to the Station Papa Array.  Visible are all the buoyancy spheres, recovery flotation, and mooring wire reels needed to deploy the three subsurface moorings.