Updates
Weather Not Cooperating
August 21, 2023
August 19-20, 2023: High winds and seas have prevented field operations from happening over the last two days. The waves have been so choppy and winds blustery that Queens College Assistant Professor Dax Soule reports that “students have been modeling a range of hues not commonly seen on dry land.” Nonetheless, he also reports on the beauty and specialness that comes with being at sea during stormy weather, including an…
Work Continues in Spite of Weather
August 18, 2023
August 18th, 2023: The attempt to dodge the weather fronts continues for the science team aboard the R/V Thomas G. Thompson. With a break in the weather, Jason went into the water at 0936 for a naked dive (Dive J2-1524) to clean the digital still camera. There was a short loss of power. The team still had to wait for swells to decrease to turn the BEP and Zooplankton sonar…
Pink Sea Urchin Visits
August 17, 2023
August 17, 2023: A beautiful colony of light orange anemones grows on the shallow profiler Science Pod base, along with a pink sea urchin, and feather stars, branching hydroids to the far right hosting nudibranch eggs.
Busy Day of Dives
August 16, 2023
August 16th, 2023: Throughout the night and into the early morning, Jason completed a series of dives here at the Oregon Offshore site. Jason successfully completed an exchange of the Shallow Profiler Science Pods at 01:47 and 05:18 respectively, in the morning. After a short transit to the ROV was back in the water at 06:50 for Dive J2-1518, during which the Digital Still Camera at the Offshore site was turned. Want to see…
Students and Guests Ready to Roll
August 16, 2023
August 15, 2023: As the R/V Thomas G. Thompson cleared the channel and headed into the Pacific, VISIONS’ students and guests posed for a picture to memorialize the occasion. Watch as events aboard unfold live here.
Safety First
August 14, 2023
August 13, 2023: With 40 knot winds offshore, the Thompson was kept inshore for an extra day and plans made to switch operations to the nearest site, the Oregon Shelf – only an hour offshore. During the stay in port, the Thompson crew conducted a Safety meeting, including a requirement for all team members to don their emergency survival suits. The students had a great time with this exercise, and enjoyed the…
Slight Weather Delay
August 14, 2023
After a one-day weather delay, the RCA team will be departing aboard the R/V Thompson today, August 14th at ~1315 to head out to the Oregon Shelf site at 80 m water depth. It is a short steam of ~ 1 hr. The first Jason dive (J2-1512) will be to test the Jason winch and to clean and upright the digital still camera.
Preparations in Full Swing
August 10, 2023
Regional Cabled Array Principal Investigator and Chief Scientist for Legs 1 and 4, Deborah Kelley (back row, second from right) is excited to be headed to sea again with her RCA team and 31 VISIONS students and special guests. She was interviewed by the University of Washington’s newspaper, where she detailed plans for this complicated mission. You can share her excitement and plans for this long and complicated expedition here.
Homeward Bound after Successful Mission
May 24, 2023
The RV Sikuliaq is returning to Seward, Alaska after completing a successful Papa 10 cruise. The vessel is loaded down with recovered Papa 9 moorings and the recovered University of Washington/Applied Physics Laboratory Waverider system. The Papa moorings will be shipped back to Woods Hole, Massachusetts for refurbishment and deployment next year.
Anchor Away!
May 24, 2023
The final step in a flanking mooring deployment….Jim Dunn cuts away and deploys the 6000 lb mace anchor.