It's down to the wire for this part 1 of 2 cruise…..really. there was some excitement over the past few days. During a rare lull in our sampling schedule, I helped out on the final deployment of the SPROV (spare parts ROV). After the devastating loss of the suped-up one, the engineers built a small one, with the capability to pump water and record video of it's surroundings, but no real ability to dive. After one successful deployment (with no real ability to dived deeper than 15ish feet) the water pump onboard the SPROV was converted to a vertical thruster. This leave pretty much our group and the chemist not means of taking water samples. That means our energy will be directed to work on the SPROV crew.
The morning of the 24th was a beautiful day. The SPROV was schedule to be deployed in the cove (in the iceberg…as I mentioned before and have many photos of it….). before I continue the story, I'm going to explain a little bit about safety…..if you're out on the main deck of the ship, you have to wear a float coat (and hard hat if the winches are running), if you're inside the water-tight doors, you don't have to. The tether of the SPROV was inside the water tight doors.
Here goes with the story….i was helping with tether reel on the sprov inside this really neat cove cut into the berg, when suddenly a 0.25nmi stretch of the wall (where the sprov went to check out interesting biology) calved. i think we heard it on the radio and then looked up and saw that (side note…it sounds remarkably like an avi). ken (our chief scientists) had us hand hauling the sprov back to the boat when a large swell (6-8 ft…..enough to wet the deck and be a problem) came toward us. those on deck ran for the wet lab (the doors were open there for the tether). those in the wet lab (those managing the tether and thus not wearing float coats) ran for the inside of the boat and braced the inner non water-tight door shut. they couldn't close the water doors because of the tether. All they can do was to hold the door shut. (the sprov was still out and the tether was still out). those (me included) without float coats peeked out of the baltic room (another room with water doors that have a window) to see the action. no wet deck. whew. it was enough for the captain to restrict how close we can get for future sampling. pretty much after that, we hauled the sprov back and called it a day for that operation. all i can tell you was that event # IB02-158...was an exciting event.
I think in the end…because we were in deep water (or open ocean) the energy of the wave was sent down as opposed to a shallow shelf beneath the water. If that's the case, we might of been in a very different situation (ie…the captain would have to sound a general muster and that would not be good, etc.). All in all….the outcome was good….like we dodged a bullet or something.
Spent the past two days processing samples that we were able to get away from the cove. We're processing more samples as our "away/reference/ transit home" sample as I type this thing. It's a little worrisome cuz we are heading into some serious weather in about 12 hrs (from the time of writing this…3:30pm local time)…I hope we are done. we still have to secure everything. I'm not looking forward to packing up the lab when the ship is being pummeled by 50 knot winds and big swell…..such the life of working at sea.
Back to work before the seas become mean….look forward to port (in 4 days).
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