Friday, January 3, 2014
Monday, August 19, 2013
Excitement!
Position
62 07.900 N
174 21.741 W
Speed 9.1 kts
course 108 degrees
Today was long and full of adventure, so much so that I am plagerizing from part of my email to a friend. Enjoy!
We had a pretty interesting night tonight, the last mooring we tried to retrieve didnt come to the surface so we had to tow a grapple hook along the bottom for a few hours AND THEN WE SNAGGED IT AND GOT IT TO THE SURFACE!!!!! I THREW THE THROWING HOOK AND GOT IT HOOKED ON THE FIRST THROW!!! AND THE LITTLE F*CKER SLIPPED OFF AND SANK AGAIN AND SNAPPED THE LINE TO THE THROWING HOOK!!!! So we got ready to try again AND THEN THE RELEASE FINALLY WORKED AND IT CAME TO THE SURFACE!!!!!!! then when we were pulling up to it, THE CONTROLS FOR THE ENGINES STOPPED WORKING CAUSE AN AIR PRESSURE REGULATOR STOPPED WORKING!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! and then we got controls back and the guys couldn't get the throwing hook to snag on it!!! lol but we finally got it to the side of the boat and then it was a pretty normal retrieval :) and now it is two in the morning, we have a big day tomorrow so i shall be going to bed. good night!!!
62 07.900 N
174 21.741 W
Speed 9.1 kts
course 108 degrees
Today was long and full of adventure, so much so that I am plagerizing from part of my email to a friend. Enjoy!
We had a pretty interesting night tonight, the last mooring we tried to retrieve didnt come to the surface so we had to tow a grapple hook along the bottom for a few hours AND THEN WE SNAGGED IT AND GOT IT TO THE SURFACE!!!!! I THREW THE THROWING HOOK AND GOT IT HOOKED ON THE FIRST THROW!!! AND THE LITTLE F*CKER SLIPPED OFF AND SANK AGAIN AND SNAPPED THE LINE TO THE THROWING HOOK!!!! So we got ready to try again AND THEN THE RELEASE FINALLY WORKED AND IT CAME TO THE SURFACE!!!!!!! then when we were pulling up to it, THE CONTROLS FOR THE ENGINES STOPPED WORKING CAUSE AN AIR PRESSURE REGULATOR STOPPED WORKING!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!! and then we got controls back and the guys couldn't get the throwing hook to snag on it!!! lol but we finally got it to the side of the boat and then it was a pretty normal retrieval :) and now it is two in the morning, we have a big day tomorrow so i shall be going to bed. good night!!!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
August 17th
Position
59o 59.390 N
171o 47.336 W
Speed 8.2 kts
Course 331o
Since leaving kodiak on the 12th, we have been working on two of our underway projects, installing digital tachometers on our main engines, and building a new switch panel for our deck lights. After several days of traveling and raiding the ice cream rations, our real work began this morning at site BS-2, a passive acoustic mooring station. After a retrieval and deployment, we steamed over to the next site with both acoustic and water column moorings. Finishing up at 22:45 local, we are now underway for our next site, with an ETA right around breakfast time. Deckhand David brings us today's riddle of the day.
Imagine you are standing outside the door to a room. In front of you, there are three light switches. You know one of the switches will turn on a light in the next room, but you can only open the door once to check. Three switches, but you can only enter the room once. How will you figure out which switch turns the light on?
59o 59.390 N
171o 47.336 W
Speed 8.2 kts
Course 331o
Since leaving kodiak on the 12th, we have been working on two of our underway projects, installing digital tachometers on our main engines, and building a new switch panel for our deck lights. After several days of traveling and raiding the ice cream rations, our real work began this morning at site BS-2, a passive acoustic mooring station. After a retrieval and deployment, we steamed over to the next site with both acoustic and water column moorings. Finishing up at 22:45 local, we are now underway for our next site, with an ETA right around breakfast time. Deckhand David brings us today's riddle of the day.
Imagine you are standing outside the door to a room. In front of you, there are three light switches. You know one of the switches will turn on a light in the next room, but you can only open the door once to check. Three switches, but you can only enter the room once. How will you figure out which switch turns the light on?
Aquila 2013
The Research Vessel Aquila has put to sea once again, promoting economic development at home and spearheading scientific progress worldwide. Our first trip this year was the GOALS survey, a marine mammal study in the Gulf of Alaska intended to assess the impact of Navy sonar testing and training in the area. By all accounts the survey was a resounding success, and although the verdict has not come out on whether sonar testing is impacting the marine life, the weather cooporated wonderfully and the team was able to log a record number of sightings. One of the highlights was a pair of blue whale sightings, and what may have been the first ever tagging operation of a blue whale in the region. The tag is a satellite tracking device that allows the movements of the whale to be recorded and analyzed, providing invaluable data on the movement and migration patterns of the whales.
After the conclusion of the GOALS survey, we headed to Sitka, home of Silver Bay Seafoods. Silver Bay is a startup salmon company that has set out to change the salmon industry forever. For the last fifty years, the salmon industry has been relatively unchanged. While the Alaskan salmon stock is one of the best managed and sustainable fisheries in the world, catching and transporting the fish has historically been a rather unglorious job. Silver Bay has set out to change this, and in doing so produce a far superior product. The two major methods of catching salmon are gillnetting and purse seining. A gill net is strung across the water where the salmon are swimming, often in the mouth of a river. When the fish encounter the monofiliment net, they become entangled, then the net is hauled in. Purse seining involves a larger and thicker net that is circled around a school of salmon, then the bottom of the net is cinched closed and the 'purse' is hauled aboard. Both fisheries have a len
gth limit for catcher vessels, thirty-two feet for gillnetting, fifty-eight feet for seiners. Due to the small boats in the fishery and the fishing grounds often being many hours from a processing plant, fish tenders are used to support the fishing fleet. Tenders offload the smaller boats and hold the fish in large refridgerated tanks, normally just one degree above freezing. This keeps the fish as fresh as possible, and allows the boats to continue fishing without worrying about driving eight hours back to the plant to offload. Tenders also support the fleet with additional services such as fuel, fresh water, groceries, net storage, and parts, mail, and packages from town. In the past, tendering has been a summer job for the Bering Sea crabbing fleet, and was often a break-even proposition at best, barely covering the bills between crab seasons. The fundemental idea behind the success of Silver Bay is to pay the tender fleet a decent wage, and supply all of the expensive gear, such a
s pumps, scales, and sorting tables. This way the equipment will always be top of the line, and although it may cost more up front, they will never have to worry about losing time and productivity due to a breakdown in the tender fleet.
For Team Aquila, our stay at Silver Bay was very short lived, and more a warmup round for next year. Because of our science cruises, we were only able to spend two weeks in Sitka. Although short lived, we had a great time working with the team at SBS and can't wait to be back next year. The way our tanks are currently configured, we are able to pack 440,000 pounds, but we have four more tanks that need only refridgeration systems and they will be ready to pack fish. We hope to have this done before next summer, as this would put our total capacity closer to 1.2 millon pounds of salmon and make us the equivalent of three or four average tenders.
Leaving Sitka early august, we made a quick trip back to Seattle to load gear for our next project. Several thousand pounds of gear later, we set course for Kodiak, home of the ferocious Kodiak Grizzly bear and the starting point of ARCWEST 2013. ARCWEST will be fairly similiar to our second cruise last year, with a visual survey team, an acoustics team, and a marine environment team. The visual team is recording each marine mammal sighting and is generally on duty during daylight hours. Once we get further north, they hope to do some tagging operations as well. Our acoustics team is running two separate efforts, real time monitoring via sonobouy, and long term data acquisition through sensors that have been here since last summer. The marine environment team will also be running two efforts, one through water column sensors deployed last year, the second through CTD samples and towing a plankton sled.
Pictures included with this post (hopefully in this order) are as follows
Offloading 300,000 pounds of salmon in the Sitka fog
Watching a seiner at work
A beautiful night underway
More sunset scenery
Waiting for a boat to deliver
Anchored in Ketchikan
Last minute loading in Kodiak
Pumping out the tanks during an offload
Sorting fish
Underway at sunset
Leaving the dock in Kodiak
New switch panel for the deck lights
Friday, September 7, 2012
Heading Home!
0400 07 September 2012
R/V Aquila
55 45.512 N
164 49.411 W
We made it! We are officially done with the last mooring turnaround, and are currently steaming full speed towards Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I believe in the last post I mentioned how nice the weather was and it would be a matter of hours until we were done and headed home. However, it was not to be. Later that day, we started seeing reports of a pair of monster lows racing toward us. As we watched the systems develop, it quickly became clear we would not have time to make it to our last site before the first gale hit. After numorous team meetings and a great many calls to offices in Seattle, we made the decision to divert to St. Paul Island to wait out the worst of it. St. Paul offers the only available protection in that area, but protection is certainly a relative thing. We pulled into the harbor on the 3rd and got secured with our winter lines, monster four inch tie up lines strong enough to lift a whole stack of battle tanks with one line. Normally four lines keeps the boat snug aga
inst the dock, but in preparation for the coming breeze we doubled that to eight lines. All that and the surge still managed to break one of our older lines! Though most would've prefered to be heading home out of Dutch at that point, we all enjoyed our stay on the island. St. Paul is the number one breeding site for northern fur seals, and a major destination for birders across the world. The crew at the Trident Seafoods plant was kind enough to get us a permit to enter the seal rookery, so we were able to head up and snap some pictures of the adorable seal pups. We departed under blue skies and calm winds the evening of the 5th, heading out for the 200 mile run to the mooring site. Upon arrival, we sent the CTD over for the last time, retrieved one short mooring, deployed two, then headed in for dinner. After a delicious pasta dinner it was all hands on deck once again to retrieve the monster surface bouy we had all been waiting for. Everything seems worse in the planning stages and
deck meetings, but once we cut it loose from the anchor it was nothing more than another bouy retrieval and we had it aboard in short order.
R/V Aquila
55 45.512 N
164 49.411 W
We made it! We are officially done with the last mooring turnaround, and are currently steaming full speed towards Dutch Harbor, Alaska. I believe in the last post I mentioned how nice the weather was and it would be a matter of hours until we were done and headed home. However, it was not to be. Later that day, we started seeing reports of a pair of monster lows racing toward us. As we watched the systems develop, it quickly became clear we would not have time to make it to our last site before the first gale hit. After numorous team meetings and a great many calls to offices in Seattle, we made the decision to divert to St. Paul Island to wait out the worst of it. St. Paul offers the only available protection in that area, but protection is certainly a relative thing. We pulled into the harbor on the 3rd and got secured with our winter lines, monster four inch tie up lines strong enough to lift a whole stack of battle tanks with one line. Normally four lines keeps the boat snug aga
inst the dock, but in preparation for the coming breeze we doubled that to eight lines. All that and the surge still managed to break one of our older lines! Though most would've prefered to be heading home out of Dutch at that point, we all enjoyed our stay on the island. St. Paul is the number one breeding site for northern fur seals, and a major destination for birders across the world. The crew at the Trident Seafoods plant was kind enough to get us a permit to enter the seal rookery, so we were able to head up and snap some pictures of the adorable seal pups. We departed under blue skies and calm winds the evening of the 5th, heading out for the 200 mile run to the mooring site. Upon arrival, we sent the CTD over for the last time, retrieved one short mooring, deployed two, then headed in for dinner. After a delicious pasta dinner it was all hands on deck once again to retrieve the monster surface bouy we had all been waiting for. Everything seems worse in the planning stages and
deck meetings, but once we cut it loose from the anchor it was nothing more than another bouy retrieval and we had it aboard in short order.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
0453 2 September 2012
R/V Aquila
61 50.294 N
167 42.368 W
Good morning to all! The local time is way-too-early-30, and I am way-too-happy for how early it is. Not that 0500 is a terrible time to be up, but we only just wrapped up our last CTD station at 0145 this morning. The station couldn't have gone better, it was a balmy 36 degrees, the moon was out, and seas were only four feet. Speaking of that moon, it is occuring to me that this is the first time I've seen the moon at night in a very long time. I wonder if it has been there the whole trip and I haven't noticed it? More likely, this is the first time we have had enough vis to be able to see any moonlight on the water!
Everyone insists they aren't counting down the days until the end of the trip, but with only three days left I think we all have a little clock running down in the back of our heads. The boat has become our Homeward Bound train, and with the reappearance of the moon there just may be light at the end of the tunnel!
R/V Aquila
61 50.294 N
167 42.368 W
Good morning to all! The local time is way-too-early-30, and I am way-too-happy for how early it is. Not that 0500 is a terrible time to be up, but we only just wrapped up our last CTD station at 0145 this morning. The station couldn't have gone better, it was a balmy 36 degrees, the moon was out, and seas were only four feet. Speaking of that moon, it is occuring to me that this is the first time I've seen the moon at night in a very long time. I wonder if it has been there the whole trip and I haven't noticed it? More likely, this is the first time we have had enough vis to be able to see any moonlight on the water!
Everyone insists they aren't counting down the days until the end of the trip, but with only three days left I think we all have a little clock running down in the back of our heads. The boat has become our Homeward Bound train, and with the reappearance of the moon there just may be light at the end of the tunnel!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
0400 31 August 2012
RV Aquila
66 36.576 N
168 18.670 W
Whipped to a frenzy by an arctic gale, the icy black waters of the Chukchi Sea have once again made a point to remind us how small and insignificant our steel bubble really is. The last 24 hours have seen sustained winds at 40kts with gusts over 50 and swells climbing to 22 feet. As dawn breaks over an angry sea, it seems the worst has passed and the winds have slacked off some. By an incredible stroke of luck, the wind came up just as we finished our last mooring station off Barrow and got underway to Nome. Continuing the lucky streak, our course lands the swells straight on the stern, the best possible direction for a smooth ride. While it has been relatively smooth, the ride has been anything but relaxing. As each swell hits the stern, it lifts the stern until the bow is pointing down at what seems like 20 degrees. Far enough down that when one looks straight ahead from the wheelhouse, the swell ahead of us is at or above eye level. Each swell pushes on the stern with the force of
an avalanche, giving us a full two knot increase in speed and forcing the autopilot and rudder to work overtime to keep the sea from pushing the stern to the side and putting us broadside to the next wave. As the swell rolls forward from the stern, it creates an effect much like a teeter-totter with a teeter that constantly rolls from end to end. When the peak of the wave is about 40 feet forward of the stern, the water drops out from beneath the screws leaving our twin 80-inch stainless propellers thrashing at a frothy mix of water and air. This cavitation is probably the most uncomfortable thing about the current sea state because it creates a vibration like an earthquake that is felt and heard throughout the entire vessel. With the screws part of the way out of the water, the engines jump in RPM, coming out of sync and adding more vibrations. Then the stern plunges back into the water and the endless cycle starts anew.
0900 1 September 2012
R/V Aquila
Port of Nome
How quickly things change up here. In the matter of a few hours, the winds can change by 40 or 50 knots and the seas can climb or drop by 15 feet or more. Yesterday morning we were watching swells towering over the bridge, by noon we had rounded Cape Prince of Whales and the swells had dropped to six foot rollers. We got secured to the pier in Nome by 2200 last night, and this morning we awoke tied to the pier, the calmest it has been in two weeks. We are just about to depart for Dutch Harbor and our last few mooring sites. As of right now, we are scheduled to be in Dutch by the 5th.
All have high hopes of finding more whales these last few days, though by now everyone is getting a little worn out. Onward and Upward!!
RV Aquila
66 36.576 N
168 18.670 W
Whipped to a frenzy by an arctic gale, the icy black waters of the Chukchi Sea have once again made a point to remind us how small and insignificant our steel bubble really is. The last 24 hours have seen sustained winds at 40kts with gusts over 50 and swells climbing to 22 feet. As dawn breaks over an angry sea, it seems the worst has passed and the winds have slacked off some. By an incredible stroke of luck, the wind came up just as we finished our last mooring station off Barrow and got underway to Nome. Continuing the lucky streak, our course lands the swells straight on the stern, the best possible direction for a smooth ride. While it has been relatively smooth, the ride has been anything but relaxing. As each swell hits the stern, it lifts the stern until the bow is pointing down at what seems like 20 degrees. Far enough down that when one looks straight ahead from the wheelhouse, the swell ahead of us is at or above eye level. Each swell pushes on the stern with the force of
an avalanche, giving us a full two knot increase in speed and forcing the autopilot and rudder to work overtime to keep the sea from pushing the stern to the side and putting us broadside to the next wave. As the swell rolls forward from the stern, it creates an effect much like a teeter-totter with a teeter that constantly rolls from end to end. When the peak of the wave is about 40 feet forward of the stern, the water drops out from beneath the screws leaving our twin 80-inch stainless propellers thrashing at a frothy mix of water and air. This cavitation is probably the most uncomfortable thing about the current sea state because it creates a vibration like an earthquake that is felt and heard throughout the entire vessel. With the screws part of the way out of the water, the engines jump in RPM, coming out of sync and adding more vibrations. Then the stern plunges back into the water and the endless cycle starts anew.
0900 1 September 2012
R/V Aquila
Port of Nome
How quickly things change up here. In the matter of a few hours, the winds can change by 40 or 50 knots and the seas can climb or drop by 15 feet or more. Yesterday morning we were watching swells towering over the bridge, by noon we had rounded Cape Prince of Whales and the swells had dropped to six foot rollers. We got secured to the pier in Nome by 2200 last night, and this morning we awoke tied to the pier, the calmest it has been in two weeks. We are just about to depart for Dutch Harbor and our last few mooring sites. As of right now, we are scheduled to be in Dutch by the 5th.
All have high hopes of finding more whales these last few days, though by now everyone is getting a little worn out. Onward and Upward!!
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