The J.Post: January 2010

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Glistening in Greenville

It is a beautiful morning in Greenville. We had a few inches of snow on Friday night and early Saturday. Then we got a little freezing rain and rain yesterday while we played outside on Emma's new sled and watched some movies. What a fun, relaxing day. It got well below freezing last night and this morning we have a frozen winter wonderland. Looks like the newspaper won't even be coming because the roads are an icy mess. Emma, Molly and I had some bonding time this morning. We watched birds at the feeder and peered out at the snow while sipping some hot chocolate.

Snow in Uptown

Denise and I got to go out for a few hours to hear some live music with Dave Kimmel and Ryan Mulligan. It was fun to go to the Tipsy Teapot and see snow falling in Uptown. Earlier that night the family made some yummy pizza.

Nice Pics in Greenville

Had some nice days this week which gave some scenic views around town.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Trying to Get Home

Well, the cruise was very successful. We collected a heck of a lot of water-column profiles and seabed samples as well as deployed three tripods. The next challenge was/is to get everything packed and home safely. This is not as easy as it sounds. The major hurdles are 1) getting everything to fit in some containers (requires some shopping), 2) getting everything on the flights or shipped (we opted for the former), 3) avoiding samples being taken by customs and last but not least 4) actually surviving the trip. Fortunately or unfortunately, we are suffering through the last step. As I text this message we are arriving in Charlotte after our second red eye. Apparently the jetway we pulled up to was broken so they are towing our plane to who knows where. But we are not really in a rush as we have yet another long layover (3 hr). Our layover at LAX was so long (9 hr) that we decided to leave the airport to find some good Mexican food. The sunset photos are from when we decided to walk back. It was wonderful visit to LA. Hopefully we will be home soon.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The Mud Assault Continues

Somewhere off the New Zealand Coast: I no longer can remember what day it
is, but I know we've got just 2 shifts left for each watch. The weather
has become very cooperative; the gentle rocking of the vessel reminds us
that we are at sea, but is not much of a hindrance to our productivity.
We continue to CTD and core across, along, and around the Poverty Bay
margin. Some of you might be wondering what the heck a CTD is. Briefly,
this instrument measures the Conductivity (salinity), Temperature and
Depth of the water, along with some other parameters, such as dissolved
oxygen, light transmission (related to turbidity) and flouresnce (related
chlorophyll), depending on the system. We deploy this instrument over the
side of the ship and lower it to the bottom. During the profile we can
watch the data on a computer display. The CTD is also connected to a
water sampling system which allows us to "fire" a water bottle at a given
depth and collect a water sample. We typically do this so we can measure
the amount of turbidity in the water at specific depths to compare with
the instrument-measured data. That's probably enough detail. Attached are
a couple of related pics: one of Kristen and Caroline taking water from
the CTD's Niskin bottles. Two of Reide directing a CTD deployment
(including one taken from a small boat). Also, you can see a close-up pic
of the Poverty Bay coastline as well as an image of the multicore meeting
the Waipaoa River Mouth.

At this point, we have completed over 50 stations and have deployed and
recovered equipment over 100 times. There have been a few hiccups,
including a couple lost tagline poles and a CTD brushing of the bottom,
and few problems continue to pose challenges including a burned out
erosion chamber motor and a struggling x-ray system. But all in all,
things are going well. After completing a long trancsect of CTDs from
from the river mouth to the outer shelf, we ran a short survey over
Lachlan Canyon. This provided some valuable additional data on the
sediment cover of this region, adding to our existing dataset from
previous cruises to understand sediment thickness and character. Of
course, we still have more mud to collect. I better get down to the deck
because my watch starts in 10 minutes!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Wet and Bumpy

The last 24 hours can be described pretty well as wet and a bit bumpy. It has rained on and off so foul weather gear has been required for much of the deck work. We have had quite a bit of trouble with the multicore trigger. Corbett has been befuddled by the problem. But, we have eventually resolved the problem and things are working better for the moment. Alan, Danny (the Chief Engineer) and I (jp) repaired the trigger pins and installed a hose clamp on the core. Hopefully, it will keep working. We have had a fair share of other problems with filtering, etc. but we are ironing those problems out and now are working pretty efficienty. Above are some photos of the main lab and the multicore so you can get a little perspective on the landscape.

A big success yesterday was the succesful deployment of the last tripod. Dick Sternber, Rip Hale and Kristen Lee from UW were superb in orchestrating the tripod prep and recovery. The whole operation was directed by Andrea Ogston who unfortunately couldn't come to sea with us, but thanks to her oversight and expertise it all went over ok.

The picture of the Dog Door is to highlight how important it is to secure things at sea. The second day the Captain yelled at me (as person in charge at the time) because people weren't closing the door and locking it. I have have relayed the message. Now all are safe and happy.

More later,

J.P.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

A Pretty Good First Day

It's 3:30AM and I've (JP) been on since about 8 AM. It's time to call it a night. It was a pretty day, actually, it was downright sunny, and a few folks got some serious sun. But now, the wind has picked up and is now blowing pretty good, at ~25 knots. Tomorrow looks like rain... fun.

There has been a lot going on today. In the last hour I've been working on fixing a pump and a filtering system for the Erosion Chamber. This is a typical type of cruise problem. Things always decide to stop working, but now it looks like we're back in business.

Overall, it's been a pretty successful day, but we've certainly had our problems. We got two tripods deployed and have CTDed and cored at a few sites now. We had quite a bit of trouble with the multicore earlier, but after many failed attempts, we eventually for the issue (tigger was not locking in place) and got it repaired. Hopefully we can have a productive day tomorrow.

I need to hit the hay. G'Day, J.P.

Sorry, I'll try to get some pics up in the morning.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Land Ho

New Zealand in sight! FINALLY. I was promptly yelled at by a stewardess for taking his photo.

Flight friend

On our LA flight I (jp) was seated next to two nice guys from NJ and Atlanta. Brian from Atlanta was on his way to meet his wife for the first time...literally. He met her on Facebook!! And they were meeting to get married...Amazing!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Middle Seat

Aren't I lucky to have a middle seat flying from Charlotte to LA. I'm glad I have my Droid to play games, listen to music and write blogs. Been reviewing a proposal too. Ahhhh, living large in coach.

We're off.

And it's nice to have the jet out of Greenville. Also, we're glad to get out now as snow is heading this way. Fortunately we got out of Charlotte before any flakes hit.