CTD scans while both buoys are deployed

NOAA Teacher at Sea: Patricia Kassis

Aboard the R/V KILO MOANA
Mission: WHOTS (Woods Hole and Hawaii Ocean Time Series)
Date: 5 June 2008
Geographical Area: Central Pacific, North of O’ahu

Science Log
The deployment of the buoy went fine yesterday, and now we're monitoring data from both buoys while we take some extra measurements of the water in the neighborhood of the buoy.

The new buoy has two of everything, and for the most part duplicate pairs agree. The only exception is wind direction, where the two devices disagree by 45 degrees or so. It is thought that a rope got caught slightly for a second on the little spinning instrument during deployment. At present, the planned solution for that is to send Sean out in a boat to climb aboard and replace it. This sounds rough for Sean but might make a good photo op for you and me. Stay tuned.

The extra measurements I mentioned involve lowering a rosette with a CTD (remember? it determines salinity and temperature at different depths) and some bottles for collecting water directly. Here's me in front of the suite of instruments.

The gray vertical cylinders on top are the bottles, and the black and silver cylinder strapped on lower is the CTD. The whole contraption is lowered by a crane, with me providing some sloppy assistance in steadying it, and it then yo-yos (scientific term) up and down through the top of the water column collecting CTD data, which we can see in real time on a computer inside. On its last trip up, the bottles are closed by a technician’s command, and my awkward self helps get the thing back on board. The operation is very controlled (despite my involvement and unlike my yo-yoing experiences) and takes perhaps 45 minutes.

I'm involved in a couple more data collection projects, too. One is taking humidity measurements on the bow with an old fashioned psychrometer (Did I spell that right, Proofreader Jim?), and the other is taking water samples from an indoor tap that they assure me draws directly from the ocean. Do you think they are making up chores to keep me busy?

Personal Log
Remember yesterday's question? Where do you store 7 miles of rope and cable? Most of it lives in these boxes and on these spools. I helped drag it out of the boxes, which was tedious and tiring, and I'm assured putting the old buoy line back in the boxes is no picnic. Breeze, an incoming UH student and a guy on my CDT team, is in one for scale.

Technician Kuhio has started fishing, but reports no bites yet. We've got a Massachusetts contingency here rooting for the Celtics and coveting a cable connection.