Sylvia Earle, called “Her Deepness” by the New Yorker and the New York Times, “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress, and the first “Hero for the Planet,” is an oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer with experience as a field research scientist. She also is executive director for corporate and nonprofit organizations, including the Aspen Institute, the Conservation Fund, American Rivers, Mote Marine Laboratory, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Rutgers Institute for Marine Science, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, and Ocean Conservancy.

Former chief scientist of NOAA, Earle is founder of the Mission Blue Foundation and chair of the Advisory Council for the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies. She has a B.S. from Florida State University, an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Duke University, and 15 honorary degrees. She has authored more than 150 scientific, technical, and popular publications, lectured in more than 60 countries, and appeared in hundreds of television productions.

Earle is the author of many books on the ocean, including Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans and, most recently, Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas, with Linda K. Glover. Earle has led more than 60 expeditions and logged more than 6,000 hours underwater, including leading the first team of women aquanauts during the Tektite Project in 1970 and setting a record for solo diving to a depth of 1,000 meters (3,300 feet). Her research concerns marine ecosystems with special reference to exploration and the development and use of new technologies for access and effective operations in the deep sea and other remote environments.

Honors include the Netherlands Order of the Golden Ark, inclusion in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Achievement, and medals from the Explorers Club, the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, the Lindbergh Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation, Sigma Xi, Barnard College, the New England Aquarium, the Seattle Aquarium, the Society of Women Geographers, and the National Parks Conservation Association.

Thomas Shirley
Professor of Life Sciences

Dr. Tom Shirley is a marine biologist and has published on the ecology and physiology of marine mammals, sea birds, fish, invertebrates, and also on pollution biology and conservation issues. He has described new species of invertebrates from around the world, including the Antarctic, the Arctic, Philippines, Mediterranean, Alaska, and the Gulf of Mexico. His recent research has addressed the ecology of commercially important crabs, distribution of invertebrates on WWII shipwrecks, seamount ecology, organisms associated with deep-sea corals, ecology and systematics of priapulid worms, and ecology of meiofauna.

Sylvia Earle and Tom Shirley prepare to dive aboard the Waitt Institute's submersible.

Leading scientists and representatives from a number of organizations are in the northern Gulf of Mexico on an expedition led by Dr. Sylvia Earle, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and Dr. Thomas Shirley, professor at the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Using a submersible provided by the Waitt Institute, the expedition aims to explore and document several areas west and east of the site where BP Deepwater Horizon released nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

“Our goal is to identify areas with potential for Gulf ecosystem recovery,” said Dr. Earle, founder of SEAlliance and recipient of the 2009 TEDPrize that developed into Mission Blue, an international ocean conservation movement. “That is going to require protection of places healthy enough to replenish and rebuild populations. What’s happened here is far from over for the clams and oysters and other sea life critical to a healthy Gulf of Mexico.”

The fate and impact of the spilled oil, gas, and dispersants applied following the blowout into the Gulf is the subject of intense discussion by experts. The expedition team, assembled under the broad banner of the Mission Blue initiative, seeks answers to questions about the current status of key species and ecosystems. What they learn will be compared with historical data gathered in the region since the 1950s, archived at the Harte Research Institute.

Other research participants include: Edith Widder and Brandy Nelson, Ocean Research and Conservation Association; Carl Safina, Blue Ocean Institute; Eric Hoffmayer, University of Southern Mississippi; Marissa Nuttall, NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Program; and Larry McKinney, Douglas Weaver, and Harriet Nash of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Research dives, using the Dual DeepWorker submersible, are being facilitated by the Waitt Institute. Support for the expedition is also provided by the National Geographic Society, Google Inc., and Hope Spots LLC. The Waitt Foundation is supporting sponsor of the Mission Blue initiative.

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Mission Blue blog

Waitt on Mission Blue Expedition to the Gulf

Waitt Institute worked with leading scientists from National Geographic and the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi to explore and document several areas west and east of the site where the BP Deepwater Horizon released nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Mission Blue initiative was led by Dr. Sylvia Earle and Dr. Thomas Shirley.

by Michael Dessner

Last night, as we were draggin up our gear, the sun set on Expedition to Titanic.

Well folks, that’s a wrap.  We’re underway for St John’s and home.  I’ll be writing this and perhaps one other to talk about the post project clean up and feelings of accomplishment, but first I’d like to say something about the folks working out here.

While my writing has mostly been confined to the work my team did with a few looks into the other aspects of the expedition, I want to take a moment to thank and recognize all the people who did not make into these entries.  There are countless unnamed heroes in work of this kind.  I myself work with a dedicated staff of people in our offices who never see the first thing of our expeditions beyond reports like this, yet their support for me and the work that I help move along for my boss, Ted Waitt, is unflagging.  So to Allie, Ann, Anya, Cherie, Chris, Dawn, Dom, Jacob, Joe, Kathy, Marria, Nicole, Rosa, Sarah, Stan, Tamara, Tiana and Tracy, many thanks for all the support and the hard work you do every day that makes it possible for me to participate in something like this.  A special shout out to my good friend and editor, Tommy Grueskin, for his work in getting all this out to the world.  And last but certainly not least I’d like to thank Dave Russell for his support and trust in me, and without a doubt the man who makes it possible for everyone above to be a part of this very special work, Mr. Ted Waitt, whose generosity and foresight brought this all to fruition.  Ted, I can never repay you for what you’ve helped me to become.  You the man.

Everyone out here has a similar story, the great and talented people from Woods Hole, the folks at Phoenix, Andy’s supporters at HBOI, the people at RMST, the Hays shipping group, all of them played a part and there are many, many people out on this ship whom I never mentioned who simply worked their butts off to make it work.  Of those folks, Bob Sitrick is one I need to thank personally, he handled media out here for RMST and was a huge help; thanks Big Bad Bob, yer a peach.  And to everyone else on the ship and those in the rear who support them, we thank you all.  Job well done.  A big round of applause folks, for the Expedition Titanic team and support staff!   Yaaaaaaay ! !  Hooooorraaaaay !

Alrighty skids, here we are hauling ass for the beach.  Last night at around 8 PM the AUV’s Mary Ann and Ginger were both happily ensconced in their huts after being successfully recovered from their final missions.  By all accounts their performance was exceptional, and kudos to the team from Woods Hole who runs them.  Every single person on board who witnessed their performance and the team that runs them doing their thing commented how smoking hot both were.  Last night, Remora was successfully recovered after which we picked up our Deep Ocean Transponders and hit the road.  We’ve been making fine time since then.  I’m almost afraid to say it for fear of challenging the ocean deities to reverse the situation but we are sailing home with FAIR WINDS AND FOLLOWING SEAS!  OK, there.   I just likely whistled up a storm but, I don’t care!  We are done, successful, no one hurt, all the gear on deck.  Man, you just don’t know how good a feeling that is.  After a month of getting banged around we have stowed the girls and are in giddy up mode.  Vootie!

Last night there was a little wrap party aboard, everyone was in high spirits and the celebrations were exceptionally happy with a huge sense of accomplishment and what, by any measure, was a job well done.  The party was not too boisterous because pretty much everyone is exhausted.

The rest of the world is boiling up and reminding me I have other projects which have languished, damn BlackBerry is turned back on and pinging like a Russian boomer on the sniff. I’ll be honest with you, I think I’m gonna keep this one short and perhaps get one more out before I leave town.

Thanks for following along.

Dessner

<< The Grand Lady

by Michael Dessner

I am sitting in an incongruent brown leather club chair that has somehow made its way aboard the Jean Charcot, semi-stunned by the fact that this wondrous chair is here.  I’ve settled in with my coffee and camera on the bench next to me, wedging my elbows inside the arms of this chair (that I would so love to own) so that I may perch my laptop precariously on my knees and freestyle while watching the last ROV dive of the expedition.  I’m sitting directly behind Evan and Billy.  Looming in front of them are the screens, glowing a deep midnight blue and speckled with the particulate matter that has been ever present during our time out here.  It’s clear from the chatter in the room that the current is pushing everything around, the ROV, the tether, the ship. Navs on the left and the recording suite on my right, we’re all holding our breath, waiting for the first glimpse.  Oh yeah man.  Titanic.  Got your juices flowing?  If not, it should.  I have not spent a lot of time in this room but, I hazard a guess that it never gets routine in here.  You gotta stay frosty to keep your gear alive, get your shot, keep the flow.  And these guys want to squeeze every last minute out of it.

The bottom is just now coming into view, the random pure white crazy little spider crabs, the occasional tracks in the muck left by previous expeditions. Over twenty five years people have been coming here with cutting edge technologies and we can read their sign as if it were yesterday.  Billy tells me that there are few indications of erosion; that the edges of the impact crater from the ships sinking are nearly as crisp and clear as they were the day they happened nearly 100 years ago. This has been evidenced in our high res sonar records and I say again unto thee, the high res sonar stuff is tripping fantastic.  Currents scour the site in a few places where the abyssal floor resembles the contours you might note on the beach or desert as the wind blows around a rock but by and large, the bottom remains as it has for hundreds of years, perhaps longer.  I’m told that the sediment is a thin layer over blocky clay, a sporadic veneer resembling frost here and dust or snow there, but much remains uncovered.

And now the Grand Old Dame herself. Titanic looms in the screen.  We’re looking over the port rail across the front deck to the bow.  The railings stand virtually undamaged in places, in others one or more of the four rails are torn out and protrude horizontally toward the camera, a streamer of destruction; testament to something tearing through as she heeled causing personnel and property to careen down the decks just before she went down by the head.  Huge chains lay across the deck, ripped cables, tangled steel and everything is covered by what look to be rust icicles.  It seems like she’s been in a howling ice storm but these are not crystalline water, Ballard named them well. The bollards and winches look like they could be used tomorrow.  The portholes still have windows in them.  Then, as the ROV traverses, the terrible rending damage exhibits: railings ripped sideways completely off the deck, hanging over the side 10 meters.  It’s hard not to imagine what might have barreled down the decks and ripped them through, whose final moments might have been shared in that terrible millisecond of fear, cacophony and  dissolution.  I’m infinitely grateful that no remains survive these depths.  Some things you cannot forget and there is enough information here without the mortal reminders.

Now we slide down the side of the ship where an anchor hangs.  Everything is coated in rusticle, thick red vines, odd crazed bulbous fungi, metallic stalactites.  They are peculiar, weird and omnipresent, like the growth over a Mayan temple yet these do not hide the massif.  This cathedral remains for us to inspect.

Remora pulls back and up preparing to push back in yet again.  Again the current and scope of the tether change the tempo of this intricate dance of man and machine in the ballroom of the deep.  The anchor winch hangs like a gallows above the deck, fading in and out of the blue shadow, an eerie remnant of the cold blue-white hangman who once worked this garret.  This is muse and I bear witness.   This great monument to mankind’s engineering skill and hubris is once again host to technology that is the pinnacle of our achievement.  We are here with the best man has to offer visiting the skeleton of the precedent centennial iteration.

These images are such a part of our current consciousness, so well known since the films and photos, an icon of our understanding of that time and the ocean and ships in general.  Like visiting New York City for the first time, it is familiar, like coming back to something you have not yet seen, this alien place, unknown despite its familiarity. Certainly only a handful of people in the world understand everything they see here and to a person every one of them wants to bring it to you.  We’re all here to carry this back to mankind, to yield our awe.

The chatter in the room is telling.  Evan guides the ROV pilots to help capture the dramatic framing while also cognizant of the difficulty of their task holding position in the gale of current.  Remora peers under a deck and into the one below and again the fungal growth of the rusticles exhibits.  Chemically metallic suspended sacs of oxidized history.  Billy, who has been out more than most, laments that the best of our days was similar to the worst of his previous.  These are artists.  Brilliant minds that create sensational technology yet bear the hearts of poets.  I feel wonderment.

The windows reflect Remora’s eyes, a mirror of our intrusion into a tomb.  Now and then life presents, an urchin, a small miniature monstrous fish flits past.  As we peer deeper into the wreck you can see yet another reflection from an inner surface spider webbed by the hanging strands of melted metal.  It’s almost frightening as we look onto the Promenade deck and see the reflections from the windows on the interior.  Someone’s home and it is us.  The technology is stupendous, the depth of field, the clarity all boggle the mind.  The detail is such that you can see the splices on the eyelets of lines lying on deck.  And again, Remora rises off the wreck to stare into the infinite azure of the abyss.  I feel that words fail to describe this.  The minutia is stunning: rivets, bolts, and brass, fasteners left long after wood has been eaten away. Fine filaments of unfathomable lifeforms.  We can see 25 feet across the deck, like we are standing where those long past cavorted, ignorant of the icy terror looming in their future.

In places the rusticles are so thick they resemble huge teak or mahogany trees, long muscular ripples of trunk like growth.  Back up to the deck the chasm represented by the tearing apart of the expansion joint again speaks to the forces at play as the ship tumbled through the water column and augured into the bottom.  We peer into the crack and there, resting upright and encrusted, a bath tub, porcelain sharing a hue with the invertebrates, a ghost left undamaged by forces that literally ripped the ship in half around it and then pushed it together like a massive pie crust indented by planetary forces.  How does something like that survive when everything around it is distorted and shredded, windows at crazed angles and canted by the geometry of destruction?  It boggles.

2nd Mate Charles Lightroller Source: Wikipedia

And again back up into the smoke of the ocean around us, miniature crustacean clouds spotted with the occasional pelagic alien flittering past the camera.  Back down to the deck and there, standing in the outboard position, extending over the side, empty of its charge, is a lifeboat davit.  The last time a human hand touched it was 98 years ago as it was steadfastly employed to save lives.  It occurs to me that Lightoller may have stood where I am currently transported, stern in his charge, “women and children first”.  I am chilled by this realization, struck by the poignancy of it.  Another angle and the lifeboat davit turns into the spire of some ancient beast, lone rib of something lost. It’s wonderful and terrible at once to be here and do this amazing work yet to also recall what we see represents real loss and horror.

The moldy looking growths on the sides of the ship look almost like red rock outcrops with the slightest dusting of snow.  Looking over the superstructure and seeing the rise of spires in the background, it’s not enough to say that it’s surreal.  Its hyper real.  Ultra real.  Again I feel at a loss for the grandeur of being able to see this, that we have the ability to witness on this level.

We come up and over the first electric crane ever used on a ship, an encrusted obelisk, a remnant of a first in ocean liners that has been transformed into an artifact by time, seeming so removed from us yet here in the room with us as well.  The last of the first in its final resting place.

Frankly after two hours in here I am wrung out, emptied and exhausted by putting into words feelings which form in my mind at the speed of sound in water as the images rise on the screen.  Awe, amazement, somber recognition, and no small sense of loss and sadness for what befell this great beauty of a ship and those aboard her, they all assail me.  No sea going person could look upon this and not feel for those who rode this behemoth across the Atlantic and then for those who continued aboard on their final journey.  It’s a fear of my own, going down with a ship. To look at this and know that hundreds did just that in this very place, it chills me.

We see the outline of where the bridge once stood, the pedestal of the steering wheel protruding off the deck, strangely untouched yet minus the wheel, it is: that which remains.  A hundred years ago a captain stood here where a room once existed and came to the realization that his charge would not survive the night.  It’s haunting and I feel his sense of dread and loss.  Just behind the steering wheel lies a row of plaques placed by previous expeditions.  They remind me of the artifacts man left on the moon, these not much easier to place.  More memorials, arrayed on one of the most recognized such on earth, a massive sea going mausoleum that has been seen by so few yet shared with so many.  I count myself lucky to be among them, honored to be included. And so I leave this, my plaque inscribed with these written words, dedicated to those whose perished here, and to you, who I hope have enjoyed the trip with me.

<< The Lab | That’s a Wrap, Indeed. >>

Evan, working through sonar charts to determine best 3D shots

by Michael Dessner

Two things strike you as you enter the lab where the 3D imagery of Titanic is being created.  The first is that everybody in the room is staring rapt at the screens, oblivious to anything you might be doing.  I’m pretty sure that you could walk in there without pants and not get noticed until you got in between someone and the screen. It almost resembles a creepy brainwashed moment when you first see it, everybody staring up all slack-jawed.  The other thing that stands out is that everyone is wearing the exact same pair of sunglasses that look like a pair of light grey polarized sunglasses. These ain’t the old paper cutout, red and blue plastic film lensed glasses you grew up with, nuh-uh.  You could actually walk down a flight a stairs with these bad boys on.  Once you scare up a pair and get them on everything else fades to background and you are transported down 3,700 meters to Titanic.  Live and 3D, in your face, right now. Real.  It’s the kind of sight that will have you feeling around behind you to make sure there’s a place to sit but not actually turn your head to see that there’s a chair there.  It’s the cobra of visual stimulation; you can’t tear your eyes away.

If you could pull your eyes from the screens long enough to take in your surroundings you’d see the most amazing sprawl of technology running around the room along with a spider web of cables, network cables, extension cords and zip ties suspending it all from the ceilings and walls.  There are three primary areas in the imaging lab where the work is done and probably as many smaller stations.  The big draws are the main screens, what everybody is gawping at.  A pair of large, 47″ HD flat screens takes up the ‘front’ of the room (which is actually facing aft).  These are the screens that are monitoring the 3D process, the money shot.  Get in between those and whoever is watching and the popcorn thrown at you will be the least of your problems.  Remember, these are sailors and people working at sea generally carry knives.  OK, it ain’t that bad but nobody wants to miss anything when they are in there.  Polite concern for the feelings of others is a damn good policy when everybody is busting their butts trying to pull together one of the most ambitious deep sea projects ever attempted.

Tony and Evan in the imaging lab between ROV dives.

Underneath the big screens are five smaller screens of varying sizes showing views from the various camera systems mounted on Remora, including its primary piloting cameras.  Each of these cameras is on a pan and tilt device so while the 3D might be looking straight out at the hull there’s likely another camera that is showing the bottom below the vehicle.  Many of these cameras show what the conditions are like at depth, a very different view from Bill Lange’s 3D super sci-fi set.  For some reason, his cameras seem to be less susceptible to the biomass swirling like snow in the currents and over the site.  I’m told by those that know that this particulate matter is likely dead plankton drifting down from higher up in the water column, little creatures that have lived out their lives and are now settling onto the sea floor, future sediment.  I don’t know the precise reason Bill’s cameras seem to be able to see through this better than the other cameras but, they do.  It probably has to do with the custom lighting racks they installed on Remora and says much about the skill set of his engineers.  I’d get into it more in depth but those guys are busy; the last thing they need right now is a former fishpimp asking stupid questions.  I will try and flesh it out a bit more when we make our run for the beach in a few days.

Back to the room, in front of all those screens on the main stage sits one key guy, usually Bill Lange or Evan, who was married on the back deck a couple weeks ago.  Whoever happens to be in that chair is the clearinghouse for a lot of moving parts.  He is interfacing with the ROV operators in the shack two decks down, directing the recording team at the back of the room when to roll tape and working with the navigation team to try and get the cameras where they want them.  All of these folks are relying the data the girls made to help dial in where and how they will work.

Trying to keep your bearings when piloting a device that provides views only through cameras isn’t as easy as it might seem as the visual cues don’t translate well to the human experience.  Abyssal ocean bottom pretty much all looks the same, there ain’t no background except the dark and there’s certainly no sun or moon or any of the things we commonly reference to keep our bearings.  There’s only a compass heading and strings of endless numbers that refer to the cable out, the slant range from the ship to the bottom, depth and other variables that impact their flight over the tangle of steel that was once a ship.

Imagery lab

The navigation guys keep everything sorted out and in perspective.  They are, like everyone else on board, seasoned professionals who have spent years at sea.  They’re contracted to the job via Williamson and Associates and are also the only local guys working the job.  Tony is from St John’s and has been a great guide to the culture and scene in town; he even threw a big barbecue for everyone the day before we took off for the second leg.  Brad is from Halifax.  Both towns boast a long and proud maritime heritage.  I was over at Tony’s house one night for cocktails a few nights before we sailed and a good time was had by all but the highlight for me was when he sang “Barrett’s Privateers“ along with the recording.  At full volume I might add.  Brings a shiver to my spine just thinking about it, a great moment.  His lovely wife Glenda was a perfect hostess; as I got caught up in the shanty, I swear I heard her whisper, “another Newfie born.”  Both Tony and Brad are damn fine shipmates, pros and performing a critical task that I’d explain to you if I understood it better. But I don’t, its real math-y and, heck, I get turned around looking in the mirror.

If you were in the middle of the room looking at the 3D screens up front, Tony or Brad and their 3 nav computers are on the left.  If you looked over your shoulder to the right you would see the recording suite and another huge pile of tech:  Five monster Mac tower computers, seven large computer screens, six smaller monitors, four huge armored computer cases and a couple other stacks of arcane technology that I can only guess at.  There are usually a couple of Bill’s technicians in there; when he tells them to roll tape, they make sure that nothing gets missed.  It is yet another area that eludes me.  Even though they don’t have time to go too deeply into with me it’s enough to know that it’s cool to watch.  They are clearly consummate pros and know their stuff.  As a note: my guest blogger from the other day, best friend to bride Maryann and our lovely wedding planner aboard this trip, Ms. Katherine Rose, works in this section.

So you got three ROV techs in a van a couple decks below running the ROV and winch, a couple techs recording the video as directed on stage right, a navigation guy at stage left advising the ROV team along with the man in front who ramrods the whole bunch.  They are on the stage and they should be, because the video that is coming up is über cool.

Ah man, here I am at my 1,500 word self imposed daily goal and I STILL have not talked about what its like to sit and watch this video.  Now I’m wondering if I should.  A stingy man, a man who wanted to make everyone pay to see what he has earned by sweat equity, would make you go to the nearest IMAX in a year or so and part with a little of your dough-re-mi to watch the show.  I guess I am not that man… I will talk about what its like. But not today. (I know, what an ass…oh well, I’ve heard THAT before).

Actually I have both my girls on the surface right now after a couple fairly hairy boat recoveries and there is such a perfect opportunity to get some sleep before midnight I just cannot pass it up.  We’re taking a little weather this evening and the ship has suspended small boat operations; the girls won’t go back to work again until tomorrow so, what can I tell ya, at heart I am a lazy man who cannot pass up a nap.  Here’s a couple pics to tide you over.

Nighty night from Expedition Titanic.

<< Punch Drunk Love | The Grand Lady >>

by Michael Dessner

One thing I have come to learn is that I’m a lot happier when the girls are working longer missions.  They have the ability to work 24 hours, roughly 18 hours of bottom time at full depth. On this job, once we finished the overall site survey and switched to the higher frequency and camera runs, we have been working shorter sorties due to the operational profiles, about 14 hours or so.  Do the math on that.  It brings us to three launches and recoveries (each) a day.  While we would normally run 10 to 12 guys on such a job, we only have six out here, including myself, due to space limitations.  That is making for some real grinder hours.  Last night we deployed both Ginger and Mary Ann, finishing up around 2 AM.  With our first recovery slated for just after lunch, a few of us got almost 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  It felt like a vacation.

I woke to much calmer seas, the ROV headed down to the site and pizza in the galley.  Super bonus good times.  It’s just after lunch and we are gonna be looking at a couple boat recoveries…

Pilot whales are back, showing an interest in AUVs

Curious Neighbors
Well we did a couple boat recoveries and they were pretty uneventful.  A cool thing about the last couple days has been the Pilot Whales coming back in. Last night as we were getting set up for a ship based recovery a pod came in and clearly followed the vehicles around for a bit as we drove it on the surface to position for a recovery.  As the vehicle maneuvered on the surface they would follow, when it turned toward them they would scatter and then form back up to follow it again.  For the first time they seemed to be ignoring the ship, coming closer than ever before but keeping a pretty steady distance from the vehicle.  Damn cool.  Then this afternoon we did the boat recoveries and the pod seemed to set up just perfectly for pictures off the starboard rail.  I’ve been adding more pictures to my Facebook page about the whales than anything else.  I personally find them completely fascinating.

3am
We put Ginger in about an hour ago and just checked out Mary Ann for a launch which we will do in a few minutes.  I don’t even know what day it is anymore and we are getting just plain goofy.  Since Mark, Andy, Greg and I have the most experience with the equipment, we tend to work together while Fred and Kevin come in to spell us when the vehicles get down to depth; they monitor them while we rest up.  Andy and Greg take quite a bit of additional strain as they have further duties.  Andy is still cranking out mosaics for planning missions which Greg then writes up. But everybody else wants Andy’s product too.  It’s like data crack cocaine.  One hit and 15 minutes later, they’re back for more.  It doesn’t help that the analysis computers are right in the middle of a high traffic area of the ship and that the wireless routers are right next to him as well.  Data processing, IT help, deck ops, questions about this picture, that sonar record, more mosaics, run down to the deck, run crane, hop in a boat and work a recovery, and back to the computers to download 12,000 pictures. Oh, and by the way, have you gone through them to see if we have a picture of the boiler yet?  Poor guy can’t catch a break and yet he very, very rarely loses his sense of humor.  No, he’s usually helping us keep ours.

We’re not going to get a full picture of all the data we’ve collected until operations cease and we can step back for a big picture look.  One thing I do know, if Andy makes up a mosaic of the site and then lays the girl’s tracklines over the top of it, you almost cannot see the data, so thick are the various missions we’ve run.  We are piling up data like crazy, terabytes worth.  That is a helluva lot of sonar data and pictures.  Folks from the imaging lab and navigation come over and ask for something and Andy dives into the pile of bytes and pulls it out of a hat.

Now that the ROV is down below a lot of the tension that had been building during the bad weather has dissipated.  The heads (as I like to call management and ‘experts’) are all smiles but that ain’t getting us any more time in the rack. So when we go out on deck things get plain old silly.  Last night Mark, Andy and I were out there and the rain was coming down in sheets.  I asked Andy if he thought it would rain, he looks up and as the water cascades off his face says, “No, I don’t think it will…”  It seems so silly now but, we all howled with laughter for 20 minutes.  “Yep, not a cloud in the sky..” Which, of course, we can’t see at all.  God, it brings a huge foolish grin to my face just thinking about it.  These guys are such good men, it’s a honor to work with them.  And there is just nothing like cracking up with a bunch of your buddies over the most stupid shit.  Those are moments you remember, not exactly what you were all laughing about just that you were laughing.  In the rain.  With water dripping off your nose, a wet ass and soggy socks.  And your boys.  Sometimes, when you’re feeling it, you ask yourself ‘why the f*#k am I doing this crap?  I’m cold and wet and uncomfortable and I don’t give a crap that everything is working ’cause all I want is an hour off my feet, a nap, a cup of Starbucks and an Egg A Muffin‘.  Then you get a little rest and wake up wondering why your ribs hurt and remember cracking up with your pals the night before.  It’s pretty damn special, and, ya know, Titanic is on the TV just next door, right?

4:30am
Both the girls are working.  “Spirit in the Sky“ is playing on the iPod and I have been promising you a peek into the imaging lab for days now and guess what?  It ain’t gonna happen tonight, either. My ribs hurt and the girls are working and my socks are wet and I could use a shower.  So, my friends, at the risk of making myself a liar in your eyes, I say to you that I am going to see if any of the boys need anything, then go put my rack to good use.

How about another whale picture?  HAHAHAHA!!!

Whew.  I entertain me.  More tomorrow, I promise, I have some pictures of the lab and have been taking notes on how many computers and monitors and people put all that together.  I swear I will do something on it tomorrow.

Promises. Promises.

<< 20 Hours | The Lab >>

by Michael Dessner

Good morning everybody, it’s been a busy couple days out here on the Jean Charcot and although there’s not many new developments this morning we are gonna catch you up.  First, let’s take a look at the weather, over to you, Al…how does it look?

Well, Mike we’re looking at a low headed into the area, the forecast is calling for 35 knots and building seas with a good chance of rain.  The forecast is for more of the same over the next 24 hours so if you happen to be out on the water looking at, oh, I dunno, say the Titanic, well hey! I’d say batten down your hatches and get ready for a little rockin’ and rolling.  Back to you Mike!

Thanks Al, we sure appreciate you staying on top of that.  We’ll definitely keep an eye on that system as it comes through the area.

And coming through the area it has been.  It’s been a couple days of life in the slop my friends, yes it has.  I had intended to discuss what it’s like to sit and watch some of the video of Titanic coming up into the Imagery lab and I did go in there the other night and make some notes intending to talk about it.  The only problem is that yesterday I had a pretty good story elsewhere so I let it slide, then I looked at my notes and they really weren’t making a lot of sense to me.  I think I’m gonna let it wait (I know, I am such tease).  It has been a couple pretty darn busy days for my guys and the AUV team is running on little fuel after putting in consecutive 20 hour days since we arrived.  I think I am going to just over a little ground reporting on the effort and then see if I can’t grab another hour or two in the rack.  That’s the way it is, work when you need to and try and grab an hour or two when ya can.

So, it certainly seems like longer than a day, day and a half since we pulled our snarl of line and weight up with Ginger.  Since then both the girls have made high freq and picture runs and we’re covering the eastern quadrant of the survey area.  Since the other night we have had a weather system come through that has effectively shut down ROV operations (another reason I want to defer talking about ROV footage, right now we’re not seeing any).  The weather system is a bit lumpy but certainly nothing for the many people following the expedition to be concerned about.  It has temporarily halted ROV operations but the AUV’s continue to work away.

The problem with a sea state above 4 or so on the Beaufort scale is that as the ship heaves in the swell the movement is transferred to the ROV via the tether and can make entanglement and holding position on the site difficult if not impossible.  Launch and recovery of the ROV is also significantly impacted by high seas.  For the AUV’s its nowhere near the issue, primarily due to their untethered aspect: once they are in the water and away they get a few feet below the surface and all is well.  Our problem becomes safety on the surface although conditions have not degraded to the extent that we feel the need to suspend our operations.  I always err on the side of caution when it comes to our personnel and equipment (in that order) so trust me when I tell you we are NOT taking risks out here with either.

I would say that about the worst we have seen has been 20 to 30 knot winds and perhaps 10 to 12 foot seas, with maybe the occasional roller coming through adding another foot or two.  Is it comfortable?  No.  Fun?  Not so much, although it can be damn funny when you’re working on minimal sleep and cracking wise with buddies under similar strain.  Is it dangerous?  Just being here is dangerous but I certainly feel less anxiety about being here than I do zooming down Interstate 5 at 85 mph, bumper to bumper with the rest of Southern California.  It may not seem fun like ‘winning the lottery fun’ but nothing does when you’re in the middle of the grind.  Still, I have no doubt that this expedition will be a highlight of my life.  I will tell stories about this month, ad nauseum, until the dirt hits the lid of my box.

The girls are staying in the spotlight with the ROV grounded due to seas.  I’m sure there is frustration here and there about not being able to get the cameras back down on the wreck but that’s life at sea: you gotta be ready to do what you can if the weather impedes and it is the Grand Bank in autumn, after all.  We’re lucky we ain’t getting our ass kicked worse than this smallish system is doing.  Gear is turning and we’re bringing in lots of good data.  I commented earlier that ‘Greed Kills’ and the folks running this thing know that.  If they pushed the teams to put the ROV over the side before the sea state supported the op and it took one solid roll into the superstructure of the ship, well that would be bad, hmmm?  A couple hundred thousand dollars in cameras and lights along with ROV parts getting hammered into a steel wall would be a damned expensive couple of seconds.

So while the Imaging and ROV teams tweak and wait for their moment to get back in the show the AUV team is working some pretty heinous hours.  We’re all basically putting in 20 hour days (God, how I wish I was exaggerating) and filling up drive after drive with terabytes of sonar data and photos.  As a matter of fact that is something of an issue for us, an embarrassment of riches when it comes to what the girls are putting out.  The guys I’m working with are monsters, they just won’t quit, can’t get ‘em to take a nap, although every once in a while we all will rest our eyes for a second to find an hour gone by.  We’re all a little punchy and apt to laugh too long and hard about the silliest stuff.  It ain’t a foxhole but sometimes it feels like the front lines.

Man I love this stuff.

I think it’s coming down out there.  Lots of grey an occasional rain squalls but the lump is laying down, fewer whitecaps and the wind is easing. We’ve got Mary Ann in the water and Ginger is prepped and in the tube.  We are holding fire on deploying her in the hopes that sometime in the next 6 hours we can get the ROV in the water.  Keeping Ginger on board until we get Mary Ann up will ensure we won’t have to do a boat assisted recovery in the dark if an when the ship goes into Dynamic Positioning mode to support ROV ops.  It’s a safety decision that is frustrating but that we in no way question.  We’re hands down a successful mission right now, one way to change that 180 out would be to hurt someone.  Ain’t gonna happen (knock wood), there’s a lot of salt on the people out here and a fair amount of hard bark and we ain’t gonna screw it up now.

GO TEAM TITANIC!

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by Michael Dessner

0400
I got to bed at midnight last night, completely wrung out tired.  All too soon I hear a knock at my door, I roll over and cover my head with my pillow hoping whoever it is will just go away.  It’s Greg again, quietly informing me I am needed on the deck (he really does have a pleasant bedside manner ;-).  I’m told that Ginger, the vehicle we had just put in a few hours earlier, had aborted due to a time out and was en route to the surface.

The girls have a prearranged set of mission goals and conditions they must meet to continue working on the bottom.  If they do not achieve a goal the clock starts ticking and within a set time period if they still haven’t achieved that goal, whether it be end of line or whatever, they abort, drop their ascent weight and swim to the surface.

In this case, Ginger was working on line 13 of a 60 line, high frequency sonar and still camera mission in the region north of Area 51 (the area east of the wreck with unexplained contacts) when she aborted.  We would not know the exact reason until she got to the surface.

We all grabbed coffee, rubbed the sleep from our eyes and stumbled out into another moonless night.  I had enjoyed a grand total of 2 hours of sleep bringing me up to a two day total of maybe 6 hours.  Andy, Greg and Mark had probably slept even less.  We weren’t loving much of anything as Mark and Kevin grabbed up Mustang suits to head out on the boat (the ROV was still below).  I prepped the back deck while Greg and Andy monitored the situation.  We put the boat out and watched their lights run out into the black night, the incoming weather swell and chop combining with ship movement to turn their lights into a fluttering little ball of St. Elmo’s fire dancing out in front of our rails.

An hour later or so they came back towing Ginger behind them.  The ships orientation in the current was less than ideal, dragging the vehicle across the port aft quarter and forward. In other words, the vehicle wanted to drift under the ship on the left side rather than stream out behind us per our usual recovery routine.  Some quick boat driving by Louise, line handling by Mark and crane driving by Andy all combined to bring Ginger out of the water after a near miss to the stern.  We all breathed a sigh of relief.

Until Andy said, “What the hell is that dragging behind the vehicle?”

It looked like a couple pieces of line hanging from the prop.  The vehicle had become entangled and somehow still made it to the surface.  We were all amazed, something like that at depth can be an AUV killer.  After all there is no cable attache to pull back on if one of the girls gets caught in some bottom obstruction.  When Andy picked the vehicle up higher into the air our amazement grew into astonishment.  It was clear that one end of the line wrapped around the prop was trailing behind the vehicle and being streamed by the current but the other was hanging straight down.  There was some mass there.  Ginger had brought something up with her from the bottom of the ocean.

We got the LARS laid down on the deck and started hauling line, there was definitely some weight to whatever it was.  At one point Greg asked for a knife and Andy handed him his.  He was about to cut the line when I pointed out to him that if he cut the line whatever was hanging off Ginger’s ass it would simply fall back to the bottom taking as much of the polypropylene floating line as was still underwater with it.  It would remain a danger to our vehicle; we needed to get it out of there.  We started hauling line again.  By now a crowd had gathered and we had maybe four guys hauling away building a fair pile of stinky, disgusting, weed encrusted blue line onto the deck.

Greg pointed out that we were likely to be pulling for a long time, “There’s no way that the vehicle could bring this much weight to the surface, we’re likely to be hauling in 3,700 meters of line…”

This prospect did not entice.  That could take a long time, perhaps more than an hour hauling by hand.  We were again looking at the knife and thinking about the expedient measure of just letting her go, yet still pulling, when I heard something clank off the hull below us.  Whatever it was we had it up.  We hauled away.

The line that nearly tied Ginger down

Up over the side came the item, it looked like a clump weight of some kind. It had a couple of red plastic chain links on it and was covered by abyssal slime and mud.  It had even brought a few rocks with it. We were all simply amazed.  Ginger had run into the line floating up from this weight, it entangled into her propeller and held her there.  When her timeout clicked over she aborted and dropped her ascent weight and began the nearly two and a half mile swim to the surface.  We were flabbergasted she made it.  Greg just told me, “OK, here’s the deal.  Our lead ascent weight runs 47 pounds.  The drop weight on the entangled line weighs 42 pounds!”  Those 5 pounds plus her normal buoyancy were all that saved her from being anchored to the bottom.  But for the lack of 5 pounds the Waitt Institute was saved over $1,500,000, the replacement cost for Ginger.

Here’s how that would have played out.  We would have known she aborted and we would have had a fair idea where she was but the only way we would have been able to get her back would have been to send down the Phoenix ROV, Remora, to the area.  That would have taken it off the wreck and all other operations would likely have been suspended.  We would have had a fair to middling chance of finding her and cutting her free but it would have taken days and used up precious time and fuel.  It might very well have ended the expedition.  Thank the fates the girls are such durable and well constructed vehicles.

When asked I have been a Mary Ann guy since the beginning; I’m originally from Iowa and the brunette farm girl always appealed to me.  I’ll let you in on something; I think California has gotten to me a little bit.  I love the beach, the people, the weather; I’m pretty much crazy about living there.  So while I feel I am true to my roots in my work ethic and the kind of person I like to think I am, give me the Movie Star any time!!

OK, we got a little weather. All the gear is aboard for the next day or so.  GOOD NIGHT.

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