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by Michael Dessner

Last night I made it to my rack around 2330 and didn’t take too long to fall asleep, even after reading a few of the incident reports made to the British investigation of Titanic.  For the first time on this trip I got myself a little creeped out reading the accounts from survivors who spoke of the events that took so many souls in the exact spot where I was currently bobbing around.  It doesn’t do to dwell too much in your head when you’re at sea.  In the past, when I have sat in my bunk and let my imagination run away with me I usually ended up outside, as in no longer confined within the ship.  Late at night it’s all too easy to imagine the hundreds of ways the ocean can claim you, especially if you’re getting kicked around.  This time it was first hand survivor accounts that got me going.  Generally best to just put those kinds of ideations out of your head; not to the extent that you ignore your surroundings and safety, but it’s a short return on imaginings of the various things that can go wrong at sea.  I’ve learned over the years to give my head a shake when ugly thoughts start crawling into my consciousness late at night and so that I did, gave the noggin a rattle and soon enough I was out like a light.

At 0315 my lights came on and I woke to Greg Packard quietly asking me to get up and come down on deck.  Fortunately for all of us the coffee was thick and bitter, many caffeine molecules are required for me to get going on a morning like that.  I like early mornings but after a long day and 3.5 hours of sleep, well, I can be just a tad grouchy.  That’s probably being a bit forgiving on myself, I can be a pure bear sometimes.  This morning, though, things were pretty low key and I had 20 minutes to ease into my waking state.

When I came out on deck to a starry but moonless night, the Bosun from the Jean Charcot was on the bench next to the ship’s launch and she and I sat together and joked over coffee.  Louise is a blond Scottish gal with bright piercing blue eyes and a great sense of humor.  I’ve enjoyed our chats and have admired her capable way, she’s a keen hand with a boat and it’s quite clear she knows her way around a deck.  I know from experience it’s not easy for a female to make her way in the oceangoing community.  The industry is certainly dominated by men and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I point out that sea going folk may not always be the most open minded of people.  It’s a difficult life: you spend a lot of time away from home and loved ones and conditions are often less than ideal, especially early in your career.  There are certainly those at sea who have run away from some aspect of their former lives, another fair share of those who just don’t care for the masses and it will come as no surprise that many mariners aren’t crazy about change.  For hundreds of years women were actively discouraged from even being on ships much less working them.  Superstitions run thick with sailors and one such was that women were bad luck at sea.  Woes betide the man who would make that argument to Louise.  First she’d rip you a new one verbally; if that didn’t work she’d likely take to doing it physically. Afterwards, she’d demonstrate just how wrong was the prejudice by working circles around you.  She’s a damned fine example of why women should be welcomed into the industry; she’s salty, sassy and seaworthy!  Also, I love the accent.

I would say that yesterday had seen a first in an expedition of this type by simultaneously working two full ocean depth AUVs on the same site that a work class ROV was down working except it ain’t true since we already did that during the first leg!   But since the ship was holding position while the ROV worked we had to make other arrangements for recovering Mary Ann as we would not be able to maneuver the ship per our usual recovery strategy.  Not a big deal for recoveries, we just put the ship’s launch in the water and go find the vehicle on the surface and bring it to us.

I had initially thought I would be on the boat crew to make the recovery but Mark Dennett and Andy made the first run to grab up Mary Ann.  Conditions were pretty good; we had maybe a four foot groundswell running at an 8 second period, slow and small.  There was almost no surface condition, just a little wind riffle; pretty much ideal. The only drawback was there was no moon so it was dark… real dark.  Still though, as safe an operation as could be; we got a range and bearing from the vehicle when it came to the surface and the ship spotted the strobe right away and lit her up with the spotlight.  Louise and Joseph of the Charcot crew ran Mark and Andy out, they hooked her up, towed her to the ship, tossed us a line and we rigged her into the LARS and brought her aboard.  We had plenty of time to get her stowed, start her data download and have a cup of coffee before Ginger came up for the same procedure.

On the second run I did go out with Mark and the boat crew.  The Jean Charcot launch is a 24 foot Zodiac-type boat, center console, jet drive, hard bottom, inflatable RHIB.  We struggled into our mustang suits, strapped on our life preservers and hopped aboard the boat while still in the davit.  There’s always a touchy moment when you drop a boat into the water like that, you come down onto the water and immediately start rising or falling with the waves.  If you don’t get that rigging undone double quick you run the risk of all the shackles and hooks crashing around inside the boat as you rise or the wave can drop out beneath you and everything snap loads back onto the rigging.  It’s a real good way to lose a finger.  Joseph’s every bit the pro as Louise, however, and it’s clear they’ve done this hundreds of times together.  We were away without incident.

Gathering up Ginger was pretty simple, we got next to her and dropped our transponder fish, sent her a command to release her recovery float then back down to expose her recovery line.  Grabbed that up, tied it into a line for towing and started the slow haul back to the Charcot. The seas were friendly and the sun was just pinking up the sky as we easily towed the vehicle back to the stern of the ship.  We were all quietly digging the moment; I was sitting next to Louise and she casually leaned over and quietly said to me, “I dinnae like to go so slow”.  I don’t doubt it, never met a bosun yet who don’t like putting their boats through the paces, but, as my old Canadian guide used to say, “Slow and steady wins the race, b’y.”

The girls came up with good data and pictures, our high frequency sonar imagery is everything we’d hoped for and is going to be a great boon to the camera and ROV teams methodically working the site.  I won’t go on about it; hopefully soon we will release some of those images.  I had also commented on how I was not going to talk too much about the video Bill Lange’s cameras were pulling up, but I can’t resist the temptation any longer.  So it is that tonight I plan to sit in the lab and make some notes. Tomorrow I’ll try to give you all a feel for what it’s like to sit surrounded in high definition 3D footage of the most famous shipwreck in history.

Until then, signing off as
simply, Dessner.

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