How to Deploy a Scientific Mooring

My lab does moorings. Engineers design and build huge floats that sit on the surface, or just beneath it. The wire that holds these floats in place will extend to the heavy anchor on the ocean floor, with a set of instruments often spanning the entire depth. We deploy these at sea, and recover them months/years later. The return is a time series of selected oceanographic quantities, for the entire water column, in one location.

Prepping the floats

A couple of weeks back, we deployed and recovered a series of moorings for our CORC Project (more at http://mooring.ucsd.edu). In 90 hours, we deployed a glider, two bottom and two subsurface moorings, recovered one subsurface and two bottom-mounted instrument, and had zero relaxing transit. I'll describe the deployments here, and touch on the recovery process in a future post.

Moorings

Surface and subsurface moorings have different designs, but similar deployment processes. The trick is to get the entire 1-4 km of cable, instruments, chain, floats, and anchor off of moving/bouncing boat without getting anything tangled.

Sometimes you have to stand on stuff

To start, we angle the boat so it is roughly steaming towards the desired location. The large float is the first thing in the water. For surface moorings, this is a huge surface buoy, while subsurface floats are smaller. Instruments start on the main float itself, and continue along the cable in carefully determined intervals.

At the end of the wire, a couple lengths of chain, more flotation, and finally the anchor (normally railroad wheels) are lifted over the ship's edge. We continue to steam to the desired location, with sometimes trailing 4km of wire, floats, and instruments. Once the Chief Scientist gives the signal, the anchor is dropped and pulls all to rest vertically in the water column.

Anyways, watch a couple timelapses and check out a bunch of photos.

This is the beginning of the first deployment. It lasted over 6 hours, was in ~3800 meters of water, and had a subsurface float that rested at about 50 meters below the surface.

This is the end of the first deployment, the anchor is about to drop when the camera card fills.

This is the (almost) entirety of the Second Deployment. It lasted only about 2.5 hours, was in 800 meters of water, and again the SD Card filled up right before the anchor drop.


Somethings Interesting:

--Our instruments use magnets to induce tiny electric pulses in the wire that holds them in place. Similar to Morse Code, this process transmits all the data from each instrument to a single modem. The surface modem will transfer the data via satellite; the subsurface modem is acoustic, and will transmit the data to a passing glider, which will bring the data to the surface within reach of the satellite.

--Our deck leader is a salty German who has the uncanny ability to tell you exactly which box (of over 20) holds each wrench, bolt, and wire length. Rumor has it his toes are made of steel, and has no need for steel toed boots.  

--Our lab is playing a large role in the OOI Project, where 4 moorings systems will be put in 4 of the roughest waters, essentially on the corners North and South America. The deployments and recoveries will be nothing short of exciting.

Port Hueneme, in Oxnard

A ship, bigger than ours

Fully loaded, ready to depart

Some first years earned their sea legs

Full moon!!

Paul caught a fish; lab BBQ a week later

Pre-Deployment meeting; Chief Scientist in sneakers, Deck Leader in Shorts and Boots

First Instrument; it's covered in Copper to keep off Bio-Fouling

Location of GoPro Camera

Last set of floats with release.

Deck Leader

Deployment 2, surface floats.

Deck Leader, rolling a Cig

That's me

Our Bottom Releases are acoustic and let go only to a particular set of frequencies.

Anchor!! For Deployment 2

Unloading back at Port

Friday Morning

Today is one of the top 5% days we have here in La Jolla. I was lucky enough to spend the morning on the pier, and take a break now only to post pictures from it. I'm hungry, and want to eat lunch down at cups, so there won't be much text.

On the walk down, I was worried that the fog would ruin the sun. Still though, it made for a pretty sight.

When I got to the end of the pier, I found some divers and a Birch Aquarist doing some research. The divers were cleaning and maintaining their instruments, while the female aquarist was looking for Jellies to add to her collection up at Birch.

The divers lowered the bridge, and took to the water.

Here is a local checking some of the instruments.

I was actually out there to help give a SCOPE tour, but ended up ditching them in favor of watching the divers work. Here they are walking back with Ben, their actual tour guide.

Diver Jeff is helping the aquarist by collecting the Jelly tangled in this clump of kelp and sea grass.

Success!! He brings it to Aquarist Julie.

Some swimmers are making the Cove to Pier swim (and back) for exercise. They seemed high school age. 

The jelly was too heavy to bring up the stairs, so they lowered a trashcan to help.

Aquarist Julie backs up the Birch Truck to get the animal.

Rich arrives with a boat that needs to be lifted up on the pier. 

He walks it up the ladder, as to make sure it doesn't bang the pier.

Finally, he lightly sets it down and wheels it into place.

Just for good measure, one of the divers needed to rappel off the end. Jeff spots a shark, or possibly just a piece of kelp; we were unsure.

He was down there to fix the bend in that pipe.

Nicolas is in town, and killing it on the knee-high waves rolling through.

His better half shows him how it's done.

How do they NOT get stung by stingrays? This is one of the questions I will never know the answer to.

That's a freakin' sweet osprey!!

It has been a Year

I wrote my last post before starting graduate school, and I write this one after completing my first year.

I took 12 classes, sampled vegetarianism, earned an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, surfed more times than I can count, completed the written portion of my departmental, and traveled to Zanzibar. Zanzibar happened only recently, arriving Friday after 34 hours of planes and layovers.

My plane across the Atlantic

Four planes brought me here, the last one a puddle-jumper across the channel. I was dropped at the Institute of Marine Sciences, the national, no-frills research institution. They focus mainly on coral and fisheries ecology, tourism and fishing being the two main marine facets of  the Zanzibar Economy.

I am part of a research endeavour through Theiss Research, with another graduate student, two undergrads, and a single professor making up our field team. I am excited for the science we will be completing, though I will get into the various projects we hope to accomplish in future posts.

This is my first time on the African Continent and the furthest east I have ever been (west of the international date line). I  am staying in Stone Town, working in IMS near the docks. This place is a Labyrinth. The "roads" are only wide enough for motorcycles and bicyclists, who scream through with an audible warning. I spend free time getting lost and finding my way back. Already, I have chosen my breakfast and dinner stalls I will remain faithful to throughout my stay.

My Plane across the Zanzibar Channel

We spent Saturday fixing our ADCP mount for our first cruise on Thursday. The boat is a handmade tourist vessel, and we're excited to visit the pristine marine reserve on this first outing. Following this small amount of work, I took my first dip in the Indian Ocean. It was pretty warm, there was a beautiful sunset, and we found some tiny jellyfish we knew of only through their stingers.

The trip has been a success so far.

Somethings Interesting

-Last night at dinner, my backpack was unzipped and searched while I was ordering; it was crowded and I was careless. The thief found nothing except my Zanzibar guidebook and current pleasure read (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), and left both. I got lucky. This was a wakeup call; I need to be more aware of the
opportunities I offer.

-Though I will certainly miss all my friends and family, I am looking forward to the lack of connection to the outside world. This has been a stressful year, and I spent much of it in front of the computer screen. My time spent here will be a great chance to relax and think.

-Our concrete apartment faces directly North for the previous owners to bow towards Mecca while they pray. We actually have line-of-sight with the Islamic prayer speakers; these go off multiple times daily, the earliest at 520 (though I have been told this will change as the prayer schedule is aligned with the moon). We have mosquito nets in our rooms, a sea breeze because we're so high, running water, and electricity. Luxurious to say the least.

-The electricity in town went out for about 4 hours yesterday. I just read my book and didn't panic.