Today was a day of transit. We did a lot of work on the buoys, preparing them for deployment and Rick, with the help of Tonya our Chief Survey Technician, got about half of the cups that his students decorated for ‘shrinking’ into the mesh bags to attach to the deep CTD when we do one . The CTD is a rosette of bottles that are sent to depth, in this case 3000 meters (how many feet is that and how many atmospheres of pressure?) where water samples and a record of the Conductivity (salinity), Temperature, and Depth are taken. These CTD’s will help provide a double check for the electronic data that our

buoys collect and add to the data used to model El Nino/La Nina. One of the side activities of the CTD is to send down the cups to be squeezed by the pressure. We also have a cup of similar size that will be used as a control so that students will be able to see the changes that the cups undergo. Rick also has brought along a Styrofoam wig head from his daughter Teri to see the effect on a larger scale.

In addition to our work on the buoys we had our first at sea drills including an abandon ship drill. But since we had a similar drill in port we only were required to muster to our stations with our exposure suits, long sleeve shirt, head cover, and long pants and wear our personal flotation device.

At the end of the day some of the crew had a little fun on the deck with a marshmallow gunfight. Maybe this is an idea for the faculty back at the Senior Academy, it sure seemed to be a great for the crew to unwind after a busy day at sea. Keep warm, I hear that is is pretty chilly in Billings. Rick

My First Day at Sea!

For two days I have been overwhelmed as I observed all of the aspects of the crew’s preparation for the TAO mission to Samoa. I am fascinated with everything about this operation – watching the crew load the ship, observing the ship being fueled, viewing the massive nuclear submarines located in Pearl Harbor, and assembling the sensors that collect climate data from each of the buoys we will deploy. Yesterday, in preparation for our voyage, we continued to calibrate instruments and assemble sensors.Last night was our first night at sea, I slept like a baby -the gentle rocking of the boat was like being in a giant cradle.

Today, January 6th, is our first full day at sea. We will continue to assemble equipment and check electronics. We are scheduled to arrive at our first deployment sometime on Friday, January 8th. Stay tuned for more updates.

So, I will say good night from sea,

Art

Since we are running a little slow on the internet I will simply post a few images from our first day rather than a video. I will attempt to post a video or two later on but currently we are limited on our bandwidth to about 128K.

This images is of the flag off the fantail with Pearl Harbor astern as we are moving out of the harbor.

This is a view through the 20,000 pound (how many tons is that) A-Frame looking back toward Honolulu.
Farewell to Waikiki! It will be a few weeks until we see this sight again.

This is the "Mighty MO" the Battle Ship Missouri where the Peace Documents at the end of WWII were signed. The ship is currently in Dry Dock undergoing some repairs. Dry dock is a way to get the ship out of the water to work on the hull.

Here is an image of the Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat (RHIB) that is what we on the KA will be using to do our Buoy Ops. We had to bring this fast and agile boat on to the ship prior to leaving the harbor. If I can add a video later I will give you some idea of how the RHIB is brought on.
Rick preparing the underwater sensors for testing. Each of these sensors measures temperature and conductivity (salinity) and a couple of them also measure depth via a pressure sensor. These help to provide the subsurface data for better modeling of the dynamic of the El Nino and La Nina events.

Rick and Brian Lake (Chief Scientist) working on the sensors and the tubes. It is important to run all the sensors for an extended period prior to deployment to make sure they all work.

R

The KA is under her own steam, well actually diesel and electric, and we are making 10 knots (you should figure out how fast that is in miles per hour) at a heading of 173 degrees. The KA uses diesel generators to create the current to drive here electric propulsion motors. She is a vey quit ship because of this configuration which was part of her original deign…to be quite. The KA is a former Navy antisubmarine warfare ship and needed to be quiet to play her role listening for submarines that might have been lurking around the oceans. Now that quiet nature makes it nice for those of us about to have our first night at sea.

Our current position was 157degrees 51 minutes and 7 seconds west longitude (157:51:07 W) and 22 degrees 55 minutes and 8 seconds north latitude (22:55:09N) at 19:30 lcl on the 5^th of January. At that time we had been at sea for about five hours and have many more to go on our way to work the 155 W Buoy line. Sunset was fantastic, but very short. It seems to take almost no time to go from day to night here in the tropics. You can see how it looks behind some of the “birds” (anemometers) that will measure windspeed and direction on the buoys. We are now (09:10 lcl) about 40 nautical miles south of the Big Island and can just see it in the distance. It will be some time before we see land again.

Rick

The KA has been in port at Pearl Harbor most of the day. We got underway about ten to ten this morning to transit to the fuel pier. We have been loading fuel and getting the various instruments ready for deployment. One of the more memorable things for me was passing by the USS Arizona Memorial and thinking about all the history that has gone on here. It makes one pause and think of the value of our freedom and the price paid for that freedom.

One of the more mundane, but important tasks today has been to check all the sensors and to make sure that the electrical connections are all correct. I even had the opportunity to crawl under the test bench to make sure the connections for the long wave and short wave UV sensors were connected to the correct test leads.

This short video will give you some idea as to the location of the KA. We are on the north side of Ford Island. Our ship is slightly to the west of the location of the wreck of the Utah which was sunk on Dec. 7th 1941. While the Utah is less known than the Arizona, there were still many sailors who were killed serving on her and there is a small memorial that few people visit. It is very humbling to be here in the center of so much history.

There are now four NOAA ships that share this historic berthing area with the Utah. The KA is the second ship in the clip.

Tomorrow we head to sea and will turn on the buoy electronics to make sure that all the equipment is working.

Art and I arrived at Pearl at 7AM today at the Visitor Check-in and ID office. We were a half hour early and were still 12th and 13th in line. The process was pretty slow, but we got picked up by one of the science crew (James) when we got our passes around 8:15AM. We then went the ship and came on board durning the first of three drills for the day. Within in a few minutes of getting to the ship we were already involved in the ship board fire drill. Both Art and I were shlepping fire fighting equipment to the "fire scene", I had a ventilation hose and Art a really big, and nasty looking, pry bar. It looked like a pry bar on steroids. After the fire drill it was the abandon ship drill, where we all put on our "gumby" suits ( I wish I had thought to have my camera ready first thing) and exchanged our old whistles for new ones without cork balls. After the abandon ship drill, it was man overboard and then we were able to stand down by about 10AM. Once the drills were done it was time to get with moving the equipment to the ship and setting up the instruments. The process of meeting the crew, loading the equipment and stores, and setting up the science stuff took until almost 6PM.