Karen's Daily Blog

Water, water, everywhere,
and I could sure use a swim.

What’s the first requirement for being a Swimmer, one of the people who escorts Alvin in and out of the sea?

“Well, you have to know how to swim,” says Allison Heater, one of the SSSG team and one of the two swimmers for this morning’s Alvin launch, along with Korey Verhein of the Alvin group.  Check! I even passed junior lifesaving!

Every day, pairs of swimmers are taken from a batch of a dozen that include steward Carl Wood, ship crew, Alvin group, and SSSG.  Could I . . . ? 

Allison Heater prepares to work today’s Alvin launch as a swimmer.

 

Allison and fellow swimmer Korey Verhein give the thumbs-up sign to say Alvin is ready to go into the water.

No. There’s training involved, so swimmers need to be people who are with the ship steadily. The swimmers guide Alvin into the water before descent and recover it when it surfaces. They provide extra sets of eyes and ears to the Alvin group, release and reattach the sub to the ship, and perform operations that are key to making a dive complete from the time Alvin leaves the hangar to the time it returns. 

Swimmers climb onto the top of the sub after the pilot and observers are settled inside. They look things over to back up the Alvin group, and watch the action of the lines as the A-frame goes up and the hook is removed from the latch at Alvin’s stern. When they see that the hook is clear, they give the simultaneous thumbs-up sign that looks so cool in pictures. Then they steady themselves for the ride down to the water atop the sub.

The main line is released from the tee, and the swimmers release the lines that secure the basket. (The basket is made to work underwater, under pressure, and should not bob around the surface.) When everything is set to go, a swimmer opens the manual vent valve. Korey explains that this works like any ballast tank, meaning it blows air out and pulls water in, so that Alvin begins to sink. The upward gush of bubbles is the sign that the dive is starting. The swimmers climb into the Rigid Inflatable Boat and ride back to Atlantis.

On recovery, two swimmers climb into the RIB again, once again checking that the boat contains everything they need to bring the sub in.  All day long, Top Lab has kept the bridge informed of the sub’s location, and now everyone scans the water for the green-white blur it makes as it nears the surface. After the orange sail breaks through, the swimmer closes the manual vent valve and attaches the phone that allows communication with the pilot.  The pilot might ask the swimmer to do something outside the sub.  Yesterday, for example, one of the bioboxes was open, and Bruce Strickrott, the pilot, was keeping it shut with a manipulator, so the swimmer latched the box. The swimmers attach lines to the basket, adding a special ratchet if especially heavy items have been loaded on – things like pieces of chimney or large basalt rocks.

One swimmer returns to the small boat and heads back to Atlantis to grab a towline attached to the ship’s stern. Meanwhile, the ship is positioned so that Alvin drifts back toward the stern, where the towline is attached to help manuever it into position to be lifted back on board.  A sea anchor, which looks a little like a fishing seine, is attached to Alvin’s bow to act as a brake. This keeps Alvin oriented stern-to-stern with Atlantis, which is crucial if the pilot needs to turn on the propellers to move the submersible away from the ship. At last, the main line’s big fish eye is looped around the tee.  

(Bekki Helton, who dived yesterday, says this is the moment when you feel like you’re on some kind of amusement park ride, being bumped around.)

Yesterday, Carl Wood was one of the swimmers who guided Alvin back onto Atlantis.

The A-frame operator raises the sub. It swings gently upward, and just before it begins to curve over the ship’s deck, the swimmers dive or jump into the water. They’ll ride the RIB back to the ship.

The water at 9º North is about 80º F. “Nice,” Korey and Allison agree. But Allison first trained in the Juan de Fuca Strait, wearing a wetsuit in water that was 56º. “When I first got in the water, I wanted to scream!” She is glad to have learned the A-frame operations here, where the water is warmer and smoother.

So, how does it feel to swim in water so very deep and so very far from shore? Allison says, “I like the idea of there being so much water beneath me. I’m scared of sharks and things, sure, but the sub is right there . . .”

That warm blue water makes many in the science crew wistful.  It looks delicious, and we’re hot . . .

Today's Extreme Blogger:
Diane Y. Kim

Hi everyone! I hope you’re all as excited as I am about being a part of this unique adventure to explore deep-sea hydrothermal vents. This is such an incredible opportunity, and I feel so lucky to be here….again! Yes, that’s right — this is my second Alvin cruise! I was lucky enough to go down in Alvin last year, and I hope to get a dive again this year! How does a girl get so lucky?? Well, I joined Team Protist a few years ago, and the rest is history.

The overall goal of Team Protist (also known as the Caron Lab) on these excursions to the deep sea is to characterize protistan diversity and learn more about the ecological roles that they play in these extreme environments. Last year, Team Protist was out here to collect a variety of deep-sea samples for preliminary analyses and deploy as many protist traps at and near hydrothermal vents. The protist traps have been left out for a whole year now, and we’re hoping that many protists have found their way into these traps to call it their home. So far on this year’s cruise, we’ve had two Alvin dives that recovered six of these long-term protist traps. We hope to retrieve many more on the remaining dives. We’ve been preserving sub-samples for microscopy and cell counts, collecting sub-samples for DNA analyses, and saving live sub-samples for grazing experiments for all the traps coming up. We hope to share some cool microscopy pictures with you soon!

I can go on and on about the science, but I also wanted to take this time to share some other things that we occupy our time with here. Let’s start with the food. One word: amazing. Just to give you an idea of our dinners, here’s a menu from the other night: Tuna seared rare with ponzu dipping sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi; chicken francaise -- egg-battered chicken with lemon butter; green bean almondine, cauliflower, roasted potato and rice; honey wheat buttermilk bread. To wash it all down, an upside-down cherry peach cobbler with whipped cream on the side. I know—rough life, right? : ) Good thing we have a ping-pong table to burn some of the food off. We even organized a ping-pong tournament that will commence this weekend. I only made it to the semi-finals last year, so I’m eager for the chance to redeem myself.

Basically, you never get bored out here. There’s always some very cool science going on or something good to eat or some fun activity to partake in. It feels like time is flying. I hope you’re having as much fun as I am.

Photo Gallery

Recovering Alvin. 

Video Gallery

Dive Log

Dive 4472                                    November 14, 2008                                     AT15-39

Pilot: Mark Spear
Port Observer: Karla Heidelberg
Starboard Observer: Lisa Zeigler

9˚ North, East Pacific Rise (P Vent area)

GMT 14:20            Cleared surface
GMT 14:30             212 m
GMT 14:40             420 m
GMT 14:47             560 m
GMT 14:56            T probe turned on; sensor not responding
GMT 14:58            817 m – Ascent slower than usual due to less people biomass.
GMT 15:04            Sipper software set up
GMT 15:10            X=4297; Y=77920; target 150m 0.64 to elevator. But some uncertainty due to problems with navigation.
GMT 15:29            1500 m

Call from surface to change dive plan. Request for small clump of Alvenella worms for Arty. Pick up small chimney and add to forward biobox.

GMT 15:58            2170m received first Homer hit.
GMT 16:12            2500m – on the bottom. Navigational hits unable to locate LVWS. Easter egg hunt initiated.
GMT 16:34            LVWS in hand and transiting to Riftia patch next to Bio 9. Heading X=4611;Y=77962
GMT 17:15            Reached target area. Evidence of shimmering water, but needed repositioning around marker because of tight fit for sub.
GMT 17:20     Elevator dropped, but re-grabbed within 10 minutes. 

GMT 17:40     Bio9 marker below sub. Port camera repositioned for navigations. T= ~4. oC
GMT 17:45     Approaching marker #2 and vent.GMT 18:01    Videotape change out
GMT 18:12    LVWS deployed into patch of shimmering water. Struggled with switch tie location (back side of filter instead of front, which made it hard for Alvin arm to reach). Weight deployed. T= 25-27oC 
GMT 18:14     In only a way that Mark could say... “This just has to be considered an opportunity for personal growth”

GMT 18:40            Sipper warm up for sample at X= 4611; Y= 77961; Z= 2511 Riftia patch. T = 12-23 oC. Sipper fired 1-5. Software stopped to prevent additional firings.  
GMT 12:50     Departed Bio9, heading toward P vent.
GMT 19:11     Approaching P vent
GMT 19:21     Spotted Prototrap #35 in a hole near Marker 21 (west side of Karen)
GMT 19:25     Sipper sample 5&6. T= 6.3 oC.
GMT 19:45     Sample into biobox
GMT 19:57     Spotted protist traps 10 & 11. (110) and Alvinella. Due to time, decision made to put worms in housing into Arty chamber #1  (instead of just worms). Switched pump on and immediate evidence of RNAlater flowing out of broken connection. Chamber did show evidence of being flooded.  No sipper taken here.
GMT 20:21     Heading to Marker 28.
GMT 20:27     CO2 changed.
GMT 20:35     Found prototrap #15. Sipper 7 & 8. 9 inadvertently fired. Realized that touchpad causing misfires!
GMT 20:41     Prototrap #15 into Arty chamber #3. Unsure if chamber fully flooded due to RNA leak.
GMT 20:50     Prototrap #29 into Arty chamber #2.Sippers 10 & 11 fired. Saw evidence that chamber correctly flooded.

GMT 21:15            Marker #23. Prototrap #103 collected and put into Biobox #2. (left prototrap #101 for next dive because we were unable to use sipper).

GMT 21:20            Trick or Treat. Collected small chimney into Biobox #3 for Craig.
GMT 21:23            Surveyed area as instructed to determine suitability for Nov 15th LVWS deployment. Temperature ranges 15-38 in area of shimmering waters.
GMT 21:30            Ascent initiated.