Sunday 08 February, 2004

Today was a frustrating day for Andrea and Cathy who had hoped to recover the second of the three tripods. This tripod has (or had) a white surface float; so much of the morning was spent looking for it from the stern of the ship. The transducer had talked to the acoustic release (see 7 February), and its readings indicated that it was only about 30 meters or 100 feet off the stern of the ship. Also, it had been seen with the ship´s 3.5 kHz echosounder, so we knew it was there but could not see the white floats. Frustrating. The waves were not too large but relatively steep, and there were lots of small white caps, possibly making the float more difficult to spot. We had released another float, but it did not surface, so we waited several hours for low tide, hoping that the change of tide might free the released float. When low tide came and there was still no sign of the floats, the air started to feel a little more stressful onboard.

There are a number of things that could have happened to the surface floats and the tripod. A fishing boat trawling in the area may have stolen the floats. In the process, they may have pulled the tripod up, taken the float, and left the tripod again when they realized it was of no use. Perhaps, the tripod fell (or was knocked over by a trawler) on the leg that holds the acoustic release and float, preventing the secondary float from rising to the surface, and there are many more possibilities. Nevertheless, we couldn´t find either float. As night fell it was decided to press on to another station to take a box core, multi-core, CTD and BLISP. In the morning, we will attempt to recover the third tripod. After that, we will focus on retrieving the missing one.

We´ll keep our fingers crossed!

Weather
(Today's weather and location at 0900)

Air Temperature: 27°C (88°F)
Water Temperature: 29°C (84°F)
Salinity: 32.332
Barometric Pressure: 1009.9 cmbar
Precipitation: 25.9 mm (last 24 hours)
Relative Hummidity: 75%

Location
Longitude: 8.57220° N
Latitude: 144.18053° E

Menu
Breakfast: Bacon, ham, eggs, potatoes, fresh fruit
Lunch: Chicken sandwiches or pizza
Dinner: T-bone steak, baked potatoes, chicken, broccoli
Dessert: Toffee bars