11 March, 2000

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The weather continues to be stormy. Lots of rain and wind with the temperature still at three degrees. Thank goodness for our "Mustang" suits which cover us neck to ankle with windproof material and insulation. They also help you to survive if you fall overboard. We also wear knee high boots with steel toes for protection. With all those clothes on it takes some extra effort to maneuver. The most difficult part is most of what we need to do requires us to take our gloves off. Our hands get really cold but the work still needs to be done so we just dream of warmer times and continue on. As our chief scientist, Dave DeMasters commented, "you pay dear for scientific research in the Antarctic"

Our biggest challenge today was to deploy an underwater camera to be towed behind the ship just above the bottom of the sea. It will record the events there and we will be able to watch the tape upon

the camera's return on deck. The camera is housed in a waterproof structure shaped like a missile which weighs about 540 pounds. A 900 pound weight is attached and pulled in front of the camera housing to keep it held horizontal to the sea floor. Everything is attached by cable to a winch on board the Gould so that the system can be raised and lowered as the sea floor changes. A "pinger" is part of the apparatus which sends location messages back to a computer on board the ship to show the cameras relative position to the sea floor. Principle Investigator, Craig Smith, monitors the computer the entire time the camera is overboard and gives directions to the winch operator as to whether to let out or take in cable to lower or raise the system. Remember the ocean floor is approximately 500 meters beneath the ship so all of the cameras maneuvers are happening a

long way away. It requires a lot of time and effort to do this but the resulting film which shows us what the deep sea floor is like is worth it.

Today is a frustrating experience though. After two hours work in the middle of the dark night on rough seas, one of the switches on

the camera did not work correctly. When we viewed the film there was nothing on it. We will hope for calmer weather tomorrow and try again. We move our efforts to collecting other samples.

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The weather continues to be stormy. Lots of rain and wind with the temperature still at three degrees. Thank goodness for our "Mustang" suits which cover us neck to ankle with windproof material and insulation. They also help you to survive if you fall overboard. We also wear knee high boots with steel toes for protection. With all those clothes on it takes some extra effort to maneuver. The most difficult part is most of what we need to do requires us to take our gloves off. Our hands get really cold but the work still needs to be done so we just dream of warmer times and continue on. As our chief scientist, Dave DeMasters commented, "you pay dear for scientific research in the Antarctic"

Our biggest challenge today was to deploy an underwater camera to be towed behind the ship just above the bottom of the sea. It will record the events there and we will be able to watch the tape upon the camera's return on deck. The camera is housed in a waterproof structure shaped like a missile which weighs about 540 pounds. A 900 pound weight is attached and pulled in front of the camera housing to keep it held horizontal to the sea floor. Everything is attached by cable to a winch on board the <italic>Gould<underline> </underline></italic> so that the system can be raised and lowered as the sea floor changes. A "pinger" is part of the apparatus which sends location messages back to a computer on board the ship to show the cameras relative position to the sea floor. Principle Investigator, Craig Smith, monitors the computer the entire time the camera is overboard and gives directions to the winch operator as to whether to let out or take in cable to lower or raise the system. Remember the ocean floor is approximately 500 meters beneath the ship so all of the cameras maneuvers are happening a long way away. It requires a lot of time and effort to do this but the resulting film which shows us what the deep sea floor is like is worth it.

Today is a frustrating experience though. After two hours work in the middle of the dark night on rough seas, one of the switches on the camera did not work correctly. When we viewed the film there was nothing on it. We will hope for calmer weather tomorrow and try again. We move our efforts to collecting other samples.

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Readying the underwater camera system to be deployed overboard