COCOS (Feb 19-21): Bluewater dives & gremlins

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Inspecting Topside ROV Control Box
(Photo credit: P. Auster/NURTEC/UConn)

The ship made steady progress towards the island and we expected to arrive at Cocos by midnight and then the seamounts about four hours later.  The day was spent discussing multiple ways to integrate ROV, submersible and scuba diving operations in the most efficient manner.  The ROV team spent the day preparing Hela to dive.  This involved maintaining and securing multiple underwater housings, connectors and cables to the vehicle, securing cables on the deck and in the ROV control room and myriad other tasks.  On top of this they were chasing down “gremlins” in the ROV system.  The inevitable consequence of moving sophisticated electronic equipment that purposely is exposed to seawater, there were problems with communications between topside and vehicle systems.  One was solved and another emerged.

Bluewater diving atop the seamount
(Photo credit: P. Auster/NURTEC/UConn)

Meanwhile, the science party conducted blue-water dives using SCUBA gear and submarine dives using the the DeepSee submersible.  The scuba work will entail day and night blue-water dives over the seamount (the shallowest seamount peak is about 170 m depth) to collect gelatinous plankton (Madin), census fish (Auster), and photograph the diversity of animals that migrate to surface waters at night (Skerry).  The Undersea Hunter Group’s DeepSee submersible is rated to 1500 ft (457 m) and will allow 1 pilot and 2 scientists to visit the upper reaches of the seamounts.  However, everyone is eagerly awaiting the addition of the ROV to the operations mix.

DeepSee submersible descent to the Cocos Seamounts (Photo credit: P. Auster/NURTEC/UConn)

This National Geographic expedition is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-1114251. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.