Here’s a short update from our recent trip back to Guam last week. We just returned to town (Newport, OR) yesterday, so I’m still pretty bushed, but I wanted to share a few images. (Click on them for a higher resolution full image)
26 hours of travel from Newport, Oregon to the hotel in Guam, waking up to this in the morning before heading down to the ship. Not too bad?
We went back out to Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench to recover the full ocean depth hydrophone (FODH) mooring we put out in January of this year. The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Sequoia also known as the “Black Pearl of the Pacific” was there to greet us at the dock having just missed tropical storm Bavi. We had to do some creative travel including flight delays and re-scheduling in order to avoid the bad weather and 20 ft seas impacting the area just days before. Part of the deal working in the tropical Pacific. As you can see in these images, it was worth it. The weather couldn’t have been any better for the recovery work.
The recovery operations were successful, aside from a few agonizing moments establishing communications with the acoustic release down near 11 km below the sea surface. The Sequoia is an outstanding work platform with an exceptional Captain and crew and we are really lucky to have formed such a great partnership with them. Check back in the near future for more info on this and other program projects.
Really awesome, bet you’ll hear some weird stuff from down there, earthquakes, black smokers and maybe even biologic sounds (depends on your sampling rate). When you think that we used to call the Oceans “Le Monde du Silence” (the Silent World, referring to the 1953 film by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle). Between earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tremors, icequakes, biologic sounds, seismic surveys, explosions, and things we don’t even know what they are, the Oceans might be the noisiest place on this planet.
Let’s stay tuned
Thank for sharing!
I like this place really.