The Armada sails

These are four of the six ships in our research armada... all six departed yesterday and last night. I have had about 4 hours of sleep each night this week, trying to finalize the cruise plans, staffing, and equipment. I definitely had a lot of help, but it was definitely a lot of work.



Each ship has containers on deck that serve as lab space, working areas, and storage. They are climate controlled, of course. Continental Shelf Associates (CSA) has been responsible for getting the winches, containers, and large equipment on the ship. I love these guys.



Each of the ships has a slightly different mission... some are equipped with ROVs and full-depth instruments that will collect data from the surface down to the seafloor as deep as 1500 m (5000 ft). Some are near-surface vessels that will do more stations and focus on the euphotic zone (upper 100 m of the water column). All are tasked with collecting data to identify the extent and concentration of oil in the marine environment. Some ships will work close to the wellhead (within 1.5 km), while some will be sampling far-field (as much as 180 km from the wellhead).



This is one of the ROVs. It is deployed on a tether in its little "garage," then when it gets to the seafloor it leaves the box and goes off to collect samples. The water bottles it carries are tripped by the arm on the ROV. Super cool. There is one whole container on deck that is dedicated to the care and feeding of the ROV... the equipment is shown below. It's kept at a lovely 68 degrees in that container to protect the equipment.





The ROV garage also has instruments attached to it on the top and corners. The instruments collect temperature, salinity, depth, and dissolved oxygen data, and they can detect oil in the water column using fluorescence.



This is a water sampling "rosette" and Bill, one of my two supervisors. Love this guy too.



The ships had staggered departure times, and one by one we watched them leave the Houma Ship Yard.



This is "my boat," the Bunny... it was bittersweet watching her leave without me on it. At least she got to leave... even if I have to stay back at the ranch while she is out cruising, measuring, and being a work horse.



As I write this (midnight central time), all of the ships are currently on stations in the Gulf after a full day of collecting data. Only one minor mishap... have to do an "at-sea transfer" of one crew member who is sea sick. A runner boat will leave Saturday night to do the exchange. Other than that, everyone is healthy and doing well, and nothing has broken yet!

You've probably all heard that BP has a new "cap" that will collect 80,000 barrels of oil a day directly from the gushing well. Fingers are crossed...