Second Dispatch: Rolling Along

by Joanna Lott

hey told me I would be sick. They were right. They told me it was a long time to be at sea. They were right. They told me I would get bored.

They were wrong.

Just when I think I might be getting bored, when things appear to be getting into a routine, something or someone surprises me. Just when it seems like it's all eat, sleep, dive, write, eat, sleep, dive, write, something unexpected happens. All the planning and schedules in the world can't prepare you for what happens out here. When you're dealing with something as uncompromising as the deep blue sea, nothing is a sure thing.

***

he electronic component that failed today worked fine on deck," explains ALVIN pilot Philip Forte. "We operate all those things on deck in the morning — everything the sub will do during the dive — in what's called a 'walk-around.'"

After ALVIN's launch this morning, it was called back to the ship because of problems with the hydraulic system. "Bringing the sub back up is not a very common occurrence," Forte tells me. "That sub is pretty damn reliable."

But today they did bring the sub back up.

After a failed attempt to fix the problem, they decided to dive using the back-up system, and at 11:30, ALVIN was launched for the second time. Forte explains that the problem was not a safety issue, but one of maneuverability. "We cannot dive with anything that compromises the safety of the sub or the people," he says.

At 4:00 I report for duty to the fan tail where I'm surprised to find the Penn State research group lounging by the pool instead of busily preparing for the recovery of the sub.

"We didn't get anything," Govenar tells me. "It broke."

"What broke?" I ask.

"Chimneymaster," she says. "I'm not sure what happened. But we won't have much to do when it comes up."

***

himneymaster, one of Fisher's favorite toys for scooping up communities of life from the sea floor, looks something like a medieval torture device with a vacuum cleaner bag inside. Fisher tells me that, designed for high temperatures and rough conditions, it is the most robust tool of its kind. This strange implement traveled to the bottom of the ocean on ALVIN's science basket to scoop up even stranger creatures from the vents. Apparently, one of the steel cables on Chimneymaster snapped.

"I'm not sure why the cable snapped," Fisher tells me later. "We pulled on it with the full hydraulic force of ALVIN — which is roughly 7000 pounds of pull. My guess is that at 2 degrees Celsius they were a little more brittle than normal. We got one good collection before we broke it."

Was it a complete loss?

No, says Govenar. It wasn't a loss "because even though the equipment broke, we have developed new ideas to make it work. And we got one good quantitative sample from the dive."

And tomorrow they get another chance, using Bushmaster, a tool similar to Chimneymaster, but bigger and not as strong. At a meter and a half tall with a meter and half opening, it looks like a giant badminton shuttlecock. Bushmaster was designed to scoop up intact clumps of Riftia (tubeworms) from the softer sediment of the Gulf of Mexico. It will be used here for the same purpose with the hope it will withstand the rougher conditions of the East Pacific Rise.

***

he next morning, 6:00 a.m., it's still dark out — solid black. No stars. The Penn State group is up preparing for today's dive. The ALVIN pilots move quickly around the sub testing every system like the pit crew at a race track. Today, Penn State post doc Stephan Hourdez and graduate student Jason Flores dive with Bushmaster. At 8:00 they dive. A small storm moves in, the water gets rough and your wimpy reporter gets sea sick. At 5:00 ALVIN is recovered, and while Hourdez and Flores are put through their initiation — ice water and whipped cream, Bushmaster dumps a huge clump of tubeworms into a bucket. Success.

And I think of what my father said to me before I left for the cruise. What do I do if things go wrong, I asked.

Roll with it.

Extra! Chuck Fisher and Breea Govenar give their impressions of the first dive of the expedition.