Going to Antarctica

[SidewaysTA]

Some of the other folks in the science party shared some more pics.

More seals

Whales

Some other ship. Until now we haven't seen another boat since the Palmer...

 

[ZX9RCAM]

The different color water makes it look like it's floating on air.

 

[SidewaysTA]

We have transited about 145 miles north to our next drill site. We deployed our Vibration Isolated Television (VIT) camera system to survey the sea floor. Normally we use the VIT to re-enter holes we've drilled after a bit change or for running casing. We use it to find the re-entry funnel and then re-insert the drill string in the hole. In this case however they wanted to look for an optimum spot to drill as the bottom has a lot of dropstones carried out here by glaciers

The scientists want to take sediment cores here with our Advanced Piston Coring (APC) system. Imagine shoving a straw into mud and then pulling it out. You'll have a core sample of the mud inside the straw. That's basically how the APC works and as you can imagine this system only works in sediment (mud) and is not compatible with rock. So with the dropstones in this area, they want to find the softest possible point to APC.

When the VIT is to be deployed, the moon pool doors are opened, exposing the drill string and the VIT is clamped around it and then lowered to the sea floor.

So the camera went down and we saw lots of shrimp. squid etc. I put together a 10 min video for yall. 10 min cut down from about 5 hours of recordings. Hope yall like it.

 

[Vaquero]

Bottom left numbers.
XX°
Heading?
Surely not temperature

 

[SidewaysTA]

Bottom left numbers.
XX°
Heading?
Surely not temperature

The heading of the VIT frame.

 

[Vaquero]

Thanks.
Cool video.
Odd creatures.

 

[sucker76]

Very cool. What size reference can you give? How big is the drill tip?

 

[SidewaysTA]

Usually the bit is ~11 inches. The drill collars (heavy pipe above the bit) I believe are 10 inches. The drill string is 5.5/5 inch pipe.

Mike

 

[Byrd666]

Thank you for the extra work with doing the editing and sound. Good stuff.

What are those almost translucent snake looking fish with the super fast tail fin?

 

[Davetex]

Amazing.

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

Just looking at that water when the bottom opened up was enough to make me light headed. I'm glad I'm up here! Great video though!

Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk

 

[pronstar]

I love this thread!

 

[SidewaysTA]

Thank you for the extra work with doing the editing and sound. Good stuff.

What are those almost translucent snake looking fish with the super fast tail fin?

You're welcome. It is my first time editing a video like this. I had to add the music, it is dull without sound, like a horror movie with no soundtrack.

I'm not sure what those fish are.

 

[joking]

Cool video. Added music is a bonus. Thanks.

 

[SidewaysTA]

Here's something kinda neat pertaining to VIT operations. When we are in deeper water and sending down the VIT we will attach bags of Styrofoam cups to the VIT frame and the water pressure at depth will compress the cups. Usually school children from all over the world will decorate cups and then send them to us and we compress them and give them back.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Great thread, while my IT career took me over 2 Million air miles I never was on a ship or got to go to either of the Poles, would have loved to. Alaska was as far N as I got and the Panama Canal as far South and I have left out on the East Coast and came back on the West Coast. Those were the days, IT was GREAT career...

 

[Byrd666]

That's a pretty cool thing y'all do for the kids.

 

[SidewaysTA]

Great thread, while my IT career took me over 2 Million air miles I never was on a ship or got to go to either of the Poles, would have loved to. Alaska was as far N as I got and the Panama Canal as far South and I have left out on the East Coast and came back on the West Coast. Those were the days, IT was GREAT career...

Ole Cowboy you got me reminiscing. Maybe I'll deviate from Antarctica for a moment and share some other memorable places I've seen.

Before taking this job in 2010 I had never left the US. Wow, to think of all the places I been now. It's almost too many to recall. I've sailed from Victoria BC to Papeete Tahiti. From Auckland to Puntarenas Costa Rica. Both very long transits. I've been through the Panama Canal. I've been to both coasts of Canada. Been to the Philippines many times and will be back there again soon. I've been to Mainland China and Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, South Africa, Portugal, Bermuda, Barbados.

I remember my favorite places. Australia is fun, as is New Zealand. However I think two standouts for me were Curacao and the Azores.

We had some maintenance periods in Curacao and I spent probably a total of 4 months there all told. That was awesome. You could finish your shift and go swimming, snorkeling or diving right off the dock. Swim over to the bar and have a beer. There was an old fort nearby you could go explore. What a great time.

The area where the ship was docked

The old fort

Sea life around the ship

Another strange creature (Not me, a friend of mine)

I'll continue on about the Azores in the next post.

 

[SidewaysTA]

We made a port call in the Azores and I was doubling over, basically working two expeditions back to back because one of my colleagues had some medical problems. Since I was going to be gone an extra two months, my supervisors let me off the ship for some R&R before pulling back out. I and a few other from the departing expedition too time to go touring the main island of the Azores, that was a beautiful place. Europe's Hawaii they say and I agree.

The main city on Sao Miguel island, Ponta Delgada

Many of the streets are paved with these stones. I was told the gray stones are locally sourced and the white stones come from Portugal (The Azores are a territory of Portugal). It is interesting because when we made port at the next stop in Lisbon, there were some stone-paved streets there and they were the exact opposite, mostly white stone with gray accents.

One of the main industries there is dairy. Since my family operated a dairy I thought it was neat. Instead of barbwire, they use stones to enclose their pastures.

It was really beautiful in the mountains. This town was built in an extinct volcano

Cool features on the east side coast.

 

[SidewaysTA]

We visited some hot springs.

They would put different kinds of meat and veggies, herbs and spices into a pot and bury them in these holes early in the morning and let the heat cook them. By lunch time it was ready to eat and it was good. My first time trying blood sausage.

We visited an old tea factory where they grow and make tea.

Pretty waterfalls

An old mill

Man I got too many pictures to post.