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As humbly recorded by Oakden.
We all awoke today full of gleeful anticipation at the thought of diving in a new spot. Jonna the Crip still couldn't join us (although she's been given the go-ahead for a checkout dive on Monday), so she stayed around the lab and did a bunch of organizational stuff.
We met our 2 dive tenders for the day, Brynn and Susan, loaded our dive gear into our trusty Bully, and headed out of town to Cinder Cones. Since we had 10 tanks, all our sampling, dive and survival gear, and 5 people in the Bully, Dan and Stacy were going to follow on 2 skidoos. After a minor mechanical mishap, they ended up following on only one, not an ideal situation because the second person has to straddle a box, which gets tedious after a while.
It was a beautiful day, and we made it to our newly positioned (see 10/16) hut in about 45 min. After unloading, we chipped out our 2 safety holes, and started getting dressed. A few seals had been using our holes, which makes the chipping easier, but can make the area surrounding the hole somewhat unsavory (see 10/17).
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One of the neighborhood Waddell Seals sharing our dive hole. |
The plan was for everyone to make 2 dives. The first dive was mostly an orientation dive, so we could all get a feel for the position of the various features on the seafloor. The second would be a work dive.
Cinder Cones has been used extensively by benthic groups in the past, and there are a number of long-term experiments still set up on the bottom which we don't want to disturb. Paul Dayton (John Oliver's advisor at Scripps) and Gordon Robilliard had worked here in the early 70s. John, Peter Slattery, and others from MLML worked here in the late 70s and early 80s. John, Stacy, I and others had experiments set up here in the late 80s, and John and I used Cinder Cones as a reference site in the early 90s. Last year the ASPIRE team set up a number of experiments on the bottom here, and part of our job this year is to monitor those experiments.
The first set of dives went fine, and we found that the hut had been perfectly positioned. After a bit of food and attempts at warming, we got suited up for the second dive.
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Dan giving CPR to our stove, while Brynn murmurs encouragement. |
Suiting up is a somewhat arduous process given the amount of gear we wear, and usually requires several people. Everyone has their own set of pre-dive rituals and order of putting on gear.
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Jennifer leading us in our pre-dive Yoga stretches. Ooommmmmmm. |
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Dan and Jim undergoing the ritual Donning of the Dive Gear, in preparation for taking the plunge... |
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Craig "gloving" Jen. |
For the second dive, Stacy and Jen went down to collect some of the experiments from last year. After they came up, they changed and took off on the Skidoo to meet with the drillers at Penguin Ranch to get a hole drilled for Craig's CTD. Dan, Craig and I went in next: Dan to do video, Jim to collect infaunal cores and sed samples, and Craig to dig buckets of mud for future experiments. Craig noted that every job he has ever had has included shoveling, and working on the Ice is certainly no exception.
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Stacy demonstrating the genteel way of dealing with excessive nasal mucous production by blowing her nose into her dive glove. Craig, who has far less couth, generally just snorts into the dive hole, much to the chagrin of subsequent divers. |
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Dan--known fondly as "The Elevator" because of his ability to rapidly extract people and equipment from the hole--elevating Jim's tank after a dive. |
Our dive was completely successful. Susan and Brynn managed to get Craig out of the hole, Craig and Susan easily got me out, and Craig and I together literally launched Dan out of the hole (to much applause). After undressing and re-dressing, we loaded up the Bully and headed out. We still had some time before dinner, so we decided to flag the road leading from the main road to our hut. Its good to flag routes so that we can find our way back to town if the visibility goes away.
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Susan, Brynn, and Craig striking suitably heroic poses after having flagged our Cinder Cones road. |
When we got back, we sieved, and then rushed off to dinner. Stacy and Jonna were having a party in their dorm room, which was attended by a number of luminaries including Marvin the Martian. Marvin, the mascot of Adam Marsh's research group, had attempted to defect to our group because we quite obviously have more fun, but was compelled by one of Adam's agents to rejoin his original group.
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Marvin the Martin reclining at ease in Craig's monkey chair at Jonna and Stacy's party. (I don't know the whole story of the monkey chair, and I don't think I want to.) |