HOBITSS2:

Guest post from Teddy K:

Winter Solstice, Sunday 21 June 06:50 local,

38S. 178E.

Last vestiges of NY time zone. Works out well though, 07:30 we will start to pick up
the first of 5 Lamont TRM/BPR’s. (Smaller version of the big steel hulks we have worked on).
Two Texas BPR’s, (Bottom Pressure Recorders), are on board. One washed up ashore a few months ago but was still recording. Second one, we picked up last night. Still recording, but it’s strobe light and radio were not operational. Real hard to find in the dark while it’s blowing 25-30 knots, in Beaufort 4-5 seas.

Rest of the night was spent picking up Japanese OBS/BPR’s. 5 recovered and on board.

Weather has moderated, wind down to 20Kts., and not as lumpy.
We’re looking at a long day as we want to recover all 5 Lamont TRM/BPR’s in daylight as they do not have radio’s or strobes. Sunrise is ~ 07:30 as the shortest day of the year is 22June, Winter solstice
down here.

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1626 update (Anne)

Excellent success so far – 8 instruments total recovered – 1 Texas bottom pressure recorder, 2 ERI (Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo) ocean bottom seismometers, 2 ERI bottom pressure recorders, 1 JAMSTEC (Japan Marine Science Agency) ocean bottom electromagnetic sensor, 2 Lamont shallow trawl mounted ocean bottom pressure recorders. In addition one Texas bottom pressure recorder washed up on shore a couple months ago and is on the ship now – it kept recording the whole time. One shallow Lamont bottom pressure recorder did not come up when we sent the command this morning, though we could communicate with it, so we will try again later in the cruise. The buoy for one more Lamont bottom pressure recorder has just surfaced and will be on board shortly. We have been working in shifts 24 hours a day in order to maximize the science that we can do during our voyage. We are also trying to get as much work done while the weather is good – absolutely beautiful sunny day today, calm seas.