We awoke early to a 6-7 foot groundswell and choppy seas. Every few minutes a much larger wave would roll in like a steely blue wall emerging from the mist and slam into Esperanza's port side, causing her to shudder and lurch a bit. Conditions were too rough for launching and tracking the submarines, so the ship headed into St. George Island early to pick up visitors.
Esperanza jogged around about a mile offshore from the island while First Mate, Hettie, Helena and I followed a compass heading in thick fog over huge swells in one of the ship's high powered launches. Fur seals swimming from the nearby rookery, red faced cormorants and horned puffins were abundant as we entered St. George Harbor. Five locals strolled down the small boat harbor dock to greet us as Hettie pulled into an open slip. Still hoping to get a submarine dive in this afternoon, we took on two passengers from the island and immediately returned to the ship.
Its late afternoon and we are chugging along in soupy seas. The groundswell is still 4-5 feet, and the sea surface is largely shrouded in fog. Much as we would like to resume our submarine surveys, we may opt to deploy the
ROV instead. We'll see what conditions are like closer to our station....
The ship Esperanza is finally at rest, after a long and productive day at sea. We are drifting near our morning survey station in silence. Both engines have been shut down, and other systems are hibernating til morning light. Ship's watch crew reported a possible right whale sighting, but we could not detect it in the darkness and wave crested sea.
The sub dive and ROV transects yielded images and specimens from the canyon confirming that diverse coral habitats occur even on these gentle sloping plateaus around the canyon rim. The corals, sponges and associated fish and invertebrates are shown in photographs elsewhere on this site. Underwater images to follow.
The submariners brought back fantastic specimens of corals, sponges and several attached invertebrates! Their video footage of a compacted pebble-silt seafloor with fan corals and sponge species is so informative about the community structure underlaying Pribilof Canyon's incredible productivity. Sponges were growing on the gorgonian corals -- some obscuring the corals from view. We removed and preserved many creatures living among the sponge spicules, including gammarid amphipods, brittle stars, larval fish ... some still in their egg cases, cumaceans, and other critters. What are all of these wonderful beings??? I'll endeavor to place helpful photos up as soon as possible.
For the moment, we are all pleased to have found some coral habitat, and look forward to exploring other featurs of the canyon. The ROV is now descending to about 1,000 meters --- we anticipate that the filme from that depth will be very informative.
Day 3 Bering Sea, Pribilof Canyons
Kenneth is making his first dive in Pribilof Canyon at this moment. He just reached the seafloor and reported that he has landed in a "RICH CORAL AREA". He is hovering at a depth of about 1100 feet, attempting to collect specimens and video footage. David is in Deepworker 7 and also trying to collect and film soft corals from cobble habitat. What species are they finding? ?? We have no information at this time. I am monitoring the underwater communications system -- a constant loud transponder CLICK PING CLICK with intermittent communication from the sub pilots. They are reporting challenges with operating manipulators, grasping specimens and even opening the weighted screen lids on collection baskets. Standing by and hopeful that they are able to retain a representative specimen.
Its been a beautiful morning. While savoring a steaming cup of coffee on the bow, I watched as over 30 Dall's porpoise jetted across steely blue waves and took up bowriding on the Esperanza. Crewmember Raood and I enjoyed their exuberant playing in the ship's pressure wave -- surfacing three or four at a time, crisscrossing our path and rolling about just below surface. They were clearly having a ball!
Thick, standard-issue Bering Sea fog rolled in over the ship, but has now cleared. No ships are in sight. Subs are resuming their transect headings with some specimens onboard!
Timo and John made excellent dives to about 1,400 feet. They filmed and collected specimens in sea whip communities. They found dense schools of POP, innumerable invertebrates --- and collected some of each.
Watch for photos of their undersea odysee later today!
David and I descended in Pribilof Canyon to explore lifeforms from 1,000 feet deep up to the surface. David ran a transect survey, filming organisms along a compass course from 1,000 to 500 foot depth. I travelled along his general route, but focused on filming and attempting to collect unique species. We surveyed a gently sloping, silt and fine sediment seafloor region -- dominated by shrimp, anenomes and brittlestars on the seafloor surface, with several soft corals, flatfish and crab. The watercolumn was indeed teeming with life -- thick with busy busy chaetognaths. Commonly called "arrow worms", these clear, dart-shaped invertebrates are considered the most abundant organism in the worlds oceans. The are vital to the food web and for cycling energy in marine environments.
We encountered huge concentrations of small squid, euphausids ("krill"), tiny jellyfish, and schools of red rockfish. Pacific Ocean Perch, called "POP" by commercial fishers, was the most abundant species seen. We observed huge halibut and smaller flatfish, including yellowfin sole, arrowtooth flounder, and rock sole. Stocky bigmouth sculpin in pits on the seafloor refused to respond to our presence -- a stubborn response that seems to have ensured their survival somehow. I'll post more on teh incredible marine life in the canyons in the coming days....as we process our submarine videos and specimens.
I did try out the submarine's manipulator -- a hydraulically operated mechanical arm and hand. Catching delicate organisms with the steel grasper was a challenging task. Eventually, I collected a beautiful pink deepsea anenome called a Liponema. I returned to surface with it in my collection basket, but it took a tremendous amount of focus to collect just this single specimen.
David and I caught different currents, apparently, and eventually were separated by over one mile underwater! During this time, I was unable to see him, and only heard his voice twice in over three hours. Since our ship's sonar tracking system need be close to overhead in order to communicate with us on the seafloor, the ship had to move between David and I for the duration of the dive. This resulted in long silences.... sometimes I was left with no human voice contact for up to 45 minutes! It was peaceful, until I experiences not one, but THREE water alarms. None of them were warning of a hull leak, but rather condensation caused by the very cold seawater I was diving in.
The ROV was deployed today, but encountered a signal problem at about 700 meters, and was retrieved before reaching its 1,000 meter target depth. We'll try it again tomorrow after minor adjustments are made.
The team is busy reviewing video, preserving specimens, labelling specimen photographs, and tracking progress along our survey itinerary. Weather has been cool but very calm, makng for ideal working conditions. More later. Michelle
We transited the southern Bering Sea through the night under fair winds and calm waters. Made our station on the easterrn rim of Pribilof Canyon at about 0900 AST. Over two dozen fin whales, several humpback whales and thousands of seabirds accompanied us on the journey. As soon as the Esperanza slowed and then manuevered on station, flocks of seabirds encircled us and remained with us through the day. Brave red-legged kittiwakes perched cautiously on the ship's rails while northern fulmar and albatross drifted alongside.
WE DID IT!!!!
After the Nuytco crew ensured that all Deepworker submarine systems were "go", David and I went through our hour-long "pre-dive" checks and then made a surface deployment to adjust the submarine buoyancy to our individual body weight. Just after lunch, Hettie, the first Mate, found our station, at a depth of about 340 meters.
Finally, the moment we dreamed of arrived. We made the first submarine descent into Pribilof Canyon!
Ship's Bosun, Penny, first lifted David in Deepworker 6 from Eperanza's helideck and he was released at surface for decent. Although I was placed in the water in Deepworker 7 a short while later, surface currents were such that David was already too far away to detect by sonar. Although we made the dive together, we never had visual contact and only rarely had voice contact.
We explored the canyon water column and seafloor down to about 1,000 feet!
More on the fish, invertebrates, soft corals and other sealife we observed and the water alarms I experienced at 900 feet down in my next update. We need next to deploy our CI 1000 ROV and prepare for tthe next submarine survey. Michelle
We finally made it to Dutch Harbor! I travelled the final leg with David Guggenheim, Bob Stone and Todd -- an underwater photographer from San Diego. Fog cleared and we landed at close to 10 pm in calm weather. Nice to see the submarines adorning the helideck!
I visited with friends and well-wishers at the Grand Aleutian and savored my last evening stroll for a week or so.
Today has been a whirlwind of activity aboard ship and about town. With the help of Unalaska locals, I was able to obtain a compound and dissecting microscope, fish preservatives and sampling equipment. Fisheries biologists provided some additional fish and invertebrate taxonomic references, as well as excellent materials useful for identifying Bering Sea corals.
I enjoyed a visit by my fellow AP member, Tom Enlow and three bright young men, Rex, Ben and Ross. They toured the ship and then checked out the ROV and our Deepworker submarines.
After the ships crew loaded dozens of crates of fresh foods for the next three weeks, we finally cast our lines in Dutch Harbor at about 4 pm AST. The required local ship pilot guided us out of the harbor, while his tugboat escorted alongside. He bid us good luck and left the Esperanza in the hands of her able crew, led by Captain Peter.
Under fair skies and smooth seas, we have been travelling northward toward Pribilof Canyon for a few hours now. The only vessels I have seen are the Aurora -- a southbound trawler and the Defender ... a vessel that appears to be travelling a similar course, as she has been following our path for about two hours. We have passed dozens of small flocks of seabirds, and dozens (yes, dozens!) of cetaceans. Humpback whales, Fin whales and pacific white sided dolphins are foraging heavily on something ... forage fish? euphausiids? ("krill") throughout the area.
Our scientific and technical teams have met several times already -- planning our dives, ROV work, and route. We are scheduled to arrive in Pribilof Canyon tomorrow around 0800 AST. I am THRILLED to announce that I will be conducting the first submarine descent with my fellow pilot, David Guggenheim. We will begin predive sub preparations at about 0700, and dive at about 0900. We are pretty excited to be making the first manned submarine dives in this canyon, and hope to return with some interesting data and film footage on species we observe.
Must tend to more preparations for the big day. Good night.
Was able fly out of Juneau early in order to see family prior to departure for the big splash. Have been monitoring the progress of our equipment shipment, status of the vessel and submarine mobilization in Dutch Harbor. All appears to be well on the logistics front.
I am still in transit from Juneau to Dutch Harbor. Fog rolled onto the tarmack runway at noon, thus shutting down a midday option for flying into Dutch Harbor. We may depart for Cold Bay any moment, refuel, and then try to thread the needle through a hole now clearing in the sea fog over Unalaska Island.
I am in the final throes of preparing for our submarine expedition to the Bering Sea Slope Canyons. We shipped SCUBA gear, a small reference library and scientific equipment to Dutch Harbor yesterday, hoping weather windows will allow timely arrival for departure on Friday. The submarines are onboard, as is the hyperbaric chamber, an ROV and other equipment. The Nuytco crew is busy mobilizing our deep sea fleet while ships crew prepares for a 3 week excursion.
