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| RESEARCH VOYAGES | |
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MAPPING SEABED HABITATS OFF wEST AUSTRALIA SS07/05 Jul 05 [Introduction] [The Voyage] [The Voyagers] [Ship to shore] Ship to shoreDay 21 - cameras and canyons
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Date: 10 August 2005 |
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LAT |
S 35º 27' |
LONG |
E 118º 18' |
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 Matt Sherlock drives the winch controlling the Deep Water Video package, flying it close to the sea floor |
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It’s 0245 hrs, on Wed 10 Aug, and I’ve just started my watch. My job, this time is to maintain the new deep water camera system that was built in Hobart. It was a big job for us, over the last few months, so it’s rewarding to see it work so well. The cameras are capturing some magnificent underwater footage. The inshore sites are the most spectacular with their abundant diversity of fish and fauna.
Operationally and maintenance-wise, this camera has been a dream. We forget that this is a prototype on its first mission. There are plenty of places for gremlins to enter this system but so far the system has operated virtually faultlessly.
The weather has been good so far. I can’t expect anything better in an area where the Indian and Southern Oceans merge, chuck in the Leuwin current, and the roaring 40’s it has the potential to turn pretty ugly, pretty fast. So at the moment we are enjoying too much of the excellent food prepared by Andy and Angie, building up calorie reserves in case things get worse.
Monday was probably the worse weather that we have had so far. We had 25-30 Knot from the West, but it didn’t last long enough to generate a big swell.
RV Southern Surveyor can easily work in this wind range but it does make deployments and recovery of our equipment more difficult. It would only take one unexpected roll of the ship at a crucial time and our beautiful camera system might smack into something hard and create a headache for many of us. It’s kinda like putting a dent in your new car. It can be fixed, but the first dent hurts the most, it’s never quite the same and in my case it isn’t even my car!
We are currently 20 mile south of Albany preparing to do a camera survey of the 1000m site. This area is a preferred site so will attempt to complete this area fully. With deteriorating weather forecast we need complete this site with grabs, camera and mud as soon as possible. After this we intend to head west again and work our way back towards Perth and conclude with more surveys in the Perth Canyon.
So it’s off now to put the camera in the water, and by the time it’s recovered it will be sunrise – the best part of the day.
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voyage reportsUpdated: 29/03/07
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