Day 0 - Newport, OR
Hello from Newport, Oregon the staging location for the OOI (Ocean Observatories Initiative) Endurance 17 expedition. The weather was beautiful for a full day of loading instrumentation and material onto the R/V Thomas G. Thompson.
Work began at 8am this morning after an hour-long drive through the scenic hills of eastern Oregon from Corvallis (the home of Oregon State University). While the ships crew took deliveries of foodstuffs and other materials required for two-week voyage, the OOI team and marine technicians worked to lift the moorings and other heavy material onto the deck of the ship by crane.
By mid afternoon (and after a delicious lunch prepared by the ship’s cooks) the ship had been fully loaded with all of the moorings, gliders, buoys, and other equipment needed for the cruise. And don’t worry, I will give more detail about the scientific equipment in upcoming posts.
The plan for this cruise is different that what was used in previous Endurance cruises. Previous trips have required three legs, meaning the ship had to return to port twice during the expedition to drop off and pick up new equipment before returning to sea. On this trip, the Thompson will only return to port once during the two-week cruise. As a result of this new plan of operations, the deck of the ship was very heavily loaded with equipment, all lashed down and secured to the deck. Over the next week, all this equipment will be deployed at locations along the Washington-Oregon coast before the R/V Thompson returns to Newport to drop off recovered equipment and pick up the second batch of material to be deployed.
Tomorrow brings the beginning of our voyage and our first deployments (gliders!). We will say goodbye to Newport and begin our work maintaining the OOI Endurance array.
Until then, calm seas and good science!
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