Darwin Mounds Dip 1

At about 2.30ish we made it to the Darwin Mounds and our first station. As the AUV Autosub is still not in working order the first thing to be dipped in the water was the CTD or the Conductivity, Temperature and Depth sensor array, which also had attached a bunch of niskin bottles for sampling the water column and a USBL (or Ultra Short Base Line) system to keep track of it's GPS position and depth allowing one sensor to ground truth the other.

Not much else to report though. The next shift get the first of the interesting stuff- the Megacorer is going in, taking four cours of the seabed sediment which are going to be used in tests of the rate of remineralisation when fresh marked algae are added by the Aberdeen University duo. They are interested in doing this at 3 different depths and in trawled and non trawled sediment to see if there are any differences.

Once that is done (an that'll take most of the night as it's 2hrs down and 2hrs up and there'll be 3 dips done to get the 10 samples they require.) my shift only have to watch the ship mounted multibeam mapping of the area so we've been allowed a 2 hour sleep in to rise at 6am as only 3 bodies will be required for the initial processes.

Right I'm hungry! I wonder what feast will behold us this evening...

Or current position at our first station on the Darwin Mounds (Marked in green in the far North).


Manouvering the CTD array and all it's attachments.
And then the plunge :)