Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Getting Ready, Part II: We're OK to go!


Pictures 1-3, Nereus being lowered into the water for first “wet-tests” in port.Nereus on the end of a tether, going through its test program this afternoon.
Lat 28° 24.5’N, Long 080° 36.3’W

A quiet but busy day on the ship today – all the engineers working intently and intensely leading up to a moment of truth with the first wet-test deployment of Nereus off the port side of the ship early this afternoon.

All went very smoothly and Nereus remained in the water for several hours running through a series of tests before being lifted back aboard ship just around dinner time. We’ve also had folks taking trips to town all day picking up any last few items we can think of (how did we ever do oceanography before the age of cell-phones?) and even shipping gear across country to a different cruise in San Diego.

Tonight we’re working our way around the ship, in the labs and out on deck, tidying up as much as we can and making sure all our equipment is lashed down tight ready to head out to sea tomorrow. After all the years of planning it is hard to believe this is finally going to happen.

1 comment:

  1. Congrats Nereus team! I just watched the special on the Science channel about you - "the tension was palpable" :) You guys are great, keep up the good work!

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