Stormy Seas Offshore San Diego
CRUISE REPORT: SAIC
The Navy defense contractor SAIC hired out some of our instruments for a "top secret" cruise off the coast of San Diego. It was so top secret that the SAIC client didn't even know the drop sites. But we figured it out in the end..
We took out the Sproul, the smallest ship in the SIO fleet at 125 ft. The deck is what is known as a "wet" deck and we were about to find out how wet. Sailing at 8am, and beginning deployments at 11am, we worked until 3am assembling and deploying instruments. Of course a storm started to blow in and we began to put on our wet gear. Starting with a pair of boots.. oops those flooded, so I added a pair of foul weather pants, and a wave managed to flood those too. Finally, I ended up fully covered in rubber in high vis yellow.
Late into the night, the waves started washing over the startboard side where I was assembling the yellow arms that attach to our instruments. They were not strapped down and the waves were starting the float them away. Not thinking, I ran over to grab them and stop them from going overboard just as a huge wave came over the side. It lifted me up off my feet and close to the side. Chris rushed in a grabbed me. I was soaked and miserable for the rest of the night.
The next morning we concluded the cruise with a few CTD casts with similar perilous results and sailed home in time for dinner.
posted by Patricia @ 5:13 PM
0 comments
