5-1

This morning began with an unexpectedly slow recovery. I believe we initially estimated the OBS would be on the surface at around 4:00 am, but it arrived at the surface around 8:50 am. After getting it on board, we saw that it didn't burn off one of its anchor weights, so it was rising to the surface at a snail's pace. This was our first Lamont instrument to be recovered. Talking to the techs, it looks like it had some problems though. It didn't record all of the data, only about 250 some days worth rather than an entire year.

This was our first daylight recovery, and it sure is different trying to spot these things when it is bright out. I didn't see this first one at all. The strobe in the darkness is much easier to see than a tiny orange flag bobbing in the waves. Here is a picture of a Lamont instrument. You can see that the top is yellow rather than orange (the yellow part is the glass spheres used for flotation). You can also see the orange ball (where the seismometer is housed) dangling from it is different than the green one that Scripps has.

On the bright side, I finally got the programs working to look at some of the data from the Scripps OBSes! We aren't exactly sure what we are looking at yet (we don't know which channel it is in the miniseed, for you seismologists out there. There are four on an OBS: X,Y,Z and the DPG- differential pressure gauge), but I can show you what we think is an earthquake that occurred on November 8, 2009:

Yay! That big squiggle in the middle is the eartquake :) It's amazing that we are able to look at this stuff so quickly!

After McCall and my rowing/biking session, it was time to do yet another recovery. This one was one from Scripps, and it came up without a hitch again! This also happened during the daylight hours and props to McCall for spotting the sucker first! It is going to take some practice for me to spot these guys. It arrived safely on board, the water was nice and and calm. So, that makes a total of 5 successful recoveries so far!

And guess what, it's Aloha Friday and that means pizza for dinner!! I had three slices again, have to keep it consistent: Hawaiian, veggie, and spinach and feta. Yum! We brought our slices outside to watch the sunset because it looked like it had green flash potential. It wasn't quite a flash, more of a streak, so more subtle than last time. But still pretty fabulous!

We are about two hours away from our next site, so here's hoping we pull another Scripps instrument on board to make it 6-1.