OBS #5, the Heartbreaker

We returned to the Lamont OBS that we weren't able to communicate with the first time (the one I was talking about in the 'Stake Out' post, it is the northern most red circle in the left group of OBSes). Here, we spent another 12 hours pulling out all the tricks we had. We circled it with the portable transponder, sent down the Rescue Beacon to depths ranging from 1000 to 5000 m to communciate with it, all the while still sending communication over our regular transducer. When I came on shift, we actually got quite a few pings back, just enough to get my hopes up again. I am sure we were communicating with the instrument. But just because we established spotty communication doesn't mean that it wouldn't have had the same anchor release problem as the previous ones. So, we stuck around for another 6 hours or so after that, just in case one of our burn commands got through and it was able to burn off the anchors, to give it enough time to potentially get to the surface. But, after I got off shift, they got very few pings, losing communication. The stupid OBS was teasing me, giving me a glimmer of hope then breaking my heart again.

I had an exciting afternoon nonetheless. McCall and I got a tour of the innards of the ship, which is compartmentalized into maybe 5 or 6 different rooms on each side. One of the crew members took us downstairs into each of these rooms (that are not connected so it's a lot of going up and down and around) to see the generators, engines, water purification systems, propellor turners, etc. It involved climbing a lot of ladders into tight spaces, and at some points we were 40 ft below the surface! We could hear the waves crashing, kind of scary but also very cool. We also found where they keep the stocks of candy. There is a whole lot of food on this ship! Enough to feed everyone for 5 weeks I believe. There is also a whole lot of fuel, I think 130,000 gallons. That's a lot of liquid money. No wonder it costs $33,000 a day to be out here.

Speaking of food, dinner was excellent, again. There was chicken fried steak, but I opted for the stuffed green pepper. It was stuffed with rice and ground beef, and topped with tomato sauce and cheese. Mmmm so tasty! There was also mashed potatoes and steamed veggies.

Sadly, the Salty Stitchers lost their first game in the single elimination Quoits tournament. McCall was pulling us through and got a ringer, but unfortunately we lost 21-12. Oh well, we are thinking of starting a losers bracket to play some more.

Right now we are just surveying for the next few days before we have to start our four day transit to Guam! And I'm telling you, right now, a beer sounds so so good. I know what I'll be doing once we get into port.