| As a volunteer at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium, opportunities occasionally come my way to do things that
most people don't get to do. When the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) offered tours of their Moss
Landing facility to the Aquarium volunteers, I took advantage of the offer
and spent an interesting hour and a half seeing the shops and labs and
the R/V Point Lobos, the Institute's 110-ft research vessel
with the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Ventana lashed to
her deck.
 Our
tour guide aboard the Point Lobos was one of the ROV pilots,
Chris Grech, who explained what the parts of the ROV were, and took us
to the control room below the
Point Lobos' bridge. The control
room has a dozen (or so) computer and television monitors and communications
and navigation instruments, and the ROV control panels with joy stick and
lots of buttons. Among the communications gear is a two-way television
microwave link to MBARI which is forwarded to the Aquarium for the benefit
of the visitors. Above the control room is the bridge with all the latest
navigational instruments.
I was very impressed with what I was shown, and enjoyed the tour. Occasionally,
though, one makes one's own opportunity, and this time I thought I'd ask
what it took to go for a trip on the Point Lobos. Chris told
me to give him my name and phone number and he'd see what he could do.
I gave him my business card and we continued the tour.
When I got back to work from Memorial Day week-end, a month later, I
found a message from Chris on my voice mail, saying that, if I could make
it on such short notice, I could come out on the
Point Lobos
Thursday, May 28. I returned the call, saying I could make it; told my
boss I was taking the day off and spent the rest of the day in an expectant
state.
Thursday morning, I got to Moss Landing at about 6:45, the boat being
scheduled to leave at 7:00. I met Chris on board, and he introduced me
to other members of the crew: the captain, Mark VandenBerg; Roger Hayes,
the engineer; Bill Wardle, the alternate captain; and Jon Consiglio and
Brian Ackerman. Later, I met the other ROV pilot, Jim McFarlane and the
scientists, Dr. Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler. Two undergrads from
Hopkins Marine Lab were also along, Jenna and Annie (I didn't get their
last names). It turned out that their projects had high priority on this
particular dive.
 The
Point Lobos left the dock at about 7:30 and from the harbor
mouth took a heading of 240° towards an area off Point Pinos. During
the ride out, Bill gave me a safety briefing and I got to know most of
the other people aboard. About an hour later, we arrived at the area we
were going to explore and preparations were made to launch the ROV. The
straps were removed and the crane lifted it off the deck and out over the
water. Chris donned a belt-mounted controller and when the ROV was lowered
into the water, drove it away from the boat and evaluated its performance.
It seemed the Ventana was slightly negatively buoyant
(it would sink if left alone) and this is an unacceptable condition. If
power were to fail, or the cable break, MBARI would like their ROV to come
back to them. The vehicle has a flashing strobe and a radar reflector to
enable it to be located in case of such an accident.
The ROV was recovered and several kilos of lead were removed before
it was relaunched. As the cable was paid out, bright orange floats of a
non- compressible foam were placed around it at intervals of several meters.
Chris piloted the vehicle away from the boat and started its descent. When
it was out of sight, Jim, who was already in the control room, took command
and Chris removed his belt control. The scientists and I repaired to the
control room to see what there was to see.
There are two video cameras on the front of the
Ventana,
one color and one black-and-white. There are large, bright lights surrounding
the cameras; necessary, since it very quickly gets too dark to see. As
the ROV descended, the lights reflected off the particles in the water.
(As a diver, I would have estimated the visibility at about four meters.)
The stuff in the water looked like a snow storm, and, in fact, the scientists
refer to it as "marine snow." It is composed of living zoo- and phytoplankton
and detritus from dead plants and animals and their waste. From time to
time, Dr. Robison would talk into a microphone, identifying a plant or
animal he saw. Most of the creatures seen were of no interest to the others,
being commonly seen, though I would have liked to stop and look more closely.
Some of the small mid-water shrimp were beautiful to look at. We finally
stopped when we came across a large jelly, apparently of a species one
of the Hopkins students wanted to collect. Unfortunately, this one was
too large for the collecting jar, so we continued with the dive. |
It's
teeth, however were oversized. The lower teeth curved up, outside the upper
jaws and over the fish's eyes. It looked like fish I had seen in books
called a viper fish. After studying it for a while and taking a few still
photographs, Dr. Robison decided he wanted to collect it. The method of
collecting was with a jar called a detritus sampler. About 15 cm in diameter
and 20 cm tall, four of these are firmly fixed to the ROV. They have lids
on top and bottom, swiveling to open and close. To put anything into these
samplers, the pilot has to maneuver the entire ROV to bring the sampler
down around the subject being captured. This is done with only a view through
the main video camera (not binocular vision).
