June 22 was officially hump day – we were halfway through
our 43-day cruise. Happily, we were also about halfway through our data collection;
we had just finished acquiring the primary lines in the southern part of our
survey area, which was a major milestone. The data are looking very nice (stay tuned for an upcoming
post with some of the first images of features below the seafloor here from our
new data!). Now that we have been
out for a while and the survey was proceeding smoothly, everyone had settled
into their shifts and routines, and the science party was consumed with onboard
processing and archival of the incoming data stream. Funny enough, hump day and
the near completion of half of our survey almost coincided with the summer
solstice and a very full moon! It
seemed like the convergence of many lucky omens.
Alas, it was not so. In the wee hours of the morning on June
24, the port engine failed as we were steaming along collecting data. The ship has two engines (partially in
case of just such an event!). Fixing
things at sea is obviously more complicated than fixing them on land, and the
engineers onboard determined that the damage was significant and not quickly
repaired. While we have the parts onboard to replace most of the known broken
pieces, making the repairs and assessing the full extent of the damage is best done
dockside. Thus we decided to pick up all our seismic gear and head back to Vigo
to make the repairs. It took us
>3 days to deploy all of the streamers, paravanes, and associated kit, but
only about 12 hours to recover them! Now we are limping back to Vigo through
relatively rough (3-4 m) seas powered by one engine. Once the damage and remedies for the port engine can be
fully assessed, we can figure out our next move. Wish us luck!
Donna Shillington
LDEO
