This tow fish is used to keep the iron injection tubing underwater. It has now turned a nice orange color!

Posits (GMT)

Drifter 1/18/02 04:19     

-55 56.3592 -171 55.5066

In Sediment Trap 1/18/02 04:19     

-55 55.5369 -171 57.7626

Out Sediment Trap today

-56 00.12     -171 58.620                     

Ship @ 1/18/02 04:30     

1730 January 18, 2002,  At sea

Well, this is my thirteenth report. Ships are superstitious places (no whistling as you might 'whistle up a storm') and things are running true to form.  The Liquid Scintillation Counter that I said yesterday was fixed, isn’t.  The SeaSoar has failed three times today, twice repaired and they’re recovering it now for, hopefully, the third repair job.  And we hear the Liquid Scintillation Counter on MELVILLE has also failed before leaving port.  I hope that this is the end of the thirteenth report bad news section.

Otherwise, things are going well scientifically.  We’ve finished adding iron to the patch, the small fish we tow to depress the iron injection tubes under the surface have picked up a nice orange iron oxide coating.  Since we finished adding iron at 4 am this morning, we’ve been towing the SeaSoar across the patch to map the vertical and horizontal distribution of plankton and chemicals.

Things otherwise on board are a little slow.  We have NFL playoff scores, but the details are a little thin.  We get a brief daily news report of world events, but each item is about two lines.  The lack of sports information has us looking at some unusual sources.  We’re 'down under' and the most recent sport news is this cricket magazine that found it’s way aboard.  I’m still trying to figure out what a 'baggy green' is. 

Well, the SeaSoar should be back on board by now.   I need to run off and see what the diagnosis is and then figure out what we’ll be doing for the rest of the evening.

S’long